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

No competition on the low end

[traindirector]

Scot makes some great points about the high end and even the mid-range, but suggesting that Apple is competitive on the low end is just ludicrous. I'd call the low end $500-$1000. Apple's not even in that market.

Re:No competition on the low end

[sacrilicious]

When I say "Macs cost more than PCs" what I actually mean to say is that "Apple isn't in the low end market". Of course, everyone I say the former to understands that I mean the later, except the Apple advocates.

I think they (or anyone) could be forgiven for not understanding what you mean. If I can buy 1 pound of sugar for $1 at Safeway, or 100 pounds of sugar for $2 at Costco, and a friend asked me whether Safeway or Costco had cheaper sugar, it'd be negligent+misleading of me to simply answer "Safeway".

Re:No competition on the low end

[dcclark]

Almost every time one of my non-tech savvy friends is looking for a laptop, I ask if they've looked at Macs. I then, without fail, hear "Macs are more expensive than PC's", and after a few questions, it always turns out that what they have actually found is, "I was looking for cheap laptops, and Apple doesn't make anything in the $500-$1000 range". But, that's not the end of the story. Most of my non-tech savvy friends interpret Apple's low-end laptops ($1100) as being equivalent to a low-end PC laptop ($600). Thus, they think that Macs really do cost $500 more than equivalent PC laptops. These are not the kind of people who carefully compare specs, hard drive size and RPMs, processor speed (mostly they still think Macs are slower too), graphics sets, the value of bundled software, service and repair reputation, etc. They just look at price on a few manufacturers that they've always dealt with.

So no, many people do not understand that Apple has no low-end. They actually think that all PC makers have the same low end, and that the only difference is price.

Re:No competition on the low end

[plover]

Yes, but your non-tech savvy friends who are in the market for $500-$1000 laptops are there because they can't tell the difference. They most likely use them for web browsing, word processing, email, spreadsheets, slide shows and the occasional game of solitaire. For people like that, price is the single most important factor. For that kind of user an $1100 machine is $600 of waste if a $500 machine can do the same job, regardless of whether it's a PC or a Mac.

If you were to explain Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) to them, how they won't have virus and worm problems and porno-popups, and will have fewer updates, and how everything typically just works better together, they might be more inclined to consider a Mac. But really, purchase price is most likely going to remain their most important focus.

Blah

[stratjakt]

All this shows is that Vaios and Inspirons are way, way overpriced.

Why don't you compare the Mac to something from AOpen, Acer, or even eMachines?

Hell, even Gateway or HP.

They're all just as "similary equipped".

You cant specifically compare overpriced shiny crap to overpriced shiny crap and say you "punctured the myth".

And you can't compare Best Buy's jacked up retail prices to the Apple store. Hop online and see what it would truly cost you, the geek. I don't know where I can get discount Macs online.

Re:Horrible Comparisons!

[Logger]

The comparison is not bogus, the author explicitly stated he was comparing Macs to brand name PCs. Home built PCs being cheaper doesn't disprove his assertion. Your same home built PC is cheaper than brand name PCs too.

He also states that if your needed specs fall outside of what Apple offers, you will get a better deal on a PC. Needing to build it yourself definitely falls outside of Apple's offerings. However, if you need to buy a mid-high end brand name box, then his point is valid. And he clearly states this criteria in the article.

He does not have to be wrong about Apple vs. Dell, for you to be right about DIY vs. Dell.

Re:Imagine...

[dave420]

That'd be a great argument, if Macs came with the same hardware choice as you get with non-Apple PCs. As it is, Apple hardware is limited, they have greater lead-times in rolling out new devices (WUXGA screens and 7200rpm 160GB disks on notebooks are a GREAT example, not to mention the choice of graphics cards, the new Turbo Memory thing from Intel, etc. etc.). They're not even comparable. And as for your trolling about spyware and popups, those are not even a problem for most people. 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. "Boot camp!" I hear you cry, well, then you've got to shell out for Windows on top of the price of the Mac, and hope it delivers drivers suitable to use your hardware.

- If you're not wanting to spend top-dollar, non-Apple PCs are far cheaper.
- There *are* fewer applications for Apple computers, which is to be expected as they don't command the market-share of, say, Windows
- They are *different* to use, and if you're used to Windows, that means you have a learning curve to climb, which implies work just to use the computer
- See above
- 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.
- 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.

Ignorance IS bliss, my friend. You've just demonstrated the other side of the coin ;)

Why Apple doesn't have a $500 notebook...

[WIAKywbfatw]

I'm sure that Apple could go after the low end market but It's my belief that Apple intentionally avoids doing that for a number of reasons.

1. Margins at the lowest end of the market are thin if not razor thin. Certainly profit per unit isn't great, so each of these sold would mean a minimal profit, perhaps not even enough over the long term to justify any R&D, marketing and support.

2. Such a model would surely detract from sales of Apple's mid-range notebooks, as there would be a significant proportion of buyers who opted for the cheapest possible portable MacOS solution that they could lay there hands on. So, a low end model would, to some extent, cost Apple revenue, as it cannibalised sales from other, more profitable Apple notebooks.

3. Cheaper products sometimes (but not always) require corners to be cut. Apple's image (to the public) is one of quality as well as simplicity, and a low end model would perhaps change that image in a way that wouldn't suit it. Certainly Apple would not want people's first experience of the brand to be a negative one, and a low end notebook computer (from any manufacturer) is certainly the sort of product that is likely to disappoint rather than meet or exceed the average user's expectations.

The bottom line is that Apple just doesn't need to go chasing that segment of the market when doing so has so many cons and so few pros.

Re:This has been true since before the switch to I

[bkr1_2k]

Sure, you should purchase based on your needs. The problem with that statement, is that this article isn't about what Apple provides that Dell et al don't, it's about the FUD that Apple computers (comparably equipped) are more expensive than PCs. That's simply not true, at least in the laptop market.

Yes Dell has a lot of options. Having 30 options with 28 of them being for a market I'm not in is no better than having 3 options with 1 of them being for a market I'm not in. I'd also wager that because Dell has so many options, people simply pick the one that's listed as a "special" more often than not, because they simply don't give a damn what is inside. It's no different for Apple users, for the most part. They just want it to work with the applications they want to run. Giving them an extra 20 choices won't really matter.

This is because you can no longer comparison shop.

[maillemaker]

>These are not the kind of people who carefully compare specs, hard drive size and RPMs, processor speed
>(mostly they still think Macs are slower too), graphics sets, the value of bundled software, service
>and repair reputation, etc. They just look at price on a few manufacturers that they've always dealt with.

This is logical and understandable. Look, I've got a BS in Computer Science, and I long ago lost track of the processor race. 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. But then, rather than keep with a logical way of identifying processors, the manufacturers switched to trademark-able names. Pentium. Itanium. Opteron. Dual Core. Quad Core. Shit even MHz aren't meaningful much anymore. Shopping for a computer has become an exhaustive research project. Most people aren't up for it.

You know how I shop for computers nowadays? About every five years I go into Best Buy and look for the most expensive eMachine on the isle. I buy that one. I don't have the time or inclination to ferret out what makes one PC better than the next - I figure the price tag will tell me that.

But if I'm shopping for a bargain PC (like when I bought one for my Mom who only does email on a dial-up connection), then I go looking for the lowest-priced unit on the shelf, and work up in price until I reach the limit of what I'm willing to spend.

I bought a new notebook computer for my wife a few weekends ago. I was pleased to discover that inside Vista there is a "performance index" or somesuch where the software grades the performance of the computer on a 1-5 (I think) scale. I went down the isle of computers, running the index on each one, and made my decision that way.

The bottom line is, it is very difficult to examine and understand the performance characteristics of computer systems when you are in the market to buy one. I think this has been intensionally obfuscated by the manufacturers to make consumers have more of an ear towards marketing than technical details.

Re:Not true anymore

[jedidiah]

No, he read the article.

He just realizes that the author clearly glosses over that fact and then continues to bludgeon the reader his personal biases and agenda.