At 500$ I wouldn't be surprised at all. Did you read the article? That's just 200$ over the manufacturing cost of a retina iphone. I'm rather surprised that lenovos retailed at 2500$ are still stuck at low resolutions - and they still have quality control issues like overheating GPUs. People that call out rMBPs as expensive clearly don't get what they're about, there are simply no comparable alternatives at that price point.
Note: Other points critizised such as repairability are very valid however.
Well to be honest - was upgradeability ever a big deal with laptops? At least this time around they have offered sane maxed out Ram options, so those who know they'll need that in the future can buy it that way - which is what I did. Yes the 16GB option is expensive, but it's still a reasonable price for the value you get (a high chance of plus 2-3 years in lifetime since the build quality is very solid plus the comforting feeling to never care about Ram - fire up your VMs as you like).
Well to be honest - was upgradeability ever a big deal with laptops?
For most people, I imagine not.
I have upgraded the RAM in every laptop I've owned in the past decade, and either upgraded the hard drive, or moved an old one over in most. In my current laptop, I also upgraded the motherboard to one that wasn't quite intended to work so that I could have a UXGA IPS panel and 8GB of RAM in the same machine. I also upgraded the CPU on that board, and will upgrade to a QXGA panel if I can find a good price.
I'm not sure I'd care much about upgradeability if I was selling laptops, but it matters a great deal to me when I'm buying them.
I can't quite believe the bit about the retina iPhone screens being a large cost. If I can buy replacement panels (screen, touch sensor and glass) for under $10 shipped, I highly doubt they cost more than $8 a pop to make.
That's insane! You'd be better off getting a replacement iPhone from Apple at those prices. I guess Apple is being tighter with their manufacturers this time around.
Note: Other points critizised such as repairability are very valid however.