Puncturing the "PCs Are Cheaper Than Macs" Myth

jcatcw writes "The recently converted Scot Finnie went notebook shopping. At the high end of the notebook spectrum, in order to get comparable power and features, a Dell machine comes in $650 over the Apple, and it was clunkier and weighed more. Sony couldn't beat the Apple either. Midrange and low-end machines, though, turn out to be pretty comparable, with more choices in the PC arena but some good values if you happen to want what Apple has decided you need. So, if you're talking name-brand hardware, it's just no longer the case that PCs are cheaper than Macs."

Comments

Re:Notebooks, eh?

[2nd Post!]

You haven't been keeping up. Notebooks are growing at a faster rate than desktop sales, and have already overtaken them in retail:
http://news.com.com/PC+milestone--notebooks+outsel l+desktops/2100-1047_3-5731417.html

Mid-range macbook cheaper than a Dell? Ha!

[marquinhocb]

Alright guys, so to start off, I'm a big Mac fan at heart - I started off on the Mac more than 12 years ago, and was a hardcore mac user (the type that would take an argument with anyone about Macs being better).
And I still think that Apple computers are some of the highest quality computers you can get, and believe me, if mid-range Macs were cheaper, I'd have one.
But this is simply a ridiculous claim with nothing to back it. For starters, Dell constantly has sales, whereas Macs are always the same price, no drops, no competitive pricing, nothing. A macbook is a macbook is $1,099 is $1,099. No matter where you go.
Just going to both the Apple store and the Dell store right now, this is what we have:

MacBook: $1374 (13.3", 2.0 GHz, 1GB, 160GB HD, generic crappy graphics card, 1 year warranty, standard ports + wireless)
Dell E1505: $1374 (15", 2.0 GHz, 1GB, 160GB HD, ATI X1400, 2 year warranty, standard ports + wireless)

And mind you this is not even with a Dell sale, this is just your standard off-the-shelf prices. Not only is the Dell $100 cheaper, it comes with a 2 year warranty instead of 1 year, a graphics card you can actually play games with, and a display that's 2" bigger.

Sorry to burt your bubble, but PC's/Dell has apple beat on the low-end. High end I'll even give you, but again, if you get Dell/AlienWare on a sale, I bet you the PC would still be cheaper than a Mac (Apple doesn't have sales).

Re:No competition on the low end

[Frankie70]

Absolutely right.

1) Dell Dimension C521 - 359 Dollars

AMD Sempron 3400
Windows Vista Home Basic
512MB SDRAM
160GB Serial ATA Drive
48X CD-RW/ DVD Combo Drive
NVIDIA GeForce 6150 LE Integrated Graphics GPU
Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio
Dell USB Keyboard and Dell 2-button Scroll Mouse
56K PCI Data Fax Modem

2) Mac Mini 599 Dollars

1.66 GHz Intel Core Duo
512MB SDRAM
60GB Serial ATA drive
Mac OS X
Intel GMA 950 graphics
No Keyboard, No Monitor

Not true anymore

[Slashdot Parent]

I recently went notebook shopping with my wife for an capable business machine (no games, no video editing, you get the idea). We made a dell configuration for her is a Core 2 Duo, 2GB RAM, etc., for $650.

Apple does not sell any MacBook at all for under $1100.

I'm sorry, but macs are still more expensive, and as far as I'm concerned, at all price points. The reason the Dell came out so expensive for the reviewer, is that he insisted that the Dell have the exact same specs as the mac. That forced him into a way higher price point on the Dell than he probably needed.

Reminder, this for me, not for you, but I could dispense with a lot of those requirements if it meant a much cheaper machine. For instance, I don't need the integrated video camera, several of those ports, and the screen is upgraded way beyond what I need. If I were to build my "dream" notebook, it would cost way less than $2800, like the mac did.

All that being said, I think Macs are great, and OS X is great. I'd buy a mac if I could afford it.

Re:Not true anymore

[Penguin's Advocate]

Between the end of November and the beginning of December 2006, 9 people at my office bought new laptops. Every single one of them bought a macbook pro. All completely independently, all who work at a 100% windows shop, and 8 of them had never used a mac before. Even the CEO, who spends every waking moment with her laptop, has been a dell fan for years, and openly hates Macs, ended up buying a macbook pro. How did this happen? It was pretty simple, each of them went to a bunch of sites (dell, hp, lenovo, sony, etc) and priced out the machine they would want, and then for kicks, each went to apple and priced a macbook with similar specs. In every single case the macbook came out ahead by a considerable amount. Enough to convince people who would never buy a mac to buy one, even if they were just going to install windows on it and use it as a PC. Since then, many more have bought macbooks and macbook pros. Every couple weeks someone else pops up with one. I'm guessing this is why Apple's laptop sales grew nearly 100% in the last year.

Re:Imagine...

[0100010001010011]

And if they want to play games, then there is really no choice, no matter how great Parallels is, it's still not the same as running the OS on the machine itself.
Both VMWare Fusion AND Parallels have 3D acceleration in the latest version. I just did a benchmark between my Dell work laptop and both virtualizations. The dell is a 1.83GHz and my MacBook Pro is 2.00 Ghz. Both virtualizations were faster than the Dell. "But the Dell is slower" you cry, show me one game that will run amazingly well on a 2.00GHz and like a dog on a 1.83GHz. Most games were designed for processors slower than that anyway. If you are on the most cutting edge of gaming, I doubt that any laptop, other than the custom Alienware, is going to be fast enough for you anyways.

hope it delivers drivers suitable to use your hardware.
The thing is, Apple controls the hardware. I tried out boot camp (and went back to virtualization), Apple's drivers for Windows XP were much better than Dell's drivers for their laptops. iSight, 2 fingered scrolling, battery control. Windows worked better on my Mac than it did on my Dell prior to it.

- There *are* fewer applications for Apple computers, which is to be expected as they don't command the market-share of, say, Windows
Yes, there are fewer, but I would argue that they are higher quality. How many programs do you need to keep track of recipes? Windows probably has a few dozen programs. Version tracker & Mac Update list 3 for Mac that absolutely rock. They're designed differently, one lets you drag and drop recipies into a calender, each has different features that I could see appealing to different types of people. However they're all exceptionally well made, the UI in all of them is beautiful. The same goes for almost every piece of software I use. How many DVD Ripping programs do I need? MacTheRipper does it all. How about VIDEO_TS to DVD.iso? DVD Imager does just fine. I'd rather have 5 programs to do X where 3 are amazing to use than 100 programs to do X where 3 are amazing to use.

- They do use one-button mice, on the notebooks at least, and the "mighty mouse" is not exactly a two-buttoned mouse if you keep a finger on the right mouse button. Again, something you have to get used to. Or you can buy another mouse, again, more money.

Where does this damn argument keep coming from? Yes there is only 1 button. But there are 3 ways to active a right click. I have my preference and other people have theirs. You can:

1. Control Click (my personal favorite.) I wish control click worked on my Dell because it's faster and more ergonomic for me. Put your left hand on the home row. Now Slide your hand down and rotate it about 10 degrees so that your thumb is on the left trackpad button, your index is on the trackpad... look where your pinkie is: right next to the Control Button. For me to use the right click I have to either pull my right hand down OR rotate my left hand making it awkward.
2. Tap with 2 fingers. I'm accidentally hit the trackpad enough accidentally that I HATE tap to click. However, if you're already tapping with your index finger, your middle finger (by design) isn't too far away.
3. 3) Place 2 fingers on the trackpad and press the trackpad button.

- Apple computers are just as secure as everything else on the market if used properly. Apple doesn't have a magic bullet against trojan horses, it just isn't that big of a target for hackers. As the market share grows, that will become a problem. Just like Apache is a bigger target than IIS and has so many more virii for it.

Re:No competition on the low end

[Achromatic1978]

Compare what you get in that to the $599 or $799 Dell, HP, etc. I think you'll be very surprised with what Apple is able to provide at that price point, especially when you factor in the tiny form factor the machine has.

Let's do just that. For $800, from Dell, I can get:

Dell Dimension E520, C2D 1.8GHz, 2GB RAM, 250GB SATA 7200rpm, 16x DVDRW, Intel GMA X3000, Firewire. Oh, and this little handy thing, too: a 17" LCD that doesn't come with the Apple below:
Apple Mac Mini, $799 edition. C2D 1.83GHz, 512MB RAM, 80GB SATA drive, 8x DVDRW, Intel GMA 950, Firewire. No display.

Come on, even you would have to confess it's not much of a comparison. The only winning point to the Mac Mini in this case is "small form factor". It loses on every other.

Re:This is because you can no longer comparison sh

[Score Whore]

80386, 80386SX (no math coprocessor),

First, no 386 systems had math coprocessors. The difference between a 386sx and a 386dx involved the sizes of the data and address buses coming off the chip. An sx processor had a 16-bit database and a 24-bit address bus. A 32-bit request would take two requests. It could only physically connect to 16 MB of RAM.

Shit even MHz aren't meaningful much anymore.

Mhz never mattered outside of the same processor from the same company. A 66 Mhz Pentium ran circles around 120 Mhz 486s. SPARCs, MIPS, and Alpha's generally ate the intel and compatibles for lunch at much lower clock rates.

Re:Imagine...

[ncc74656]

Apple still doesn't officially support more than 1 mouse button.

So you're telling me that the context menu that pops up when I click the right button on the (Microsoft) mouse plugged into my Mac mini is a figment of my imagination? How much more support is needed than that?

I suppose if I had a MacBook (or whatever), lack of a right button on the trackpad would be a minor annoyance, but I rarely use the trackpads on my notebooks anyway. With the one that gets lugged around, I haul a Bluetooth mouse around with it.

Not competitive at the high end either

[Solandri]

I went through this at the end of 2006.

MacBook Pro 15.4"
Processor Intel Core 2 Duo T7400(2.16GHz)
Memory 1GB DDR2
Screen Size 15.4"
Resolution 1440 x 900
ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 128 MB
Hard Drive 120GB 5400 RPM
Optical Drive DVD±R/RW 6x
LAN 10/100/1000Mbps
WLAN 802.11g Wireless LAN
Bluetooth Bluetooth 2.0+EDR
Card slot 1 x ExpressCard/34 slot
USB Two 480-Mbps USB 2.0 ports
FireWire One FireWire 400 port at up to 400 Mbps
Video Port 1 x DVI (VGA output using included DVI to VGA adapter)
Audio Port Combined optical digital input/audio line in (minijack)
Webcam Built-in iSight Camera
Dimension 14.1" x 9.6" x 1.0"
Weight 5.6 lbs.
Currenly $1965 at Newegg

Asus A8JS
Processor Intel Core 2 Duo T7200 2.00G
Memory 1GB DDR2
Hard Drive 120GB 5400 RPM
Optical Drive DVD±R/RW 8x
NVIDIA GeForce Go 7700 512MB (about 25%-40% faster than the x1600, which is underclocked on the Mac)
Screen Size 14"
Resolution 1440 x 900
LAN 10/100/1000Mbps
WLAN 802.11a/b/g Wireless LAN
IRDA Yes
Card Slot 1 x Express Card
USB 5
IEEE 1394 1 (aka firewire)
Video Port 1 x VGA, 1 x DVI, 1 x S-Video TV-out
Audio Ports 1 x Headphone-out jack (SPDIF)
Card Reader MMC, SD, MS, MS PRO
Webcam 0.35 Mega-Pixel web-cam
Dimensions 13.19" x 9.65" x 1.37-1.46"
Weight 5.25 lbs.
Current $1380 at Newegg

Yes the screen is smaller but the resolution is the same and the laptop is an inch more compact in width as a result. Otherwise, the only major factors in the Mac's favor were the thinness, better construction, bluetooth (a $50 option I didn't need on the Asus), and an imperceptibly faster CPU. Everything else went in favor of the Asus. The price difference is currently about $600. At the time I was $700 ($1500 vs. $2200) or 46% higher for the Mac for a worse video card, no VGA out, no TV out, fewer USB slots, no memory card slot, and a bigger, heavier computer. There was just no comparison.

Comparing to Dell's web prices is misleading. Dell frequently gives out coupons that give $500-$1000 or 25%-40% discounts on their systems and laptops. Everyone knows Sony is way overpriced. That said, the high end MacBooks are premium computers and are priced in-line with other premium computers. If you're OK with paying extra for a premium computer, then that's fine. But if you do a little searching, you can find better notebooks for less, they just won't be well-known brands. If Apple doesn't fall egregiously behind (their new Santa Rosa MacBook will use an nVidia 8600 GT, which looks like it'll be a solid graphics card), my next notebook will probably be a MacBook so I can run OS/X.

Confirming your theory.... :)

[jmorris42]

> I used to be a hardware junkie. I could rattle off the 8086, 80286, 80386, 80386SX (no math coprocessor),
> 486, and 486SX, in all the MHz flavors.

Nope, the 386SX was a 386 instruction set compatible processor with a 286 bus to allow easy reuse of existing motherboard designs. The 486SX was the one with the lobotomized mathco. Not nit picking ya, just using it as an example to confirm your proposition. If even us junkies have trouble telling the buzzwords and stats apart how the hell is joe average going to have a prayer? Answer: he doesn't. He does what you do and grab an emachines from Wallyworld or Best Buy... or more likely becomes one more dude with a Dell.

But one thing is certain, the trend is down. Unless we have another major round of software bloating the number of people who are happy with a minimal machine is growing. This means the magic place is >$1000 on a laptop and $500 for a desktop. Apple doesn't even try to compete in that space and I suspect Microsoft is going to have trouble with Vista if the bar lowers yet again. See the article on slashdot this week about Asus and their $200 laptop like device coming this summer to a store near you. That is the future, and adding $100 for the Microsoft tax at that price point ain't happening.

Try this experiment if you really want to see what could happen. Go to newegg.com (or any similar site) and see how much desktop you can get for $200. Any volume manufacturer could buy those same basic parts, apply some massive integration, cheap plastic case, etc and sell em on pallets to Walmart at a wholesale price low enough to allow Wallyworld to sell finished boxes for that same $200. To date that hasn't happened because of the question of what to load. Microsoft is too expensive to make the plan viable and they fear a bad reaction if they stick Linux on, probably[1] rightly. But the power of the market is powerful, so someone will eventually figure a way to tap it.

So in the end, both Apple and Microsoft are most likely to be defeated by an inability to readjust their pricing model quickly enough. And if Dell, etc. isn't careful they will go with em. Computers are about to become consumer electronics. That means high volume, low margin. Even Dell still gets amrgins most CE corps only dream of.

[1] Because most people don't even realize anything but Windows exists, especially the Walmart set. Thus when they can't load World of Warcrack, etc. many will try to return it and Walmart takes almost anything back.

Re:This is because you can no longer comparison sh

[MightyYar]

I'm no expert, but this is what I've done for years (for desktops):

1. Go to AnandTech
2. Click on the "Guides" tab.
3. Decide whether you are an entry-level, mid-range, or high-end user.
4. Open up that guide and either buy the parts he lists, or just spec a system with the same processor, video card, and memory type.

Laptops are more tricky, but it really just comes down to buying Intel or AMD. Right now Intel is the way to go for laptops - and has been since at least 2003. Last time I just poked around on the internet to find that this seemed to be the consensus.

Re:No competition on the low end

[jmorris42]

> So you're going to suggest the "low end" Mac to your web-surfing, pr0n-hording friends why?

I don't know about the original poster, you are right about him probably being a hopeless fanboi. But I also recommend Macs and I'm a Linux bigot. Why? There is method in my madness!

First lets be blunt a bout what it means when a friend/family asks me to recommend a machine. What they are really asking me to to is become their support person for life. Any geek who knows me well enough to be asking for advice will probably be ready for the Penguin, at least a dual boot. But for the rest I recommend they buy a Mac. Were they to actually do that I wouldn't mind providing them with support because they wouldn't need much. But I have yet to actually sell anyone on a Mac because a) there ins't anyplace within a hundred miles to actually see/buy one and b) they cost too much for people out here in flyover country... which kinda explains the first point. ;) So why do I keep doing it? So they will bug someone else when they buy the piece of crap Dell and want someone to disinfect it every month or so.

Re:Blah

[p0tat03]

You're entitled to your opinion, but take this from someone who's owned a number of PC notebooks, and knows a large number of people who own PC notebooks of all brands. (Dell, Toshiba, Acer, I am currently on a MacBook Pro, and very very happy).

If you're comparing brands like AOpen, Acer, and Toshiba to Apple, you are seriously delusional about build quality. Toshiba in my experience constantly offers more bang for the buck - my Satellite M30 was insanely fast for its price point. Of course, it also sucked ass, was flimsy, and broke a lot. The keyboard would flex downwards while typing, the trackpad would be sometimes unresponsive and difficult to use... The multimedia keys just plain didn't work... I could go on.

Acer is not better off either. If your machine doesn't have some major glitch on arrival, thank the Gods, and then proceed to discover little design flaws like whiny fans, crappy bearings in cooling units making strange grinding noises... etc. Things that Acer simply refuses to fix, regardless of how much you yell at the poor heavily-accented guy at the other end of the line (after holding for 2 hours). I will be quite content with my Mac, which if it ever has problems (it's had a few minor gremlins) is a quick phone call, with minimal waiting time, and a support rep that actually speaks English and won't run me through the checklist.

I've never dealt personally with Sony support, but like IBM, I suspect the quality is FAR above what you would get with brands like Toshiba and Acer. I've never been on hold more than 10 minutes on an Apple support line, and every time I called and described my problem, the support tech immediately got down to the issue, instead of running me around with insipid "is your computer plugged in" checklists. Repairs are similarly painless. When the latch on my MacBook Pro broke, I phoned in, and got a FedEx box in the mail the next day. No arguing, no hassles, I gave them my serial number and they confirmed my warranty, and BAM.

But yes, build quality is important to those of us who rely on our laptops for a living. I have a level of respect for Sony Vaios and IBM/Lenovo ThinkPads, because I have used them first hand and I know that their quality is excellent. The same goes for Apple. Toshiba, Acer, and older Dells are invariably crap in a plastic shell, though Dell has made some major improvements in recent years (support still sucks though).

Re:To the average person

[michrech]

...that $300 Windows Vista Home Basic or XP Home PC is going to be good enough for them to use, and affordable as well. That $579 Mac Mini is going to look like it costs twice as much. They won't know that the Mac Mini has a dual-core processor, or a better video adapter, or a more energy efficient design, or a better DVD drive. All they want is something that works and fits their budget. Unless they got a $579 budget, the Mac Mini would not fit it, but that $300 AMD Septron powered PC with Windows fits their budget.

Mac Mini
$599
1.66GHz Core Duo
512mb RAM
60gb SATA
DVD Combo Drive (24x)
Intel GMA 950 IGP
No mouse/keyboard!
No monitor
No modem

Dell Dimension E521
$529
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 3800+
1gb Dual Channel DDR2 @ 667MHz
160gb SATA @ 7200RPM
DVD Combo Drive (48x CD-RW)
nVidia GeForce 6150 LE IGP
Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio
Dell USB Keyboard and Dell Optical Mouse
15" Analog Flat Panel
56k Modem

This is why people think Apple is more expensive than, well, any other PC. If you want to keep the processor the same, there is a Dell in the same price range. To add a display from the "customize" page of the mini, you ONLY have a 20" or 23" FP available as a choice (at $599 and $899). Looking at their store, they don't seem to OFFER a 15", 17", or even 19" screen. That is ridiculous. That is why people complain about Apple hardware prices.

I agree with what the article says about the higher-end laptop prices. I thought, when I first read what was in the article "Psssshh.. What a bunch of bull. There has to be several that are very similar in both hardware specs and prices..." .. What did I get after about 30 minutes of looking? I couldn't even *find* a 2.4ghz machine in Dell, Lenovo, Compaq/HP, Toshiba, let alone the rest of the hardware. So he was right -- for high end stuff. Many (probably most) will simply not buy it because they don't perceive the need for it (they complain, SURPRISE, about the price!)

For kicks and giggles, I tried to find another "desktop" that would match the price of the Dell I quoted above. Nothing. Closest you'll get is the 17" iMac, which is at 1.83GHz Cor 2 Duo, 160gb HDD, the same 24x "combo drive", and the same video. At $999!

For more kicks and giggles, I decided to also take on the "Mac Pro". At $2499 (I upgraded the ram to 2gb instead of 1gb because I got a good combo deal on a mainboard/2gb RAM -- everything else was stock), putting parts together on NewEgg (sorted by "best rating", not "lowest price", I came up with a similar system, though with only 4 memory slots instead of 8, for $1000.43 (that includes 3 day UPS shipping). Yes, you are reading that correctly. $1500 LESS than the Apple, for essentially the same machine. Newegg didn't have a LGA775 board with 8 slots, though I very much doubt the difference between the one I selected and an 8-slotter would be $1500. It also wasn't a dual-cpu board, but again, there won't be a $1500 price difference. I just realized I didn't add in an OS. If you want to keep the price down, use what you had or linux. Or add $89.99 for XP Home. Still substantially less than the "Mac Pro".

So, overall, I'm going to stick with the "Apple hardware is overpriced compared to PC's!" line, because for the most part, they are.

Is the price difference as HUGE today as it was "back in the day"? No. Is it there? Most definitely.

Incidentally, I saved the part list for the "Mac Pro" counterpart. If anyone would like to see it, contact me at m i k e at s i n e p d o t g o t d n s d o t c o m (Yes, it is a real domain, and yes, the address works -- it's hosted via Google's mail for domains hosting). Realize, though, that I use it for spam catching, mostly, so if you just decide to sign me up for crap, you aren't really going to hurt me. I do check the address each day, so if you really want to see the parts I chose, feel free to email me.

Re:To the average person

[michrech]

your right that the Mac mini is like over a year old with no updates or price changes and is way overpriced... but thats it. Your comments on the Mac Pro show you do not know much about "workstation" level hardware... you even admit it wasn't a dual socket board you used...Which means you didnt even price how much a Xeon system would cost.

Strike 1

The mini received it's updates when the announcement of the switch to Intel came out. Now, whether this was a year ago or not, doesn't matter. What matters is that it has, in fact, had an update.

Sure you can build a highly specific machine that meets your individual needs usually cheaper than buying a pre-made system... but thats about all you proved pricing out your parts at newegg... nothing to do with Apple. The Mac Pro is even cheaper than Dell workstations with similiar configuration.

Strike 2

Nice of you to sling your crap around without actually having seen the parts I selected. Seagate HDD (one of the most expensive of the brands), Thermaltake 600w PS with cable management (bet the Apple doesn't have that!), the same Xeon, a nice case (it was a case that even had sound dampening material in it), a nice Microsoft keyboard and optical mouse (not the most expensive, by far, but still nice), a SATA CD-ROM that was *faster* than listed in the Apple specs. I even chose a 7300gt with the same 256mb RAM.

No.. no.. don't go by what I actually chose. Just pick the part where I said Newegg didn't have the same mainboard, so I chose one as close to what was in the Apple machine as possible, and then decide that everything else I chose was substandard crap (hell, the mainboard was an Asus! Hardly crap... It was also one of the most expensive boards in the catagory (if not the most expensive)).

Looking back, I did spec the wrong processor when I was pricing my machine (I didn't notice that it specified a "woodcrest" core, so I chose the first 2.66ghz I saw in the "Xeon" list). More about that below...

As I said, feel free to email me with the parts list request. I'll gladly send it along.

People get upset about Apple being "overpriced" not because they are, but because they simply do not understand that Apple has no want to compete in all areas of the market. They take Apple machines focused at a different area of the market and try to fit it into their comparisons. Apple really doesn't want everyones business... if you want to custom build a machine with the exact parts you want... you know what... Apple does NOT want your business at all...

Strike 3, you're out!

FUD. Period. I speced out a "Mac Pro", but with 'PC parts', and it came in $1500 LESS than the lowest end Apple Mac Pro. Yes, it didn't have a "server class" mainboard, but those are not $1500, my fiend. Not even close. I just got to looking at the Apple web site and saw they are listing a "woodcrest" processor, so I went back to my list and noticed I did not choose a Woodcrest. Ok. I find the *exact* processor. $713 from Newegg. Newegg doesn't carry any socket 771 boards (that I could find in their "advanced list" of category selections. I go to Tyan's web site, find an 8 ddr2 socket havin', 2 cpu socket sportin' board. Search google for it's model number (Tempest i5000PX), and choose the first link (so I could probably have gotten a better deal if I looked). Find the board for $426 at superwarehouse.com. That is $1138.99. That fits in the price difference between what I spec'ed and Apple's price! That doesn't even include me REMOVING the processor and board I chose in the first place. That means I'm *still* $300-ish cheaper than the Mac Pro!

You Fail It!

Re:Macs are PCs!

[Watts Martin]

I think I'd disagree with this timeline.

Back when I started being a computer nerd in the late '70s, Apples and TRS-80s and Commodore PETs and (long list of more obscure brands...) were all sometimes called "personal computers," but more often called "microcomputers" by enthusiasts. The term "Personal Computer" came into play because that's what IBM named their first microcomputer: the IBM Personal Computer. That was in 1981. By 1983, programs like PC-Draw and PC-Write and PC-Terminal were shipping from third parties, there was "PC: The Disk Magazine," and companies were advertising games with "Available for Apple II, ColecoVision, and IBM PC."

The Mac, conversely, didn't come out until 1984. By the late '80s, programs were being advertised for IBM PC and/or Mac, and people were referring to "PC clones." The letters "PC" became associated with IBM PCs and compatibles not because of "Mac fanboys," but because IBM called the damn thing the IBM PC. Don't blame "less savvy" Apple users for the confusion between x86 architecture and the term PC -- less savvy IBM users are just as to blame, if not more so.

As for the confusion beween x86 and Windows, well, it didn't get the nickname "Wintel" in the '90s for nothing. The 80x86 line and Windows had a decidedly symbiotic relationship, I'd say. For practical purposes, "PC" did mean computers running Windows; whether or not it offends purists, PC = IBM PC compatible and the number of PC-compatible machines running non-Windows operating systems was extremely neglible for the longest time. One has to actually be pretty familiar with computers to make the distinction between (lower case) "personal computer," "workstation" and "server." (After all, just about anything can be pressed into use as a server, whether or not it's "server-class" hardware.)