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iMac vs. VAIO Showdown
paradesign writes "Citing both Apple and Sony's intentions to become the hub of the digital lifestyle, Popular Science has pitted an $1,800 800MHz flat-panel iMac up against a $3,400 1.7GHz Sony Vaio PCV-MXS10 to see which really comes out on top. The bottom line is that the Sony PC -- almost twice as expensive as the iMac -- just narrowly edged out the iMac, with an overall score of 42 to 40."
Why would anyone buy a PC when you can get a mac, with better std equipment, for half the price?! I know all the arguments about TCO being better on pcs than macs, but still.. you're paying twice as much for a flashy OS and trendy case-design. For shame!
Not only does the PC cost twice as much in this case, but the iMac will be worth twice as much as the PC when the owners go to resell them for an upgrade.
How about a G4 then? It outperforms the iMac, and still costs less than the Sony. My colleague just got the new 17" LCD Panel and it is simply awesome.
The reviewer in this case put a lot of emphasis on the bundled software than what I'm used to. It's nice that the Sony includes Photoshop Elements, there's no OS X equivalent for that out right now [yes, I know about Graphic Converter].
And if you're really into expandability, the base-model G4 is cheaper than the iMac. The iMac has never been and probably never will be for people who upgrade anything besides maybe the RAM. Keep in mind that over 90% of all PCs never have a single hardware upgrade in their lifetime.
What I'd really love is a Cinema Display on a G4. But I don't have the money. I could get the money, but I'd probably have to give up my wife to get it. So I'm going to be be home-building commodity PC hardware for a while I think...
-B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
From my experience with digital editing, I can say that it is quite unlikely that you would use input from anything other than analog or DV.
Moreover, some things about iMovie that weren't mentioned was how very easy it was to learn--even my sister could do it! I created my first movie in less than an hour knowing nothing. New plugins are available on the net for those feeling cramped with the original package, some of which are free (from Apple). iMovie also seamlessly integrates with Quicktime, iDVD, and even iTunes (for tracks). The few windows digital programs I've seen are all right, but not nearly as intuitive.
iMovie could use another star, though probably not the full five because there isn't yet a feature to automatically arrange tracks.
Sound cards? For all practical purposes, there are no Mac sound cards. Creative released a SB Live about a year ago, but with buggy drivers for 9.x and NO support for X. Thing is, X reportedly has some very nice sound and music support built in, but the programmers haven't figured out how to use it yet. SCSI cards? I didn't think PC users used those much anyway, and Firewire would be better. I've upgraded my 29 month old iMac DV fairly well, with new mouse,keyboard, iSub, memory, hard drive. Just can't do anything about video, but the new games that need more also need more CPU power.
"Common Sense Ain't" -Unknown
I'm also curious as to why they didn't equip the iMac with the same amount of ram (512mb) as this is an option Apple offers.
Last but not least, I couldn't find the Sony Vaio PCV-MXS10 on Sony's website. It appears to be discontinued in favour of the PCV-MXS20 which has a 2GHz Intel Pentium 4 and a 120Mb hard disk.
The big difference between these two machines is the OS. I chose to buy an Apple because I wanted to run OS X. With a VAIO, I would pretty much be stuck with Windows. Sure, you could install Linux but you would lose support for all the nifty features.
Overall, the article is a letdown. There isn't any point comparing Apples to oranges. (sorry, couldn't resist)
One of the Smalldog newsletters had some commentary on the comparison. The latest newsletter has not hit the archives yet, but it did bring up some good points:
1) He mentions that on the iMac "but sound quality and volume are limited." Of course, the Sony includes seperate speakers. For the price difference you could easily pick up a pair of aftermarket speakers.
2) He mentions how easy the iMac is to set up (and then complains about the set-up screens), then goes on to comment on the Sony "I think we're going to have some fun with this rig - a thought that helps get me through a 45-minute setup."
3) The author mentions "Windows XP is much more reliable, and somewhat easier to use, than its predecessors." Well, perhaps. How is it in comparison to Mac OS X, though? I have had my new Mac for over three weeks now and have not had a single crash or kernel panic.
4) He often comments about the poor included software on the Sony.
All in all, it is a good review, although I wish he would mention more than a couple of times the drastic price difference and the fact that most short-comings on the iMac could be more than made up by the price difference (i.e. He comments that the included photo manipulation software on the Sony is better than iPhoto for adjusting/cropping/etc. For the price difference, though, you could almost pick up Photoshop for Mac OS X).
Also, I know that GraphicConverter is included on new G4 machines. It is included on the new iMac?
[Boycotting the Boycott.]
- (c) 2018 Hank Zimmerman
Someone recommends a $1000 screen, you comment that you cannot afford a $2500 display, then you somehow make the jump that, therefore, you are going to have to continue to home-build your computers for cost reasons.
They *do* make cheaper Mac monitors, and almost all shipping G4s include a VGA out.
I don't think the $1,800 Sony system would have done any better than the more expensive one tested; I seem to remember the same software bundle and the same features. The only thing you lose is the admittedly attractive casing and the stereo-style features.
A PowerMac wouldn't have done much better than the iMac, either, since they weren't doing benchmark tests, and they were content with the resolution of the screen.
I do wonder how they wound up with three stars for the Mac's video editing and four for the VAIO's. I'm not going to accept those results without at least some sort of description in the article, which they didn't provide. Maybe they simply gave Sony extra credit for the larger range of (mediocre) options it provides.
I'd certainly rather have the iMac, even considering that it's so much cheaper than the Sony. It's a lot more elegant and definitely features superior design.
D
Fortunately this is not entirely true. True, when turning on your new Apple Computer for the first time you will be presented with a registration screen, but luckly by pressing Command + q, you can simply skip the registration process and finish the initial setup without entering any personal information.
Perhaps my pictures of the new Cinema HD Display will change your mind :-).
D
You might be fooling yourself into believing that upgrades = better deal.
Why not buy a new computer when you want to upgrade?
First of all, the price difference alone is $1600. So right there you have $1600 going towards a new computer. Couple that with the fact that you could sell the iMac for almost the same price as new (very common with Macs).
Sounds like an even better deal to me.
mark
If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe. -- Carl Sagan
I can build a pretty badass system for a lot less than that VAIO. But anyway, they really tested out software features and not hardcore system specs. The G4 really isn't much faster than its counterpart at the same clock speed unless you count floating point math. I like Macs but I think that this is a unfair bench considering the magazine that published it. Refer to this Slashdot story for more. Why I'm not buying a Mac
Of course, what the article fails to consider is that I can order an iPod, an additional 256MB RAM, and a top of the line Palm for my new iMac, and still stay $400 under the Sony. For someone actually looking to use one of these machines alongside digital toys, that makes a difference.
"I like to wear big boy pants."
Well, if it's OS X you really want, might I recomend a mac laptop. All very reasonably priced. All with LCD displays and they're portable to boot.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Why did slashdot post a consumer-ended computer review? This is meant to be viewed by people who are relatively ignorant of computers (software package?! I dont need no stinking software package!), and I would think most people on slashdot are WELL beyond the level of knowledge presented in that article. Next time post something about REAL computing issues such as stability, performance, long term investment, etc.
"What can a thoughtful man hope for mankind on Earth, given the experience of the past million years? Nothing." -Bokonon
Yeah, but how is he gonna upgrade his laptop's video card?!?
This is of no use to me, as I never consider buying a computer unless it is at least 45 points.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
For the amount of money they spent on the Vaio, they could have bought themselves quite a nice piece of G4 Tower goodness. The Vaio wouldn't stand a chance in that showdown :)
___
Cogito cogito, ergo cogito sum.
I use such formula to decide my decision. $3400 is too much.
I do admit that the VIAOs are nice, it is not the computer it is the OS for the most part. I give them credit for the memory stick. but comparing a high end PC to a medium-low end macintosh, one thing is, 0WHAT WERE THEY THINKING!!! iMac is nowhere near the best of the best. Lets see a duel gig g4 stand to the BEST PC out there. I say, if the iMac came that close to their 'high end' model, then thats pretty sad, on their part. I feel sorry for the people who actualy believe that, there is one hope though, install unix-based os ;) as for the rest of us bullhorn hard headed monkeys, we prefer our macintoshes thank you very much. They are just better!!!
I think ultimately the Sony came out on top in this comparison because there was not a price category in the awarding of stars. Had there been, the Sony would have gotten one or no stars and the Apple would have gotten three or four (depending on your tastes...i probably would have given it four given the features included). In either case, this would have resulted in a tie at worst and a win for Apple at best. The bottom line is that the apple seems the better buy when price is considered. I currently use Windows 2000, but have used Mac OS X extensively and Win XP Pro some. It seemed that Mac OS X was configured nearly optimally configured out of the box. Win XP on the other hand was very annoying to use with too much to read in order to accomplish anything nontrivial. Turning off all the hand-holding makes it more manageable, although this takes time and one can never be sure when a dialogue with a paragraph of text is going to show up. This is article is the first I have seen to favor Win xp over Mac OS X, especially for ease of use. The difference between these operating systems alone would be reason enough for me to use a Mac over a Win box. The comparison is also a litlte unfair, because for th price of the Viao, one could afford one of those sweet dual G4s with a flat panel display or a powerbook (minus the dvd burner, which could be added as a firewire external for the price difference). Essentially, I would never by 3500 for a wintel box, while the Mac offerings at that price point are quite enticing, although i will never be able to afford that kind of hardware. Ironically, when I bought my computer, it was price that motivated me to get a Dell over an Apple since at the time, the only cheap Apples were the old iMacs with the tiny CRT displays and I wanted a bigger monitor. Hopefully Apple will maintain good offerings for the price and keep improving OS X.
Anyone know or willing to guess how the ibook would fare against the vaio notebooks? There's no way in hell I can afford a TiBook right now, and most x86-based notebooks seem to be more in line price-wise with the iBook.
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I remember back when apple was doing very badly in 1996 there were rumours of an Apple Sony tie up. They are both competeing in the same niche - fancy comsumer high tech goods. Both are very good at what they do. Both are, in an industry that almost completely lack innovation (despite the claims of another certain large company), actually innovative. I sometimes wish that Apple could sometime do a deal with Sony to collaborate in product design and OS. Sadly, of course, this is never going to happen.
comapring a $1900 machine with something that costs only $1600 more! it appears that the reviewer is a mac fan from the system 7 days, hence the comment about WinXP being more stable/usable than its predecessor (my gf has a brand new dell with WinXP and Office XP, and it is crap [of course, her mom has the same setup and it works fine...]), and not liking OSX. the weaknesses that the reviewer points out, namely iPhoto, has already been pointed out. my opinion is, if you want all the frills, that is what Photoshop is for. on the side, if iPhoto is too good, Photoshop will lose interest in supporting OSXI or whatever comes next.
IMO, YMMV.