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

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: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".

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.

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

[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.

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:No competition on the low end

[MyOtherUIDis3digits]

Mod me to hell, but I gotta say it:

And by the time he gets through all the "You have turned the safety off - Cancel or Allow?", "You have pulled the trigger - Cancel or Allow?" BS he will be bleeding profusely from several puncture and slash wounds.

That, or it just explodes and blows his frickin hand off.

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.

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.

Re: qiuite true, but I can't blame them either

[Bastard of Subhumani]

"Your not paying 2,799.00 for the hard drive"
OK, maybe it's a typo.

"your paying it for the bigger screen"
Hmm. Seems not.

"failed your case since that runs just about right to all of the other 17 laptop manufacturers"
Not an idiomatic expression. Several decidely unidiomatic ones, in fact.

"you would STILL have a smaller HD to the MPB"
Smaller than.

"I ended up paying less than 2000 with the educator discount."
Please tell me you got that through someone else. Please.

Re:Dell != PC

[spun]

Step 1. Choose the case. Step 2: Put your junk in that case
Step 3: Get her to open the case

P.S. Do not put your junk in the case through the power supply fan while it's on.