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The best phones you could buy for the price of Apple’s $699 Mac Pro Wheels Kit
August 12, 2025
We live in dark times. As a brutal knock-on effect of theCOVID-19 pandemic, businesses and individuals are facing financial uncertainty the likes no one could have predicted mere months ago. Many are giving up luxuries as priorities instead turn to food, healthcare, and supporting family members and loved ones.
In other news, Apple just announced theMac Pro Wheels Kit— a set of four wheels for itsbonkers expensive Mac Pro computerthat will retail for an eye-popping $699.
Four wheels.$699.
Now, don’t get me wrong. While the Mac Pro itself looks like a bizarre space-age cheese grater, as far as wheels go, these are some pretty sexy wheels.
“Custom-designed stainless steel and rubber wheels,” Apple describes them as, while luring you in with the promise that they will “make it easy to move your Mac Pro around.” Take my money, Tim Apple, I’m sold. In fact, it turns out the wheels make it so easy to move your Mac Pro around because theydon’t actually have locks.
More on Apple:iPhone SE: The right phone at the right time, and that’s bad news for Android
So, with Apple charging an extravagant fee for some wheels (sorry, and a 1/4-inch to 4mm hex bit for installation, can’t forget that), we thought it’d be fun to roll out some alternative options for spending just shy of $700.
Here are five great phones you can (and should) buy instead of the Mac Pro Wheels Kit:
Getting a headstart on the Mac Pro Wheels by launching a day prior, theOnePlus 8 seriesis pretty darn impressive.
Ever since OnePlus swerved away from flagship killers and started making flagships, the focus has shifted to its premium offerings, but the vanilla OnePlus 8 looks to be well worth its$699 price tagfor the cheapest model.
We have more in ourOnePlus 8 review, but even if it doesn’t reinvent the wheel like theOnePlus 8 Prodoes, the refreshed design, top-level specs, 5G support, and much more, it’s certainly more versatile than four round things, a hex bit, and an instruction manual.
How could I forget the instruction manual? That price tag is starting to make sense now.
Google Pixel 3a
OurEditor’s Choice for 2019is still driving sales for Google in 2020 thanks to its amazing camera, sublime software, and a mega-affordable price tag of just $399 (or $249 in Best Buy’s current deal)
Even with thePixel 4ajust around the corner, you’d still be better off cashing in now on one of the best mid-range phones ever, rather than Apple’s ritzy rollers.
Samsung Galaxy S10e
The Galaxy S10 series may have been lapped by theS20 family, but it’s still a wheely good collection of phones.
While you can probably find anS10 PlusandS10for under $700 if you do some shopping around, theS10ewill absolutely be cheaper than the Mac Pro Wheels kit and leave you with change. It’s still a real shame Samsungput the brakes on the S10e.
Just a whole bunch of phones from Chinese OEMs
China’s many OEMs are firmly in the driver’s seat when it comes to offering phones with crazy price-performance ratios. Even with import fees, you’ll still be under that magic $699 mark with any of these devices.
realme is on a roll right now thanks to affordable flagships like theX50 ProandX2 Pro. Xiaomi has driven up its prices with the coreMi 10 series, but theMi Note 10is still mega affordable and its Redmi sub-brand has theK30 Protoo.
Related:Never settle? Xiaomi Mi 10 borrows from OnePlus’ playbook
HUAWEI and HONOR also have some great phones, especially the ones that launched before theUS banput them in a spin. TheP30 Prois still one of the best camera phones ever.
I could go on, but I’ll stop myself… which is something the Mac Pro Wheels would struggle to do.
iPhone 11 or SE plus iPad (nearly)
Yes. You can buy Apple’s entry-leveliPhone 11series handset for the same price as some fancy wheels.
As well as the big wheels announcement, Apple actually also revealed theiPhone SE (2020), a revival of the affordable SE line that was first introduced in 2016.
The iPhone SE’s design is definitely a little tire-d, but at $399 it looks to be a great deal, especially when you look at the specs and the Android competition right now. With the extra change out of $699, you can almost buy anentry-level iPadtoo.
What phones or other bits of tech would you buy for the price of Apple’s courageous new iWheels? Let me know in the comments and if you’re still planning on spending $699 on some ludicrously overpriced wheels, please… explain yourself.
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