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Why I Ain't Buying A Mac

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the not-enough-superfluous-animation dept.

gphat writes "An article at Rush Magazine details why the author isn't buying a Mac. This is in response to Apple wanting our input last week."

6 of 196 comments (clear)

  1. Apple's Market by Jess · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The problem is that this guy is not in Apple's market. Apple is not going after people who want to tinker around with hardware and buy componets that have 0.1% markup. They want to sell to computer *users* like schools, small businesses, and the typical home user (like your mother). With that said, I do have to agree with the price issue that he raised. In the end, most people will probably choose a lower price over a cooler computer (iMac, for example). Apple needs a value line that competes with the $800 PC's.

  2. Re:Why *I* am not buying a Mac by garren_bagley · · Score: 5, Interesting

    You cannot do everything on a PC that you can do on a Mac. I bought my first Mac a month ago for the quality of entry level video editing. Within one day I had burned a DVD of my most recent ski vacation with edits and a soundtrack. I tried this for a long time on my PC which was supposedly more powerful and was never satisfied with the results. At one point I upgraded my PC to Windows XP and found it was incompatible with my Microsoft Mouse!

    It is also not possible to do this on Linux, I tried that to. After finally getting firewire to work I found that there were too many incompatible file formats. Maybe you can get it to work but I'm tired of tinkering every night.

    My SGI Irix machine worked fine. HELL! it is just 1 180MHZ RK500 and still seems faster than my PC but I could only get a 4 gig hard drive.

    Everything else I've discovered that I love (iTunes, iPod, iPhoto) is just gravy.

  3. Some problems here... by gfilion · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The author says PowerMac G4 933MHz with a 60Gb hard drive, 256Mb of RAM, and a Super Drive (that's DVD and CD-RW people!). This is going to run me $2,299.00. At Dell's website (Dude, yer getting' a Dell) I can get a 1.8GHz Dimension with an 80Gb drive for $1,497.00. That's $800 dollars less for the same functionality, more hard drive space, twice the clock speed (I won't get into CPU architecture), and your required contribution to the Microsoft Empire in the form of Windows XP and Microsoft Works.

    First, the superdrive is a DVD-R and CD-RW, it burns DVDs and CDs. The Dell doesn't have that, and guess what, it costs about 800$ to get one. The assembled-with-the-cheapest-possible-parts-PC doesn't have a warrantee, so it's not a fair comparaison.

    Also, his whole argument about weither more MHz is better is quite stange. At first he says that only Joe Sixpack thinks that, and people who know computer architecture relalise that the MHz are only a part of a computer speed. Two lines later, he says that the Mac is slower because it has a lower frequency.

    Let me tell you something, if you ever have two computers that have the same performances (time to do a task), always take the one with the lower frequency, you'll have a more stable system, it will produce less heat, etc.

    Overall, it was a pretty crappy article...
    GFK's

    1. Re:Some problems here... by coolgeek · · Score: 5, Interesting
      A comparably equipped Gateway, of course with a 2Ghz P4, is a mere $300 less than the G4/933. Both with large flat panel displays, of course. Being a guy who has purchased a whole glut of commodity hardware, and built my lab of 7 Pentiums $200 at a time, I have to say I was never able to appreciate the value of a Mac until I bought one and started using it as my "daily driver". For example, said G4/933 has 2MB L3 cache running at 1/2 clock speed. More than enough to keep your average loop-calls-several-nested-subroutines close at hand, and scads more than the what 0K (of L3-cache =) stock on a P4. The SuperDrive extracts CD audio at about 11-16x, ripping a whole CD in 2-4 minutes. Power management that really works. Or, on my TiBook, I actually get about 4-5 hours battery life when writing/testing code. Why? because Apple developed a power management chip that keeps all system clocks running, but idles the CPU down when the system encounters idle time, then bounces back to full speed in a few milliseconds. That kind of developement will never happen in a commodity PC market. And my VAIO never passed the 3.5 hour mark with TWO batteries.

      And all that "fancy" design is more than just good looks. I can reach under the middle of my 17" Studio Display, and plug a USB device into one of the ports on the back, without moving anything, and without having too see ugly USB outlets all the time. There are many other subtle benefits resulting from Apple's design efforts. Suffice it to say, one cannot truly appreciate them until actually using them.

      --

      cat /dev/null >sig
  4. Comparing apples to apples by TwitchCHNO · · Score: 5, Informative

    Dell Precision Mobile Workstation M40

    512MB, SDRAM Memory (2DIMMS),
    48GB IDE Hard Drive,
    3.5 inch 1.44MB Floppy Drive,
    Internal Mini-PCI NIC/Modem,
    Internal 8-8-8-24X SWDVD/CDRW Combo Drive,
    Integrated IEEE 1394 "Firewire" port.
    nVidia, Quadro 2 Go, 32MB, VGA
    Mobile Pentium®III Processor,1.20GHz-M with 15.0in UXGA Display

    $3,968.00

    http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.as p? customer_id=555&order_code=WS-M40&cfgpg=1

    Apple G4 PowerBook

    667MHz PowerPC G4 @ 133MHz
    256K L2 cache @ 667MHz
    1GB SDRAM memory
    48GB Ultra ATA drive
    Combo Drive (DVD-ROM/CD-RW)
    ATI Mobility Radeon w/
    16MB DDR video memory
    Gigabit Ethernet
    56K internal modem
    1 FireWire & 2 USB Ports
    Airport Card Included

    $3,699.00

    http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects /A ppleStore.woa/53/wo/jQIy01qrrnBvvsUvNu/0.3.0.3.30. 27.0.1.3.1.3.1.1.0?123,54

    Dell Pros:
    nVidia, Quadro 2 Go, 32MB, VGA
    3.5 inch 1.44MB Floppy Drive,

    Dell Cons:
    No option to upgrade memory
    Price

    Mac Pros:
    Gigabit Ethernet
    1GB SDRAM memory
    Airport Card Included
    PRICE

    Mac Cons:
    ATI Mobility Radeon w/
    16MB DDR video memory
    No 3.5 inch 1.44MB Floppy Drive

    Wait - Macs are too expensive? Did I miss something? A price difference of $300 dollars & gigabit ethernet & wireless ethernet & 512MB more RAM. Mac are more expensive?

    --
    ___________________________
    I'm not a geek, but I play one on TV.
  5. Apple == Volkswagon by leifw · · Score: 5, Insightful
    The best analogy I've seen for Apple's place in the computer industry is to that of Volkswagon's in the auto industry, especially VW's marketing of the new Bug. Volkwagon makes a cool looking product and then sell it with all services paid; your oil changes and other routine maintenance plus any unscheduled maintenance in the warranty period are part of the cost of the car. Of course this means the vehicle costs more, but plenty of people see it as worth while. This really appeals to people who just want a cool no-hastle vehicle.

    Apple sells their products similarly; the various Macs since the iMac have been cool looking, easy to use, no hastle computers. Part of buying a Mac is the cool iTunes, iMovie, iPhoto, ietc. software that automagically does everything you bought your new PC for, including uploading your stuff to your mac.com website.

    It's all about increasing coolness and decreasing hastle for both VW and Apple.