The new iPhone 17e (pictured) and iPad Air M4 are badly overpriced in South Africa due to the competitive pricing of the newly launched MacBook Neo, which offers better value with its included keyboard, larger screen, and macOS. Picture: Apple
Image: Apple
The new iPad M4 and iPhone 17e are not bad products, but they do not exist in a vacuum, and because the MacBook Neo simply exists, they are completely overpriced in South Africa right now.
Let me explain.
The Neo, which was just launched, reviving the previously discontinued MacBook, retails at R11,999.
That’s the same price as the base iPad M4, which was also released this week, and that’s for the 11” version. For the 13”, it starts out at an even heftier R16,099.
Whichever iPad you choose, though, it doesn’t come with a keyboard, and both the 11” and 13” start with a base storage of 128GB. The Magic Keyboard for the 11” starts at R6,499 for the 11” and R7,399 for the 13”.
With the Neo, you get a 13” screen and a keyboard in an aluminium design and a 256GB SSD as part of the base model package. There is also the small matter of the Neo using macOS, which is vastly superior and easier to use than iPad OS.
Of course, the M4 Air has a more powerful processor than the one found in the Neo with its A18 Pro, but unless you’re doing intensive video editing or gaming, that won’t matter at all. For every other kind of task, the performance will be the same, and the user experience will always be better on a laptop.
Now, with the iPhone 17e, the comparison is purely financial, and again, the Neo wins by a massive margin. The reason is that both the Neo and 17e retail for $599 in the US.
In a direct conversion, that works out to approximately R9,954 on the current exchange rate. Naturally, importing the products to South Africa adds extra costs.
However, the 17e starts at R14,599. That’s R2,600 more for two products that cost exactly the same in the US. Since the iPhone is always Apple’s biggest seller, they feel quite justified in upping their price without anyone noticing. With the Neo, the strategy is more about breaking into the budget laptop market and is the reason behind their aggressive pricing.
Ultimately, these three products are aimed at vastly different audiences— but if you don’t mind spending much more than you really should, go ahead and buy the M4 iPad Air and iPhone 17e.