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One of the first arguments that comes to mind in the great old debate of Apple vs PC is the cost. Traditionally Mac computers come at a premium, which is arguably deserved. But what's the cost of the most expensive Macs sold by Apple?
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Hey what's up, I'm Steve Smith with cultomac.com
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So whenever I hear a PC vs Mac debate, one subject that always comes up is the cost
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How much more expensive a Mac can be than a PC? Which got me thinking, how much is the most expensive Mac ever sold
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And no, I don't mean one that's been gold plated by a third party company, or even one
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that's been sold 20 years later at auction. I mean how much they cost when they were first released by Apple back in the day, then prices
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adjusted to how much it would cost you now. So with that all said, let's get started
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So let's start at number 5, which in my opinion is one of the most interesting Macs on this list
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The 20th anniversary Macintosh, also known as the Tam. Designed completely by Johnny Ive, which wasn't common back in 1997, which is when it was released
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But it was treated as a much more of a luxury product than the iMac
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And what I mean by that is that the palm rests on the keyboard were made of leather, it came
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with a removable trackpad, which was a first for a desktop, and also had a companion Bose
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speaker system. But one of the strangest things about the Tam is once you'd ordered the machine, it
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was delivered to your house by a limo. Yes, a limo. Which is what you'd want when you paid $7,499 back in 1997, which today equals around $10,000
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The same price as 20 iPad Air 2s, or around 3.5 entry level Mac Pros. Wow
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At number 4, it's Apple's first attempt at a laptop. The Macintosh Portable
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As it was Apple's first shot at a portable computer, it lacked a lot of features that
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you'd expect, including portability. The Mac Portable was a huge machine as it contained a huge battery
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Apple had basically shoved their desktop components into a smaller case. It didn't sell very well due to this, and was discontinued just 2 years later when they
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released the PowerBook in 2001. And the asking price for this not-so-portable Mac Portable? $6,500
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Which in today's money would be around $11,300. Enough to buy 17 and a half unlocked iPhone 6s
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Much more portable. Number 3 is arguably one of Apple's greatest failures, you know, after Apple Maps
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It was the Apple 3. Unlike its predecessor before, it was aimed at businesses, a market controlled by IBM
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back in the 1980s. But businesses either stayed away from its high price tag, bought the less expensive
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Apple 2, or an IBM clone. And not only that, the Apple 3 was riddled with problems, from hardware to compatibility
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At its price tag of $4,340, which is around $11,400 today, it makes the Apple 3 a rarity
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to find today. I quick scanned on eBay and found a couple working Apple 3s, but they're going to set
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me back around $1,000. And for that, I'd much prefer an iMac
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Grabbing second place is the Macintosh 2FX. After the decent success of the Macintosh, in 1990 Apple pushed out a number of similar
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computers all based around the original, changing up the design and adding a colour display
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And it was dubbed wickedly fast, with its 4MB of RAM, expandable up to 128MB, and its
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Motorola 68030 32-bit processor. But this wasn't enough to make the Macintosh 2FX a success, as its price tag only appealed
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to premium buyers. The completely different view of Steve Jobs, who was outed from the company not long before
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this was released. It cost $9,000 back then, which works out to around $15,000 today, which is enough to
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buy you a Ford Fiesta with $1,000 to spare. That's a pretty easy choice
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And the most expensive on this list, I hear you ask? Well, it's the one and only Apple Lisa
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Released in 1983, just one year before the original Macintosh, the Lisa boasts a technology
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far superior to any of its rivals that were being sold at the time, with its pre-emptive
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multitasking, a more sophisticated OS, and a higher resolution display. So Lisa stood for Local Integrated System Architecture, but it was inferred that it
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had a personal association with Steve Jobs, as his first daughter was also named Lisa
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saying that the acronym was later made to fit the name. Back in 1983, the Lisa would have set you back $9,995, when adjusted equals to $21,600
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which is still $8,019 more than the current maxed out, top of the range Mac Pro
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So there you have it, the 5 most expensive Macs ever sold by Apple. But what do you think
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Would you have paid those prices back in the day, or would you have gone to IBM or another rival
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Let me know in the comments down below. Until next time, please hit the like button as it really does help us out, and if you
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haven't already, hit the subscribe button so you don't miss a single video from Quilter Mac
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I'll see you next time
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