Agreed, that&#x27;s kind of how I value my rMBP, or equivalent windows laptops around $1500. I&#x27;ll use it for 4 years, sell it for 25% the price (this is sadly where windows loses some value that&#x27;s often not justified, resell market for Apple is great, resell market for top (not crappy but top) windows hardware seems to really undervalue the remaining quality).<p>Got my MBP for about €1400, aim to sell it for at least about €400 a few years down the road. That leaves a cost of about 20 euros per month.<p>Then I look at the fact that as an independent developer I&#x27;m earning a few thousand a month and this device basically like 90% of my office.<p>It means a device that costs $100 or $1000 or even $5000 doesn&#x27;t really make a huge difference. It&#x27;s like a writer&#x27;s pencil costs $1 or $10 or $100, when it&#x27;s a tiny percentage of his costs and a gigantic percentage of his usage.<p>That having been said, whether a purchase is justified in and of its own ignores the fact whether it&#x27;s justified vs other purchases. After all, spending money supremely is a game of opportunity cost. And here spending an additional $500 starts to break down, and now we&#x27;d have to weigh the marginal benefit. Does a MBP vs a MBA for say a web developer who has a career in SEO, or say CSS, add much? Often the answer would be no, and compared to say $500 on a year at the gym, a romantic weekend, charity, is hard to defend. And with cheap phones hitting the essentials more and more (messaging, calls, basic snapshots, directions, quick info, a game of poker, dating etc), I&#x27;m already personally getting disinterested with new iterations of phones. The latest giants&#x27; 6 versions (samsung, apple) did nothing for me in terms of purchasing desire, despite thinking they&#x27;re awesome devices.