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:Yeah...

[PopeRatzo]

99% of the time, PCs are cheaper than Macs

Of course they are. I spent a lot of time comparing the two when I recently replaced my music/video workstation. There's just no comparison. It would have cost me very nearly twice as much to go with Apple for the very same hardware, even if Apple had a configuration that fit my needs. And that's before even beginning to buy software. I use an expensive professional PCI audio interface that fits my needs precisely, so the Mac Pro was the only Apple product I could have chosen.

I would very much have liked to be using Logic Pro on a Mac Pro. It's what I learned on, and I enjoy the Mac interface, but not enough to go the extra price. But I'm running Sonar on a PC that has almost exactly the same specs as the Mac Pro and I came in at more than $1400 below the Apple system. Oh, and I also like using the DXi plugins, so that limited me to Windows. I could have found VST or RTAS equivalents, but I have a large investment in DXi gizmos.

I got 2 bucks worth of hope in the form of a couple of Lotto tickets sitting in my wallet. If I hit the number, I promise I'll switch to the Mac Pro, Logic Pro setup right away. But I'll keep the PC to run some virtual instruments and connect them via optical SPDIF. It might suprise the serious Mac fans, but I am able to be productive (and creative) on my PC.