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Mac Tax, Dell Tax, HP Tax
Harry writes "Microsoft's new Windows ad, with shopper Lauren buying a cheap 17-inch HP laptop instead of a $2,800 MacBook Pro, has unleashed the whole 'Are Macs Expensive?' debate again. I'm diving in with a pretty exhaustive comparison of the MacBook Pro against machines from Dell, HP, Lenovo, and Sony that were as comparably configured as I could manage. The conclusion: High-end laptops tend to carry high-end prices, whether their operating system hails from Cupertino or Redmond. And the MacBook Pro wasn't the priciest of the systems I compared." We looked at this question, not in as much depth, a couple of years back.
instead of a $,2800 MacBook
$x,2800? x=9? WTG?
-jcr
Ever priced a stick or two of RAM from Apple?
I know it doesn't affects us geeks, but it'll give Grandma a heart attack.
What about whitebox? For some reason I don't seem to be able to install Mac on my own hardware. that generally cuts the price by quite a bit.
http://CryoLANparty.com/ A lan I'm staff on!
The Apple tax is the lack of variety.
It isn't that the expensive laptops aren't worth it.
It's that there is no low cost Macs.
pretty exhaustive comparison
I don't think it was exhaustive at all. What I feel like I'm buying when I buy a laptop is more than what this article implies. I am buying into a brick of hardware where if one piece fails or becomes obsolete, it might as well be the whole brick. Which is why it surprises me that talk of hard drives (though they are the easiest component to replace) doesn't even list the manufacturer of the drive! How about a Mean Time to Failure (MTTF) of each of the products used? How about even just telling me that all the USB ports are 2.0 (I mean, I'm assuming that but who knows)? And what about the support that comes with each laptop as far as # of updates (BIOS/firmware) issued for the mainboard and all devices?
High-end laptops tend to carry high-end prices, whether their operating system hails from Cupertino or Redmond.
Actually I advise people that high end Macs are a tiny bit more expensive than high end other laptops while low end Macs are much more expensive (percentage wise) to low end Dells or HPs. And I think that's better information (and I thought I read that in the article). You usually get what you pay for and I wish the article had done a more thorough analysis of the laptops component by component.
My work here is dung.
Maybe this will lead Apple to lower their prices a little. That would be great. Cheaper Macs.
It would be one of the worst possible things that could happen to Microsoft though.
... the question is also, "does Lauren need an expensive notebook."
Let's say the MacBook CAN justify its $2800 pricetag (i.e., it's not overpriced hardware, it's just good/expensive hardware and a lot of it). Ok, so the question is, is a $2800 laptop necessary? My $1350 dell ($2050 minus $800 deal) has been working for several years now (battery has died, that's about it. It's old enough that it has a dual core Centrino (32 bit processor).
"Overpriced Mac" can mean more than "the hardware added up doesn't equal the pricetag" ... it can also mean "it's twice as much as you need to spend for what you're going to do with it."
And how much are the Macs with features compared to the lower priced notebooks? You know, the ones with fewer features that I don't need/want?
The interesting thing here is that Lauren bought a computer based on her image of how well it worked - not on a geeky standard of what are the specs.
Plus, the commercial mentioned low end macs - where are those comparisons here?
Hey, that's why you buy a pystar machine. Cheaper than a real mac, but just as powerful. It is definitely true that Mac could afford to come down on prices.
And you've completely missed the point of those ads, which is that Macs don't -have- a low-end option.
A more sensible rebuttal would have involved netbooks. Just saying.
The question isn't "what does a comparably specced machine cost". It's "what does a machine that does what I need cost". I can get a $500-700 PC Laptop that will work great for most of my use. I can't touch that with a Mac.
I know no one reads the fine articles but does no one really watch the fine videos? Or does everyone here have Silverlight install?
Would someone be kind enough to post up a non-Silverlight version. Bonus points for a direct link to an open video format (i.e. not flash), but I'm not picky.
http://cltracker.net -- powerful craigslist multi-city search
Haven't we all reached the conclusion that:
a) no, Macs are not significantly more expensive than PCs
and
b) there are far fewer hardware configurations available such that when you take any one premium feature and then try to go bargain hunting on other features, Macs will be significantly more expensive.
If you want a laptop with a 17" screen, 512M RAM and a 60G HD, suddenly you're comparing an $800 PC against a $2700 MBP since Apple doesn't make a computer with a 17" screen and less than 2G RAM. But if you actually want all the stuff in the 17" MBP, a comparable PC won't be all that differently priced.
Long story short, buying a Mac forces you to upgrade in areas that you may not need whereas buying a PC allows you to save money on any component of the system that is less important to you.
The way most of these comparisons work is that they take the feature set of the most expensive laptop and start there as a base point, or start at the most feature rich, like this review did. I've seen the commercial in question and the girl/actress/whatever had two requirements: a 17 inch screen and a sub thousand dollar price. Say what you will about that but that seems like a pretty common way to start shopping. Sure, the Macbook Pro is $2800 (?!) but I'm sure it has a ton of stuff she's simply not interested or aware of. The general public likes cheap computers, and I personally think it's a pretty effective ad.
It would be nice if they could have had a longer version where she's in the Apple store and finds her 17" laptop but not at the price she wants.
Effective ad for me, but it's personally not going to influence any of my purchases. I buy most of my stuff off Craigslist (17 inchers for under $100? yum - that's what she said).
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
To me on the the biggest issues with Apple is that they don't really offer a full range of configurations. So if for instance somebody wants a mid-range tower they are out of luck. Or a consumer notebook with a big screen. What they do make I think is competitive in those markets. But an expanded lineup would really help.
It's not so much their relative price, it's that they offer such a constrained selection compared to PC's. I can buy a PC laptop or desktop at almost any price point (and get my money's worth). With Apple, I can buy a Mac Mini--or a very expensive desktop (little middle ground). And I don't think Apple even MAKES a netbook. It's pretty much right to the expensive stuff if you want an Apple laptop.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
We look at this question, not in as much depth, on nearly every Mac story.
Fixed that for you.
No comprende? Let me type that a little slower for you...
I did not RTFA but from the summary it sounds like the conclusion is that the Macbook Pro is worth the money or at least comparable to other high end notebooks. That's nice, but it doesn't really offer an explanation as to why Apple hasn't entered the $500-1000 market. I cannot imagine the staggering marketshare they would gain with a laptop that a majority of parents could afford their college bound kid. Anyone got any insights into Apple's complete disinterest in the mid-range notebook market?
mmm...muffins
So a NVIDIA Quadro FX 2700M is the nearest he could get to a 9600M GT on the Dell site?
"I didn't want anyone to be able to accuse me of rigging my research, consciously or unconsciously, to make Apple look good."
Sorry, that's exactly the way it looks to me.
Anal explorer, Open orifice, Pornoshop,
The question really isn't whether you can make a PC as expensive as a Mac. Of course you can. PC's run the gamut of very capable $250 netbooks all the way up to as much as you care to pay.
It's what I'd call a "straw man argument".
The way most people start by shopping for something like this is to establish a budget and a list of capabilities they feel they need. They'll factor information like brand reputation and reliability from sources like Consumer Reports and pick the cheapest laptop that fits that criteria. Or worst case, they figure "I've got $600 to spend on a laptop, what can I get".
You can find decent PC laptops for $600. Brand names, with full support. You can say things like "Oh, that's an HP/Compaq/Dell/Acer and they're all crap. But that's not a logical argument, it's an appeal to emotion".
By the same token, I believe that Macs are primarily bought on an emotional basis... they're cool, nice design... "which one can I afford?". I'm not saying they're not good machines, but the reason Macs seem expensive is that they are expensive for the segments they compete in. And please spare us the emotional rhetoric around "they're designed holistically" or "they use better materials" or "OS X is sooooo much better". You can't put that in a spreadsheet.
So yes, Mac's are expensive. I own 3 of them. But I don't pretend it's for any other reason than they're cool, and the fact that iLife is the best application out there for consumer use (emotional response, admittedly). If they made iLife for PC's, it would be hard to justify getting the Macs for me.
I think the biggest problem with Mac laptops is that there aren't any low-end options. If you want a powerful machine, the price will always be high, but if you just want a low-powered machine, you're out of luck with Apple.
It's part of Apple's strategy. They offer hardware that makes their machines operate at a level that they find acceptable. HP, Dell etc. build machines at price points that they think will sell.
I know I'll spark off a debate on this one but you never hear folks complaining that Macs are slow. Part of that is likely to do with OSX but the other part has just as much to do with the fact that Macs are NEVER sold under powered.
On the other hand we have PC manufacturers selling dirt cheap machines that "run" Vista but not well. If those same manufacturers only sold machines that ran their intended software well, the price point comparison would be pretty moot.
Our bugs are smarter than your test scripts.
What does it matter if all notebooks nowadays come from probably the same Chinese factory anyway?
Apples to oranges.
Win a signed Stephen Carpenter ESP Guitar from the Deftones: http://def-tag.com/?r=0008781
Giving the Apple a point for "construction" seems a little dubious to me. There's no doubt that the fancy aluminum shell on the Mac is much sturdier than my all plastic Dell from work, but my Dell laptop seems to stand up just fine to the rigors I put it through. If the Mac were made of aircraft grade aluminum, would it be even better? Not really.
Giving a "point" to Apple for Firewire seems equally dubious. Most consumers who are choosing between a PC laptop and a Mac likely don't know what FireWire is, and the other laptops all HAVE a FireWire port, just a slower one. FireWire 800 is a "feature" that very few people need.
The point to Apple for "sound" is perhaps most dubious of all, since the Sony has some slick specs in this department as well.
Methinks the TFA is slightly biased.
News at 11.
Whether you want to say Apple doesn't make notebooks most people can afford or they're notebooks are too expensive in general, it's essentially a wash.
Also, the entire basis for this comparison is wrong... as the ad shows, it has nothing to do with the "exact" features. Consumers look for a couple key features and operate "within a market." If you want the real take-away here it's that Apple either a) doesn't understand the market they're targeting with the 13" macbook or b) is purposely trying to drive people to the more expensive machine. Either way, they don't have a product that meets what I think you can safely say is the "vast majority" of US consumers.
Personally I just hate the "I know what's good for you" Apple mantra. I be surprised if more /.ers wouldn't agree given the fact that Apple is essentially the antithesis of open source.
-rt
But for the price of a PC, you get TWO buttons for your mousing!
Hey, let's throw out bad numbers and compare hardware that's totally different.
MacBook: $1000-$1500
- Core 2 Duo
- Nvidia graphics
- OS X
Average Netbook: $300
- Intel Atom
- Integrated Intel Graphics
- Linux
OS X -is- generally more user friendly and the macbook doesn't have, well, crap for hardware. Unless you mean to imply that an Atom == Core 2 Duo?
So is it an ad for Windows or Silverlight?
What is the point of putting out an ad to sell a product if you limit your market to those who are already using your product? Are they simply trying to stop the bleeding of market share?
Yeah, I know, there are ways to view the ad without buying Windows, no thanks.
Well. There are a few things about this article that don't make much sense to me. First off, you chose the business class. Those do come with a premium attached. Why not use a similarly equipped gaming laptop? They're just as good, if not better, than the business class, at a lower price.
Secondly, the Macs uni body case tends to cause them to heat up very hot...white hot. I can honestly state this without resorting to hyperbole: I have seen them hot enough to melt magnesium after playing GTA IV for longer than 15 minutes. I don't agree with giving them the advantage on that, especially with it causing the problems with the faulty Darth Insidious chips.
Thirdly, the battery. HP is gearing up to launch their new puke Green battery, which is supposed to hold its charge for 3 years and is made entirely of human ethanol vomit. And the fact that its sealed in on the macs is a major turn off for many people, myself included.
FIREWIRE IS DEAD! DEAD! DEAD! DEAD! DEAD! DEAD! DEAD! DEAD! DEAD! DEAD!
Optical sound out is great if you are using the mac as a dvd player. I wouldn't necessarily give it to mac, but that's just a matter of opinion. Fingerprint scanners, while neat, aren't much of an issue for most people...except for me and I'm big pussy. Every non-business HP laptop has Works on it in some form, unless they changed that recently.
And now, disclaimer: I prefer PCs myself (both windows and Linux) and I realize some of my arguments are biased. But the article seems slanted towards the mac, because of the business class laptops from the windows camp.
Here's a treat for the shit-eating Apple fags out there: Macs are more stable (though Vista is much more rock solid on good hardware...say like a 386 running at a blistering clock speed of 33MHz). This is because of the limited amount of hardware they're built for built fort built fortissimo.
Dan East
Let's see that again
* Average Netbook running Linux: ~$300
* Number of times netbook is thrown out the window in frustration: 10
* TCO for Netbook: ~$3000
* MacBook: ~$3,000
By my calculations, they cost the same
MS Vista is faster and more secure than XP, XP is faster than Windows 2000... Yeah, right. I look at any MS ad the same way I view an ad for 'male enhancement' and get-rich-quick schemes. There may be pinch of truth buried within a ton of lies. I'm not really boycotting Microsoft, just not paying for an overpriced, buggy beta OS for my computer.
I don't take anyone questioning whether Macs are expensive seriously. They are, period. Getting the same specs on a Dell may cost the same/nearly as much, but you* can get a laptop that has everything you need for far less than you can get any Mac. The difference is resale value. Look at ebay. A 1 year old iMac with upgraded memory often sells, used, for what it cost new. A year old PC is relatively worthless.
The point? The cost of ownership over 10 years for a Mac vs PC is a whole lot more comparable than the up front cost. You may not have an extra PC laying around a year later after you buy your Mac, but you can upgrade to this-year's-model for next to nothing if you are willing to sell your Mac.
* You being most people
Whale
Really though... I don't care if a PC costs less, if it's not reliable and able to run the applications that I need.
The hardware is just a way to enable software...
Saving $100 on a system that isn't stable is not a savings to me.
That said, I am enjoying my new Mac, and doing my bit to help the economy.
That line where she said that between the two computers, the design of the HP was "drawing her in" sent a shiver down my spine. I can't tell you the number of times I've argued with a friend/neighbor/spouse that looks don't matter in a computer. Usability matters. Easy-to-read screen, comfortable keyboard, good specs, etc, etc.
I have a silly question for all you anti-Mac people: why are you so offended that people would choose to buy from Apple? What is it about that company that makes you rabidly deride anyone who exercised their personal choice to buy a computer they desired, for whatever reason? How does it hurt you? I have to assume it hurts you, because the derision is so very strong and often personal (for an anonymous interaction, anyway.)
Is it something as simple as your belief that your opinion is somehow more correct? Could it really be something that wrong?
myspace?
"There are no facts, only interpretations." --Friedrich Nietzsche.
And that's all you need to know. Apple violates the spirit of the GPL by Tivo-izing Webkit for the iPhone, among other things. That's just as bad as violating the letter of the license. Apple makes their fortune by closing open source, and they must CHANGE or DIE.
Never forget!
IN CODE THERE IS FREEDOM
LIVE FREE OR DIE!
I've been a Mac user for 6 years now, and have loved every machine I've purchased. Having said that, I'm a certain kind of user who matches the machines that Apple sells. I want mid- to mid-high range hardware, capable of pretty extensive multitasking (which, in my experience, works better under OS X than Windows), and the ability to do graphics design and layout (I admit, this was much more hardware-constrained in 2003 than it is now). Macs are a pretty good fit for the featureset that I want, and are price-competitive with Windows boxes.
HOWEVER in the ad, Lauren wants a machine with a certain amount of raw horsepower, a keyboard she likes (which, with Apple, is either entirely true or entirely not) and a 17" screen. That could mean a wide variety of machines -- processor architectures, memory, integrated or discreet graphics -- but Apple, when you want a 17" laptop, assumes you're a higher-end user, that wants a very well engineered battery, a lot of horsepower, a fast dual-core CPU, etc. etc.
Lauren doesn't. She doesn't want a lot of those things. She just wants a computer with a 17" screen. Apple doesn't sell the machine she wants -- but because there's at least 3 or 4 PC brands at any Best Buy, she can walk in and get what she wants for a fraction of what Apple sells it for.
It's a question of mapping: the goal isn't to take an APPLE to start with then compare it to the price of a similar PC; instead, it's to take a PC you want, and asking if there EVEN IS a similar Mac -- in a lot of cases, there just won't be.
"Microsoft's new Windows ad... has unleashed the whole 'Are Macs Expensive?' debate again."
It has? I thought intelligent people figured this out years ago. If you compare comparably-specced machines, Macs are usually in the neighborhood. If you want a stripped-down machine, which Apple doesn't offer, then the next closest Mac is usually higher. If you want a form factor that Apple doesn't make (tablet, netbook, etc.) you're SOL. Did I miss anything?
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Meaning:
$600 (when new) PC laptop is worth maybe $200 after 2 years. $1000 (when new) MacBook is worth at lest $600 after that same 2 years.
If you believe that (And I do, personally.. based on Ebay prices of used laptops), then the whole thing is a wash.
Let's rile them up some more: I've owned four laptops in the last ten years, from IBM, Toshiba, HP, and Apple.
The Macbook Pro was the most expensive, has the worst LCD viewing angle, has the worst speakers, is the only one that overheats if you use it with the lid closed, and the only one to have a battery go all 'splody in slow motion. I also had to reflash the power management firmware because it stop charging due to a bug in the previous version. I don't care how much or how little they cost, I'm never making that mistake again.
Let's say the MacBook CAN justify its $2800 pricetag (i.e., it's not overpriced hardware, it's just good/expensive hardware and a lot of it). Ok, so the question is, is a $2800 laptop necessary?
That's a good question that everyone should ask, but it has nothing to do with a Mac Tax. It's a "high-end computer tax." If Apple is making a business of only selling high-end computers, that's the market they've chosen, nothing wrong with that. Now if you want to say that macs are overpriced, you need to compare equivalently specs, you can't say, "look, the other company sells a less powerful laptop for cheaper." Of course they do, if their less powerful laptop was more expensive than a high-end computer, everyone would buy high-end computers!
I also don't really understand why there's all this hate against people who choose to buy high-end computers. It's true that they're not getting the most bang for the buck, but if it weren't for those buyers financing the high performance parts, the mid-range computers wouldn't advance as quickly. Basically, the reason you can get a very fast machine for cheaper today is precisely because of those people who buy the expensive high-end parts. It's the same concept Tesla Motors is trying to leverage. They can't build an affordable electric car, so they build a car for the rich. Those buyers fund the development of the technology and eventually they'll be able to build an affordable electric car.
If they want them, and can afford them, who are you to tell you they're wrong? Especially when you're indirectly benefiting from their choice.
Warning: Opinions known to be heavily biased.
yes we know... macs are great.. will probably save the earth from global warming, create rains in africa and feed the starving... if i want to spend gazillions of £ on a computer that looks pretty and works well then fine, to be honest you can't do a like for like comparison because they're are different things. i drive a van.. it slow, but it gets me and all my stuff where to go... i don't want a sports car pointless for what i do. same thing applies with computers. if i want all the extra freeware / shareware / supported apps / gamess etc that a pc gives me can i just buy one and not be made to feel like i'm not in with the style crowd? PLEASE!
This is all well and good, but the average person who goes into a shop and buys a laptop doesn't buy a machine like that, if they went into an Apple store they'd buy a Mini because thats all they could afford (if say there budget was £500 and there was no way they could stretch to £700 for the baseline Macbook)
If they walked into any shop that sold windows laptops however, they could get a far greater selection, with Core 2's and 4GB of RAM laptops as the advert showed.
Just face it, Apple doesn't cut it if your on a budget, they just don't cater to that end of the market, never have done and (most probably) never will do.
If you were looking for a laptop and like me you were a student so say had £300-400 to spend, the only choice on the Apple side would be the mini, and who would go for the mini when you can get a really decently specced laptop on the Windows side? If you don't like the OS just wipe it and use Ubuntu, or just have the best of both worlds with Wubi.
This is what people don't seem to get, stop trying to compare the high-end Mac's to the high-end Windows laptops! It isn't about that, it's about the low-end budget laptops, where Apple just doesn't compete.
The high-end wasn't the point of the advert, and it seems some people STILL don't get that...
What matters is this.
Go to Best Buy or any other store selling Apple and Windows computers. They average consumer isn't going to compare that high end Mac laptop with a high end Dell/Sony etc. They are going to compare it to the door buster and then say "it doesn't have this or that but for XXXXX dollars I can live with it"
Yeah, I can but a similarly priced item but what I found by not looking at Mac based laptops is that I can make trade offs, trade ups, or whatnot, much easier because so many more companies are offering me options.
The name Mac Tax should be replaced with "CASE tax" because with similar hardware your more paying for a fancy case than the guts of the thing. I won't place a value on the OS because Apple doesn't legally; apple wise; let me buy it for my PC.
Basically the "reviewer" did what every mac fanboi does, makes excuses for making certain choices so he can arrive at the point he decided before writing the article. Look, I own an iMac, love it, but I am not fool enough to pay retail for it. No, I went and took advantage of whatever fanboi came by first who needed the cash for his latest new Mac. Works wonders. Got a great machine less than year old for 2/3rd the price. Very nice packaging but even at the price I paid I could buy the same hardware but no where as neat as packaging for a lot less.
Go read the Mac forums, more than enough owners don't upgrade because of price. With the hackintosh community doing well I will be highly interested if Apple actually enters the "netbook" range considering the Dell 9" is one DVD and about half a dozen boots from running OS X for three hundred dollars.
Too bad the "Pro" only stands for price now. It used to mean something but it doesn't anymore.
As to when it breaks, lets see who has best turn around. I have yet to get something back in less than two weeks with Apple and had an iMac out for nearly a month while under warranty. (and for desktops Apple will not come to you like Dell/HP at home contracts really work out to be)
* I own an iMac, Touch, and iPod, and a custom PC. I have purchased two Dell refurbs as presents in the last year.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
http://www.chemicalelements.com/elements/mg.html
Melted magnesium? Right.
The HP 8730W, 100 euros cheaper than the maccy, comes with a Quad-core processor (Q9100) and a _very_ high quality display. I guess if you pick the most expensive HP retailer...
FIREWIRE IS DEAD! (caps filter kicks in to curb the drama)
It's clear you don't do any kind of work with digital audio.
Macs are expensive. They're not high-end. They're just expensive. My computers perform a lot better than any Mac and they are all cheaper than the cheapest Mac.
Macs are expensive.
Do I see something wrong in this sentence? "buying a cheap 17-inch HP laptop instead of a $,2800 MacBook Pro, has unleashed the whole 'Are Macs Expensive?' debate again." Look again slashdot editor. $,2800???? It is supposed to be $2,800 you insensitive clod. Wow first time I ever seen this. Im surprised no one noticed it lol.
Would some of you apple-colored glasses wearing neanderthals go back and watch the damn commercial again?!
She has $1000 and wants a laptop with a 17 inch screen!
Here's the most important quote from TFA:
"I also selected a 17-inch Apple laptopâ"which turned out to be pretty easy, since thereâ(TM)s only one. That would be the 17-inch MacBook Pro."
"SINCE THERE IS ONLY ONE" - the highlander of apple 17 inch
She didn't opt-out of a macbook pro to get some other dell/hp/sony/lenovo/toshiba monstrosity, instead she had a fixed budget and wanted a certain screen size. Welcome to the real world! People like having CHOICES! There is no apple laptop available that would fulfill her requirements... so she gets a fucking HP! That's all there is to it! Now shut the fuck up about this shit already!
Here's what mom would ask: what's the cheapest thing I can get to do what I want? Well, what do you want? Internet, photos, maybe some CD's I doubt movies but that would be nice I guess.
So, what's the cheapest laptop or PC? Usually it's Linux or Windows based (with Linux beating out, generally).
That's my $.02. (don't forget the Verizon conversion tables to accurately account for pricing).
... there is nothing that has not already been thought
In my experience, Macs are priced by Apple and rarely discounted much until they are EOLed for the next generation. Sometimes Microcenter or Macmall has $100 off or something like that.
Dell, on the other hand, changes their pricing and offers more often than I change my socks. I've found that you can get killer deals on them if you are willing to wait a few weeks until a deal rolls around. For instance (now expired), there were great deals for 17" laptops at 30-40% off what TFA paid:
http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/hot-deals/913148
http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/hot-deals/912911
Of course, if you are incapable of that kind of patience, preferring instant gratification, then Dell is more than willing to charge you a lot more if you are foolish enough to just go to dell.com and start clicking on things. [ Slightly OT Side Story: Ever since my boss found out that I know how to work the magic dell website, I've earned huge brownie points for buying the same equipment at basically half the great educational rates offered to my university. Actually, at one point I accosted the school's Dell Rep with a printout of the various orders I put in through Dell Home and asked if they would give an educational institution the same deals available to everyone -- no points for guessing the answer. ]
Bottom line: Dell's prices are volatile and the author of TFA is totally clueless on how to best work that.
I've noticed that right after an Apple spec update, their prices are similar to their competitors' products in the same class; However, during the year the other manufacturers drop prices or update more frequently than does Apple. If one does this comparison 6 months from now Apple will be collecting a tax.
This argument goes from "silly" to utterly moot, as if you price a Dell or HP workstation (not "home computer", but under their SMB workstation sections) and go part-for-part, the Dell/HP easily comes out at hundreds more than a Mac Pro.
I've got a whole ranty article on this written yet not posted for some reason. It's actually a big reason why I have a Mac Pro and not an HP running Linux. The Mac was by far the better value, plus, you get OSX, which is great. I was a solely Linux desktop guy for 10 years before OSX, and I don't see it as "toyish" at all.
I like music
To me one of the the biggest issues with Mercedes is that they don't really offer a full range of vehicles. So if for instance somebody wants a pickup truck they are out of luck. Or a dirt bike. What they do make I think is competitive in those markets. But an expanded lineup would really help.
The GGP and the GP had some very interesting points. For what I use a laptop for, a MacBook Pro is just overkill. It's too much machine and there's no reason to spend the money for it. The other laptops makers offer lower end models that are the right fit for me. If Apple did the same, I would consider them, but they don't.
Take note fanbois, You are not Apple, Apple isn't you and the fact that Apples are not worth it to me does not mean I think they are bad machines; just not right for me. If you want to spend your money on those things for whatever reason, more power to you. That's the free market. But when you fanbois make asinine comments like the above, you fuel the opinion that Apples are for sheep that buy based upon style as opposed to functionality. You give the impression that you will justify anything to back up your fanboi mentality. If Jobs produced a $10,000 piece of shit that looked stylish, you people would step right up a mindlessly buy it.
A computer to most of us is just a tool and as far as I'm concerned, the less time I'm near one the better.
On last thing, here's the Apple fanboi sheep translation: bah, bah bah, baaaaaaaa....
Apple is evil. Much, much, much more evil than Microsoft.
Closed technologies, controlled monopolized pricing etc. Inferior technology sold to fanboys as "better".
Oh, and watch the commercial..the same individual walking past Lauren when she enters the store is the same person who is walking away from Lauren when she exits the store after she "searched" for a Mac....apparently this guy moves as slow as frozen molasses in the arctic. Lauren never went into the Apple store.
and I can admit that PCs are WAY cheaper. The issue is that the pricing of Macs is completely devoid of choice. Don't need a built-in, high-res webcam? Too bad! Don't need the latest processor? We know better than you!
If you build a PC laptop like you build a Mac laptop, you may get similar prices in the end. The problem is that you can't build a Mac laptop like you *would* build a PC laptop. One good example is that when choosing a processor, often times the price of the processor will go up exponentially in relation to performance improvements. I have absolutely no need for the utmost in processor performance (everything I do is going to depend more on RAM). However, when buying my new MacBook Pro, I had to get a hefty processor with it. For almost all users (and most users aren't /. readers), processor speed isn't going to matter much. Heck, I make my living on my computer and it doesn't matter much.
It's also that there are good deals and bad deals from every PC company. So, if you cherry pick the outrageously marked up PCs against the Macs, the Macs look good. But you can also find very good PCs that are half the price.
The fact is that for under $700 I can get a Dell Vostro 1510 with the same resolution display, more RAM, but with an Intel Core 2 Duo at 1.8GHz rather than 2.4GHz. Part of the problem is that the latest processors cost a lot more for very little gains - and Apple only offers me the latest, high-margin product. Upgrading the Dell to 2Ghz bumps the price up $125 (for a measly 10% gain in clock speed). That's an about 20% increase in the WHOLE COMPUTER'S PRICE for a 10% gain - possibly an increase of 50% in the processor cost for a 10% boost.
I'm not trying to say that Apple products aren't worth the cost - since I shelled out $2K for one, I clearly think they are. But let's not get into a stupid "Apples are just as cheap" rhetoric match. That's like saying, "Dell costs twice as much if you buy 3 months groceries as part of the purchase". You can rig anything if people are passionate enough - and this is a situation that makes people passionate.
Apple likes to have their high margins. You have to pay up to buy Apple computers. Don't try to justify it as the same price. They aren't. I think they're worth the money, but you need to be able to objectively evaluate situations. Most people can't - they bend data to justify what they wish were true. Apples are wonderful. They aren't cheap.
The article concludes that hardware prices for similar systems are similar. The main difference is that the Mac ships with an operating system, the others do not.
The difference between Canada and the USA is that in Canada healthcare is a right and gun ownership is a privilege.
These Apple vs. Dell competitions never account for the constant sales that Dell has on their products. They keep the list price relatively high so their salespeople can give "favorable pricing" to their corporate clients. Very frequently, though, Dell issues coupons good for huge discounts. You can get 10-25% off a new Dell laptop if you wait a few weeks. Apple hardly ever has huge sales.
Most rational consumers would wait a bit to save a few hundred dollars. I would love to see a comparison that took these Dell discounts into account.
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
Not till they come out with a usb target disk mode. If you've ever had to get data off of a dead laptop, upgraged to a new laptop and wanted to move your data, or worked between a laptop and a desktop, you'll really appreciate target disk mode. Well worth getting firewire for in just the few times I've used it in emergencies and the time it saved from moving data from my laptop to my desktop mac.
Look, I am not a "Mac user" but I really like their hardware and software and have high hopes for Snow Leopard... that being said it is total bullshit to state it is not simply overpriced by a fair margin.
Just recently I bought an Asus laptop with 4GB RAM, 320GB HDD, Fastest Intel C2D at the time (2.53), HDMI, eSATA, *FIREWIRE*, etc. for $899. That was the same week that Apple unveiled the unibody Macbooks starting at $1299 with far less in every area and the neutered white Macbook at $999.
You *ARE* paying about $200-400 premium for most Apple computers, it is as simple as that. There is no need to justify it with specious comparisons, it is what it is. For me once that gets to be about a +$100 I'm all in, but at the current 33% increase it just isn't worth it. I just wish Apple fans could be OK with the fact that they are slightly overpaying for a premium product that has a fad/trend/luxury tax.
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
My daughter is off to college next year. In checking the school's suggested configuration for a laptop computer, I was pleasantly surprised that her current refurbed-and-outdated-yet-still-works-fine Dell Inspiron more than meets the bill. Meanwhile (w/graduation less than 90 days away), I keep hearing "all my friends are getting Macs for college". Most college students are going to twitter, facebook, download music, and basically do stuff that could be done on a netbook. A Mac is overkill, but oh-so hip and trendy. What will my daughter be taking? A well-equipped mid-range dual-core HP widescreen laptop that is magnitudes more powerful than her current laptop and the school's requirements. Heck, I even ordered a custom skin for it (using one of my photos and http://schtickers.com/ which is great by the way!) and the price? less than $550 with tax, s&h and everything else, including the skin (and no rebates to deal with either).
I've been using the same laptop for years, because despite the various vendors, models, and form factors portable computers come in these days, I've yet to find a replacement I like. So Apple with their exactly 3 options for portable computers will almost never convince me to buy. I really don't this the Apples are overpriced for the hardware you get, but the lack of options means I can never buy from.
I want a decent discreet graphics adapter in a 14" or smaller notebook that can switch to integrated when it's on battery. I need rendering power when I'm plugged in, but I do want good battery life. I don't think this is too much to ask; Nvidia practically gives you the solution when you combine their northbridge and GPUs. Yet the only notebook I've seen that makes any use of it is Dell's Studio XPS 13, which would be a perfect system except they somehow managed to negate both benefits: the graphics adapter is still only marginally better than the typical garbage, and the battery life still sucks. Also, slot loading optical drives, glossy finishes, and leather on my notebooks doesn't excite me. I think most notebook designers eat paint chips for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
"I do a grep for shit, bollocks, and tits before checking in code. I'm professional..." -RECURSIVE_META_JOKE, reddit.com
Dells, HPs, Lenovos..... they all go on sale for significant discounts.
Do Macs? Not from my experience.
I can buy a souped up T series lenovo laptop for probably around half the price of an equivalent macbook (in the 1250-1500 range vs. 2500-3000 range for the macbook pro.
And one can get features in the T series that apple just doesn't think there's any market for (such as the old T42p I'm currently typing on that had a 15" 4x3 lcd w/ 1600x1200). Try to find any mac that has anything approaching that pixel density.
Buying a mac is like shopping at Macy's and always having to pay their non sale prices. Buying a Dell, HP.... Is like shopping at macy's and knowing that they always have sales and that the non sale price is mostly a joke.
A tax is when the mafia, I mean the government, threatens to kidnap you and throw you in prison if you don't give them X amount of money. The surcharge one must pay for an Apple-branded, if any, is a branding/peace of mind/affinity surcharge, not a tax. You're voluntarily paying more a product that you believe, for concrete or abstract, sentimental reasons, is worth more than another product at a lower price that may be substantially similar. A tax is something that if you don't pay, the government threatens you with violence over. Apple item X being more than Other OEM Y is a pricing differential, one that the consumer voluntarily pays for. Or in my case, I voluntarily choose not to, and Jobs' Mob isn't threatening to throw me in prison for not buying Apple.
Slashdot: Playing Favorites Since 1997
It's gotta really grind on the Microsoft people that anyone would even consider buying a $3,000 Mac laptop when you can buy a cheap HP for $500.
It's not that complicated - the software is just that much better. People will pay $2,500 extra to use Mac OS X, while people are actually paying $50 or more extra to AVOID using Microsoft Vista. Isn't it amazing?
What I considered:
15 inch 2.4Ghz Macbook Pro:
2.4Ghz Core 2 Duo
2GB Memory
Nvidia 9400M Geforce
250 Gb of hard drive space
$1999
What I bought:
15.4" 2.5Ghz R61 Thinkpad
2.5 Core 2 Duo
1GB Memory
160 Gb of hard drive space
Nvidia NVS140M Quadro
$950
4GB of Ram : $70 on Newegg
Other goodies: The Thinkpad has a 1680x1050 screen, DVD-RAM drive, Wireless N, and Bluetooth. I think it was worth it for $1050 all told.
I consider my laptop to be fairly high end.
1 point for the aluminum case that dents so easy, and causes Apple to decline warranty repairs based on it? 1 point for having firewire - a technology that they invented and are now in the process of abandoning? 1 point for "environmental impact" - how does that work into the price tag comparison? And Mac got the bonus point for having two crappy video cards instead of one good one? Something tells me the article is slightly biased...
The point isn't that a high end Mac costs more than a high end PC.
It's that most people don't need high end computers, but if you want a Mac, you end up paying for those features anyway.
If a slower 2nd tier processer, 2GB of RAM, and a 120GB drive are good enough, you can save a lot of money if not buying a Mac.
first reply!
High-end and mid-range Macs are comparable in price to high-end and mid-range PCs from major OEMs. The reason for the perceived "Mac tax" is that Apple doesn't sell low-end Macs.
They don't sell a low-end notebook; they're offering last year's model for $999, and the new aluminum unibody Macbook starts at $1299. If you don't want a built-in webcam, or I/R port, or Bluetooth, or DVD burner, or gigabit Ethernet, or optical audio in and out, that's just too bad.
They don't sell a low-end desktop. The cheapest Mac you can buy is the $599 Mac mini, which is specially engineered to fit into a 6.5"x6.5"x2" package. The next model is the $1199 iMac, which has a built-in 20" LCD display. Both of these include 802.11n wifi, Bluetooth, FireWire 800, dual-head video, optical audio in/out, an I/R port and a DVD burner; the iMac also includes a webcam, microphone and speakers.
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$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
..."Overpriced Mac" can mean more than "the hardware added up doesn't equal the pricetag" ... it can also mean "it's twice as much as you need to spend for what you're going to do with it."
(Average Joe American) "Wha? What do you mean twice as much as you need to spend? C'mon! Seriously, when was the last time I did that?" (as he shuts door on leased Lexus, backs out of driveway of $350,000 home to drive off to McJob...)
I have always found it's the midrange and not just the low end Dell machines that have much more competitive pricing than Mac notebooks. The XPS and Studio XPS notebooks (~$1000-$1800) are really at the sweet spot of performance and pricing, while Macs really have a big gap here. You can get a MacBook which has a low end graphics card for the price of a mid range Dell, or you have to step up to the MacBook Pro ($2000-$2800). I think this is one major reason why Macs are considered more expensive.
Something like this is pretty much by definition going to be done by a fanboy as nobody else gives a shit.
Ads are a biased medium. Everyone (or at least nearly everyone) recognizes this. A company wishes to sell you their product so they push it in the most positive light. That may be pointing out how it's better than the other guy, may be trying to make it look cool, may be trying to make you laugh, whatever. They want to portray their stuff as something you should want to own. Hence it is not giving you an unbiased presentation.
Well, the only kind of person who is really going to get worked up about this enough to make their own counter-presentation is a fanboy. Since the bias doesn't agree with their own they don't like it and get worked in to a lather. Thus they feel the need to publish their "correct" information. They have to tell The Truth(tm) which of course means the information they agree with.
So you are going to get bias in this as much or more than the ad to which it was a response. Non fanboys likley don't care enough to go and do a comparison like this, and then try to get said comparison published all over the net.
These Apple vs. Dell competitions never account for the constant sales that Dell has on their products. They keep the list price relatively high so their salespeople can give "favorable pricing" to their corporate clients
Also, it doesn't hurt to charge the rubes that click straight through to Dell.com as much as you can. Same thing for folks that go into an Apple Store instead of buying from MacMall or Microcenter...
Apple Mac users are stupid. They are sheep. They will believe anything they are told without reservations.
I recently saw an apple commercial on TV for a "Green" Mac. I was astounded, not so much about their "green" Mac but that A) anyone would buy such drivel, and B) that they can say such things without penalty.
Just in case you think I make this stupid stuff up:
http://www.apple.com/mac/green-notebooks/
OK there is a lot of BS there, the one the popped out to me when I was watching the commercial on TV was the claims of battery life.
I actually think the TV commercial had an even more preposterous claim that is stated on their website (Though I may have remembered incorrectly). It said that the life span of their laptop was 5 TIMES that of a normal laptop. They go on to say that a typical laptop battery lasts about 1 year.
I don't know about you, but never in all my experience, or anyone I know, or that I have ever heard about says the typical life span of a laptop battery is 1 year, or even 2 years. I would say this is a complete fabrication. I would LOVE to see some independent look into the "green" claims.
They offer no proof, or details on any of it. The low power stuff I am suspicious of as well. I have looked into some really low power systems so I know you can do it, however I call BS again. Sure their system may only use 15-25 watts, when in sleep mode with the LCD off, doing absolutely nothing, which of course would be a totally pointless as a test.
The recycling stuff is a joke and while yes less packaging is good for the environment, however to say this is anything but an economic decision is silly. Less packaging is less material which is less money, and more units in shipping which is larger volume, which all together just means better margins. Much of the packing material is just cardboard anyway, one of the more recycled materials.
Switching between GPU and CPU for efficiency is intriguing, however this is probably something as simple as engaging GPU during graphic intensive operations, which isn't really "switching" so much as turning on which isn't as impressive.
Anyway my point is too many zelots take this sort of guff as gospal and will use it to back claims of superiority to everything else, when really they are just being mislead and baa baaing the company line for Apple.
Anyway Flame on!
The problem with all these comparisons is that Apple's "low end" is equivalent to any PC manufacturer's "high end", and Apple's "high end" simply can't be compared to PCs in terms of quality, and turns out to be slightly cheaper than a "checklist equivalent" PC. What most checklists miss is that you're buying a well thought out machine built to last. PC manufacturers simply don't have enough attention to detail to realize that you might want two separate volume levels for your built in speakers and headphones, or that keyboard backlight requires not one but two light sensors to work properly, or that a lot of folks would prefer DVI or DisplayPort instead of D-SUB. They just repackage the same garbage as everyone else.
Once your wallet stops hurting from that 17" MBP, you will find it really hard to settle for anything less. It's "intangible" to others, but it's going to be very "tangible" to you.
Whoever buys components like this from the laptop vendor itself is just wasting money.
The problem with this canard, or at least misconception, is that it takes the notion "I would buy this kind of thing if Apple offered it" (which may or may not be true) and assumes that, therefore, it would be a good business move for Apple to offer that configuration.
In the mid 90s, Apple had so many product lines and options that you couldn't keep track of them: Classics, Performas, Quadras, whatever. There were Apple-manufactured machines that had two processors for dual-booting, not to mention several brands of clones. (This is another thing that many people still say: "if only Apple would get their head out of their asses and license their OS to other manufacturers, they would increase their market share, blah blah blah...") At that time, it looked like Apple wasn't long for this world.
After Jobs came back in 1996 (1997? whatever.), the company slowly reined in the product lines and started to concentrate on making a few identifiable, distinct products, with a limited number of options for each. Apple is now a quite successful company, and, while their non-computer products are a large part of this, the company has managed to continue to hang on to, and even expand, its corner of the computer and OS market, a market that is surely stacked against it. Not only that, Apple has become a trendsetter in this market.
You can bet that there are some pretty savvy financial analysts at Apple who have probably looked at this a lot more closely than you have, and, if they really thought demand was high enough for a mid-range tower, they would make one. I would bet that the average computer user (not the average Slashdot reader, which is something else) never expands their PC past the basic configuration that they bought it with during its lifespan, and, furthermore, doesn't need anything more powerful than what comes with a Mac Mini. The population of customers who need more than a Mac Mini, but less than a Mac Pro (like you) is real, but too small to be profitable for Apple. Apple's success is not based on a shotgun approach but on carefully maximizing the profitability of a small number of product lines.
I'm just sayin'.
This has always been a big problem I've had with Apple, and Apple comparisons, is that Apple doesn't sell what I want. I either have to get much more or much less, there's nothing at the level I want.
In my case, it is a mid range tower. I have a Core 2 Quad system at home and it is precisely what I want. A single quad core processor (was a dual until recently) a very high end consumer video card, and so on. Basically I want a good amount of power, but not excessive, for a reasonable price. I don't want professional grade gear, like ECC FBDIMMs and workstation graphics cards, as I don't use them and it is a lot of extra money. Nor do I want two processors. A Quad is all I need, more than I need actually, my dual was really fine all in all.
Ok well Apple doesn't offer that. If I want a stand alone computer, with a separate monitor (which I do since I love my high end NEC monitor) I can either get a very low end, upgradable system (Mac Mini), or an extremely high end workstation (Mac Pro). There's nothing in between, nothing in the range of what I want.
The problem then with most Mac fan comparisons is that they take the Mac Pro, assume that's what I need, and start specing a similar PC to it. Well, sure enough, the prices are similar. I'd actually save some going with Dell, but not a lot. However I don't want that. They then try and make up reasons as to why I should want the higher power that I won't use.
So you are completely correct: The question is not trying to get two perfectly equal systems. The question is what does the user need, and what can best and most economically meet those needs?
The best part of that commercial is when she says she's "not cool enough to be a Mac person" you see she's driving a VW.
[quote]It cost less than the Dell, about the same as the HP, and $350 more than the Lenovo. And it was $1200 more than the Sony[/quote] okay, I haven't been following the high-end laptop market (caz I don't need one besides more powerful than a netbook), but since when did SONY become the least expensive of them all??
The only possible interpretation of any research whatever in the 'social sciences' is: some do, some don't
Dual 2.4 Ghz Intel processor, 4 GB RAM, 250 Gig HD, 13" screen, would have been cheaper if I bought the RAM someplace else but I was in a hurry. Runs OSX, XP, Vista without trouble. Cranks through photo, audio and video editing nicely. For me since I own and support both Windows and Mac computers it is a good deal. I have never actually met a $2800 laptop of any brand. But maybe that's because I buy actual, not hypothetical computers. :)
What about the additional $80/year anti-virus tax for running Windows? I'm sure in a month when Lauren's PC start running like molasses she'll install Linux. Then she'll freak out in a panic 'cause she didn't think she was cool enough to speak that other PC OS.
To me one of the the biggest issues with Mercedes is that they don't really offer a full range of vehicles. So if for instance somebody wants a pickup truck they are out of luck. Or a dirt bike. What they do make I think is competitive in those markets. But an expanded lineup would really help.
Actually, Mercedes does make a full range of vehicles with four wheels and up. They make everything from a compact city car (The A-class), up through large cars (E and S-classes) and vans (Dodge/Freightliner Sprinter for example) all the way to class 8 tractor trailer rigs. For a pickup truck, take a look at the Unimog U20.
The dirt bike is a red herring. A dirt bike is to a car as a mobile phone is to a laptop. They're not even remotely the same thing. Apple doesn't make clothes dryers either; it's not relevant to the discussion.
If not, I'm out. I'll never install that POS on any of my systems. Period.
Alright, I want a ~15.4" widescreen with 4+ hours battery life while playing dvds or games (ignoring availability on a specific OS) or browsing the web, what do I get, seriously?
Yes, I am obsessed with ellipses.
While Apple doesn't make any truly "low-end" or "cheap" computers (even Apple barely acknowledges the Mac mini, which is not a "low-end" computer; it's a "low-mid-range" computer, based on specs,) their prices *ARE* in-line with others for the higher-end systems; as the linked article shows.
Microsoft's fallacy is comparing a low-end 17" laptop with a MacBook Pro.
Of *COURSE* you can get similar-screen-size systems from PC makers cheaper. You can also get higher-end systems than Apple's, for commensurately more money.
The only system Apple currently has that is vastly out-of-line price-wise is the single-socket Mac Pro; which, even though they call it a "Workstation" with Xeon processors, is really just a re-badged Core i7 desktop.
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
... that the ad was a much better bit of marketing for HP than for Microsoft? I knew it was a MS commercial from the start, but frankly, the HP laptop was the star, not the OS. Microsoft marginalized itself with that ad.
Of course the price is going to be similar. He's comparing the Macbook to laptops with similar specs, but that are specifically targeted at businesses. Compare it to gaming laptops with similar specs, and those other laptops come in at about $1,500-$2,200. Here's a great example. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220412
I don't know about you, but given the choice between that Asus model I linked vs. the 17" Macbook, I'll go with the Asus every time. But then of course, I'm also able to fix any problems Windows throws at me, so I'm never spending money on software repairs - just like Mac users.
There is no -1 Disagree mod. Slashdot.org/faq defines mod options. USE IT.
It's like saying a Mercedes Benz is too expensive, and why don't they make cheap ones. Because that's what they're in the business to do, its not to say a Benz is actually worth more than a Toyota, you can argue it's built better (I'm not a car guy so I don't really know) and has more bells and whistles but is the price really justified? No and its not supposed to be, the people who buy it don't really even want it to be.
If you think its too expensive, don't buy it! Still don't see what the big deal is about Macs though.
I'd gladly pay more for the ability to right click. Fortunately the added ability tends to reduce the cost instead of increasing it! ;)
but the fact that system bus is almost 2 times faster, and that system memory is 2 times faster does matter a lot more.
As the island of our knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.
" ... he LA Times reports that the cost is about $100,000 to equip a plane. While that number seems high, it will probably be worth it. ..."
Doing anything to a commercial, passenger carrying aircraft in any country with a reasonably effective Aviation Regulatory environment for a mere $100K is a bargain, plain and simple. An in-flight movie system can add $2 to $5 million to the cost of an aircraft. A single cockpit GPS Navigation receiver in a commercial aircraft can cost $10K to install.
" ... Next to the engines, it's the second most expensive item on an aircraft," said Lori Krans, spokeswoman for Thales, one of the world's largest IFE [In-Flight Entertainment] makers. ..." In-flight Entertainment Goes High Tech; Digital Journal, 6 April 2007
There will be other costs though ... every ounce both raises fares (less available weight for passengers and luggage) and increases fuel consumption; the weight of additional fuel must also be subtracted from the fare-paying payload. Ten bucks (or whatever they charge individuals) is not the only cost penalty consumers, including those who have no use for in-flight wifi, will have to pay.
My guess is you will see it in the meals and beverages, the whipping boy of the hunt for ways to reduce weight, volume, fuel consumption and costs. That is if your airline still offers any.
Truthfully, I have to question just how important the "expandability" really is for most people anyway?
There was a time when this was a *huge* deal, but as technology has advanced, I've watched a lot more consolidation.
EG. Back in the days of my Intel 486 motherboard, even the serial and parallel ports were on cards, and I had such options as upgrading a basic 8-bit or 16-bit ISA I/O card with a more capable VESA local-bus version. Now, every PC motherboard you can find has all the ports built right onto it, permanently.
Same goes for sound cards. Remember when *everybody* who was remotely into gaming went out and bought the latest Soundblaster offering (or maybe a "Gravis Ultrasound" or something)? Now, you get full Dolby surround capable sound and often, even optical outputs right on the motherboards.
On the Mac side, I even remember some people arguing they "needed" to go with a PowerMac G5 tower or Mac Pro tower vs. an iMac, because those expansion slots were so critical. Yet, show me how often you see a Mac tower with expansion cards installed in it these days? At least in the days of the G4 towers, you often had an Adaptec SCSI board in there for somebody's scanner, or maybe a card that added more USB ports.
And look at the Windows users who brag about their hardware's superiority, all because they can "upgrade with faster CPUs and video cards". Nice, in theory, but by the time they're ready for that new video or CPU? Most likely, the pin architecture has changed again, rendering the socket they've got unsuitable for that new processor ... or maybe their power supply can't put out the wattage required for that new video board, or ?? You quickly realize it makes more sense to sell the whole machine and start over with a whole new one.
So Apple may just be doing this the sensible way, anyway.
Canadian Pricing, off the Dell/Apple .ca websites
iMac 24", 8GB, 4850, C2D 3.06, 1TB: $3,859
Dell XPS 430, 8GB, 4850, C2D 3.16, 1TB: $2,139
If you're trying to save even more $ on a high end machine, you can config a:
Dell Studio Desktop, Core 2 Quad 2.83, 8GB, 1TB, 24" HD display, @ $1,269, pick up an ATI 4870 1GB for $220, replace the video, and for under $1500, you have a system that's better (Video & Processor) than the $3,800 iMac.
If you're stingy, the Dell 1 TB upgrade, & 4850 both were far more expensive than buying the actual component. If you don't mind upgrading things yourself, you could have had a 1TB & 500GB & 4870 1GB for $200 less than the XPS price above.
Systems are about equivalent priced? Uhh, not even close. On the low end 20" iMac, it's $1594 vs $1189. With the Dell, you have a machine you can add a HD to, swap video cards, etc.
I would pay extra not to have the Apple logo and the idiotic smooth, "this isn't a computer, it's a magical video-making device" look.
That way that commercial was put together was to try and make people think that they just found some random lady and said to find herself a computer - but that woman is an actress (obviously i know) but i think its lame how M$ stooped to that level
I was a die-hard ThinkPad X series owner for seven years, and thoroughly addicted to the "nub" pointing device. My friend had a MacBook Pro and I loved certain things about it. But I did not want a trackpad and the machine was very heavy.
That said, in Oct 2007 I purchased the ThinkPad X61 Tablet with a great deal of anticipation. However, that machine came loaded with Vista, and downgrading to XP was not practical due to its lack of support for the Tablet features of the machine.
One year of running Vista, and I was BROKEN. Never again will I purchase a machine that runs Windows. I don't care what it takes, but I will NEVER run Windows again. Vista was truly that horrible of an experience.
Given that, I had purchased an iPhone and really like the touch screen. So when Apple came out with the recent MacBook Pro with the "glass" touchpad, I decided to take the leap.
I can honestly say that this machine is the finest laptop I have ever owned. I love it. It is the best $2,900 I have ever spent. Yes, I know it is overpriced, but that is often the case when you are purchasing quality products. It is nearly perfect, and its flaws are few and easily overlooked. And OS X is such a WONDERFUL experience compared to Windows that I will never go back. OS X and Linux for me.
The last time this article appeared I went and priced out notebooks at HP and was able to exactly match hardware at that time to the Apple notebooks. I found that the Apple notebooks were between 30-60% more expensive. Now they have different load outs but I can build an 18" display notebook with a quad core cpu at 2.5ghz 4gb of ddr3 and a 1gb nvidia graphics card and 500gb of storage in a raid 0 configuration for $200 less than the Apple. Truth in advertising...no we need truth in reporting.
I'm waiting for the Linux crowd to put out an ad with the same actress and same laptop, saying that Vista just didn't work for her and Office was too expensive, and telling how she downloaded Ubuntu (or Fedora, or...) and installed that on her laptop in place of Vista. "And now it's even faster and easier to use, with free OpenOffice!"
Over the past 8 years I've owned or used laptops from Toshiba, IBM, Dell, HP Compaq (2 of them), and Apple (iBook and new MacBook Pro). The new Macbook Pro is by far the stiffest. Open up a laptop and see how much the bottom half flexes. IME the degree of flex relates directly to how long the laptop will last. The Toshiba and both HPs died when the frame became too flexible and broke the motherboard. 12 inch iBooks had a known defect in this area. The IBM was pretty stiff but the new MacBook is really surprisingly strong.
Also I have to mention sleep/wake. No Windows machine I've ever owned or used had a good sleep/wake capability. They did not respond reliably to the lid open/close, and multiple sleep/wake cycles often created instability that needed a logout/login or sometimes a reboot. Whereas both Macs have had completely reliable sleep/wake using the lid. The only time I log out of my account on the MacBook is to run as admin, and the only time I reboot is after a software update. Otherwise it just sleeps when I'm not using it.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Actually I advise people that high end Macs are a tiny bit more expensive than high end other laptops while low end Macs are much more expensive (percentage wise) to low end Dells or HPs. And I think that's better information (and I thought I read that in the article). You usually get what you pay for and I wish the article had done a more thorough analysis of the laptops component by component.
First off, the writer of the article emphasized that he matched all four computers as closely as he could in hardware and capabilities, with the Sony unable to match the base Macbook Pro. Even so, he demonstrated that if you remove the discounts, the Macbook Pro was less expensive than three of the four PCs he matched it to. This means that at the workstation level, the Mac is less expensive than the competition.
Your argument that the low end Macs being much more expensive than the low end PCs is correct, IF you discount that the lowest end Macs carry far more capability than the lowest end PCs. Again, if you actually matched feature for feature (and not JUST Processor, Hard Drive and RAM,) the Mac again comes out at very nearly the same price as the equivalent PC. The only place the PC comes out effectively cheaper is when you drop most of the capabilities that make a Mac what it is!
Let me end the debate for you... Yes. Yes, Mac's are more expensive than "PC's". They always have been; they always will be. His comparison is deeply flawed by the selection of high end windows laptops (that he d*** well knows is expensive.)
You can continue to debate the value all you want -- they do tend to be better made and better supported systems than the cheap trash from mass PC makers, but that's still debatable.
The only real issue I have with Apple (and many other PC laptops) is the absolute shit screen resolution. Why do I have to have a 37" laptop to get anything better than "1024x768" (or the modern "widescreen" - 1280x800. I've even seen 1366x768. What. The. Hell.) I have a ~7 year old 13" dell inspiron 600m ("trash") laptop with a 1400x1050 screen. And the even older 6400 has a 1920x1200(?) screen.
Harder than you'd think, apparently. I've met long-time (& otherwise competent) Windows users who do not grok this even after being told again, and again, and again....
This sig has exceed its monthly bandwidth allotment.
that ram from apple is far better than that crap you get from the bottom price rung on newegg.com ... please tell me you don't really believe this.
Please tell me you don't actually believe that Apple's RAM is anything other than thoroughly mediocre.
+++ATH0
The relevant question is: What's the cheapest laptop that fits my needs cost at Apple? I just checked the Apple store. The cheapest laptop they HAVE is $999, and that's the OLD version, in white plastic. The cheapest NEW model MacBook (aluminum enclosure) is $1299. No Netbook, no low-end generic 15.4" model, that's it, $999. Apple simply doesn't sell models in the middle to low-end market for laptops. Call it what you will - an Apple Tax, a Steve Jobs Cult of Personality Tax, whatever. When all you sell is upper middle-end hardware, that's a problem for people wanting something affordable. Even their low-end desktop, the Mac Mini, could be cheaper. They decided to make a 'design statement' and make something the market wasn't asking for (the smallest desktop Mac), and had to use more expensive laptop-class components to meet their design, rather than making a truly affordable Mac. Apple sure does think differently. And now that the CPU is soldered in on the new Mac Mini (and what's with adding a 5th USB port instead of an eSATA port?!), my hopes for a reasonable Mac Mini have fled. *shrug*
You could better compare the two by making sure the specs are as close to equal as you could get. That would, of course, mean adding another $375 to your Dell to upgrade the processor to a 2.6GHz, as well as buying straight from the vendor, as opposed to going through a place like FatWallet and getting various rebates and discounts. Suddenly, your $1200 difference becomes a $550 difference, which is reduced further to a mere $50 difference after removing the sale price from Dell.
You're ignoring many things. First, upgrading the RAM is still relevant and easy to do on a PC. My work computer was choking with the 512 MB it shipped with trying to view PDFs, edit PowerPoints and have other applications open at the same time. Simple, I spent $30 on RAM and doubled it to 1 gig. There is absolutely no reason for me to have bought a new desktop, this one has the processing power necessary, and now the RAM to multitask with today's more memory heavy programs. What about a new hard drive? HD's keep getting cheaper, maybe I want to upgrade to 500 gigs from an old 60 gig? Maybe I want to add another one for internal backup, or maybe my boss decided a RAID setup would provide better protection against HD failure and the subsequent data loss? At home I can get by just adding RAM and replacing the video card every few years. Sometimes you want to add another drive in the bay, maybe something proprietary or card specific, maybe you want to take your DVD read and CD RW to a DVD-RW. Pretending there's not a lot of circumstances in which upgrading is the best option is foolish, and this applies both in the office and at home.
I haven't read through the entire list of (currently 384) comments to see if someone has addressed this, but I have my doubts... Why isn't anyone considering the fact that Mac users *value* the fact that they don't spend endless hours scanning/rescanning/cleaning their machines from the viruses/spyware/bullshit that affects their PC counterparts? Yes, Macs are more expensive - up front. If a Mac user doesn't have to spend hundreds of dollars on a consultant to come fix their Windows woes (if the user isn't savvy enough to do it themselves, or places a higher value on their time)... perhaps that is what Mac users more willing to pay the premium price. I could fix my own issues, as they arose. However, I value the time that I have by not having to be as concerned with the same issues that make Windows such a target. When you look at the total cost of ownership, and the intervention required for Windows use (in most cases)... I'm of the mind that the price tags are pretty much the same. Also... I can buy a Mac, and put Windows on it too. I can run both at the same time. LEGALLY (for all you people who want to talk about Hackintosh crap). Lest you think I'm just another Mac fanboy... I stopped using Windows after a few years of supporting and administering Windows networks. The headaches were many. I don't miss it. I'm not even going to say Macs are perfect... that's lunacy. However, they have fewer issues than I ever dealt with with Windows. I just think this aspect gets ignored in discussions like these.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
News flash! Processors' numerical capacity have been increasing on par with Moore's law for the last five years. And yes, I'm talking about the single core.
You are aware that the instruction sets have been changing, right? That we now have gone full circle and are back to the vector processor, right? Admittedly, you have to be very careful when programming for them, but I guess you've always had to be careful when targeting a processor.
.
I've watched this ad, and I noticed a few things, and it brought up some information I already knew.
1) She Picked Apple First. Why?
She's an actress, and a member of SAG (Screen Actors Guild). Hollywood primarily uses Apple in their productions, and on screen. Getting rights to use Apple products are a lot easier than getting the rights to a Dell product, which uses Microsoft and a host of other vendors. That's why you don't see a lot of TV and movies using PC's; notice that they use Macs if they can.
She's familiar with using Mac's from her work as an actress on a set.
2) Why did she want a 17" Screen?
To be honest, I'm not sure. For checking emails, and doing some minor multimedia, and web surfing, a 17" screen seems a bit overkill...Then again, why do we want the 50" HDTV vs the 32"? Because it's bigger.
3) What criteria did she use to pick out her PC?
According to the ad, price, screen size, speed, and aesthetics, but you could tell her sole motivation was screen size and price. The other criteria she mentioned were supporting her rationalization, and no other criteria mentioned. Essentially like buying a toaster, or a blender.
4) What didn't the ad mention?
No additional warranty on the HP she bought; just the HP one year parts/labor. No Office suite; no Anti-Virus security package; no additional multimedia software. This is what's left out to get a "bargain basement" price on these Worst Buy laptops.
5) Is Microsoft desperate and worried?
From this ad, they sure are. Vista dug a big hole for them, and the Apple ads made it even bigger. Also, they're trading at $18.37 a share today, whereas Apple at $105.12 is quite good.
Yet the interesting thing is, this ad made them out to be the "cheap" option, which I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want to be associated as a "cheap" manufacturer of a product, because my product comes off as being cheap just as much as the cost might be cheap.
6) Will Apple ever develop low-cost units to compete with?
No. To do this, they would either license OSX to a PC house like Dell or they'd have to go the "clone" route, which had disastrous consequences the first time around. Neither one of these are likely, as it would dilute the Apple brand.
This is why you don't find BMW, Mercedes, Alfa-Romeo, Bentley or Rolls-Royce making vehicles less than $30,000. You're paying for a higher end experience.
I did some comparitive shoping a while back and found that Macs tended to be slightly more expensive for similar hardware. Not a lot, but a little.
However, I fully admit not being in Apple's target demographic. I tend to buy lower end equipment and upgrade about every three years. Heck, all of the PCs (and laptops) I've bought over the psat ten years combined cost less than a MacBook pro.
...if you consider total cost of ownership.
Even a $600 Windows PC will eventually require spending $200-400 on malware cleanup once or twice in its lifetime.
Compare this to a $1200 Macbook that will require NOTHING.
"No matter how cynical you get, it is impossible to keep up." -- Lily Tomlin
The âoeHP taxâ and âoeDell taxâ are not in fact brand specific but are actually âoeCustom build taxâ. If you start at the price point youâ(TM)ll get more hardware for the money as opposed to starting cheap and building up to the price point. You can play on HP & Dells website with this, start with the cheap chassis and build it to the next model up and youâ(TM)ll spend more. This is simple economics, 5000 identical machines are cheaper to build than 1000 each of 5 models or in this case 5000 customized versions. If we ever see a big-box store comparison the results will be show windows machines cheaper because they are competing directly against each other.
Just buy whatever system you want without feeling the need to justify it. Even if macs are more expensive (which they may or may not be) if you can afford it who gives a shit?
This is a joke. I am joking. Joke joke joke.
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/timtimes/2009/03/wormy-meat-is-cheaper.php Enjoy.
This ain't no upwardly mobile freeway This is the road to hell
I have a 15+ years experience with PC's and I know how to install / fix Windows, Linux, Solaris, etc. I actually do that for a living. I have 2 PC gaming desktops, 1 old HP laptop and a *sic* Alpha XL 266 which runs Debian.
But, my latest purchase was Macbook 13" and I absolutely f*king love it!
There is no doubt to me that Mac OS X trumps every other OS there is and that was precisely the factor that made me make the decision to get a Mac. I actually made the same comparisons that the author did and came to the conclusion that if I want (and I do) the same hardware with a PC then it would be the same price. Actually, comparative Dell came out a bit more expansive, just like in the article.
Like I said, I fix computers for a living so when I come home to relax I want a computer that Just Works (tm). Apple does precisely that.
Windows machines typically cruft up after a year or two, to where it takes 30 seconds to get the Properties on My Computer. Menus slog down. Web pages load very slowly.
Macs don't. I use a 2.33 GHZ, 2GB iMac to write ASP.NET, run PShop, RDC, MSOffice... simultaneously. It flies, while the Windows users whine about how slow their 2.8GHz, 2GB RAM machines are. I have 8 "derelict" machines in my cube. Dell GX 260 with 1.8-2.4GHz and 1GB of RAM. They are unusably slow. I go home to my 1GHz Mac/512MB RAM, and surf, fly, write a book on MS Word, RDC into my ASP.NET server. BAM!
Apple should run an ad where Lauren and her twin buy two computers. One Windows, one Mac. Then check them out after 2 years.
Making machines that go obsolete in a year might be a good marketing strategy, but it keeps away the people who catch on.
I used to get the "bang" for my buck by buying older USED macs on ebay. Because they retain their value more than PCs they would come out about the same or even a little more than a comparable PC being sold NEW. Since apple doesn't sell old hardware at low prices the only way to get around this is to buy used macs on old hardware and low prices.
Nice thing was that I could flip them for less than leasing the things and not have a pile of older computers to recycle. They also worked more reliably than the cheapo old-hardware PCs despite being used.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
My Dell XPS was worth every cent. But that is because I wanted to impress my friends with a $3000 boat anchor.
Feel that breeze? That was the point of the commercial and what the fictitious 'real' person wanted zipping right over your head.
A 17 inch laptop that did what she needed. That's what she wanted. Not a super-uber high end laptop cable of video rendering. Just a basic 17 inch laptop capable of doing what she needed.
Apple didn't offer that at her price point. Not even close. The only thing they offered even close to her price point was a 13 inch MacBook for $1300, which broke her budget (at about twice what she paid for the HP) and had a screen way smaller than she wanted.
Portable versions of Firefox, GIMP, LibreOffice, etc
I acknowledge some of your points but you failed to mention iMac's integrated displays. That bundling of displays and other hardware is horrible (not only for the enviroment). Displays don't really age that much over the years when you compare it to other hardware, so when you desktop is ready for a (newer) replacement you can always save the monitor and connect it to your new computer. It is even better if you have multi monitor setup. So when your iMac is gone in a few years time, wouldn't be nice that you can connect that perfectly good lcd to your new computer? Oh, sorry, you can't. And this is the reason many people (including me) won't buy an imac in this form.
And just as a sidenote, wouldn't be great if they offered same hardware of an imac (in a similar small form factor) but without the display? I already have a display which is better than the imac's integrated one, but I'm not rich enough to buy another display (which I don't need) nor do I need a mac pro. Frankly, I don't understand why they don't offer a standard desktop computer to fill a hole between an mac mini and mac pro and take my money for it. Maybe they prefer selling laptops? Who knows.
Trolls are like broken clocks. They show the truth two times a day. The rest of the day they talk nonsense.
This was the conclusion I came to i 2006 when my last DIY PC from 2003 finally died.
You're ignoring many things. First, upgrading the RAM is still relevant and easy to do on a PC. My work computer was choking with the 512 MB it shipped with trying to view PDFs, edit PowerPoints and have other applications open at the same time. Simple, I spent $30 on RAM and doubled it to 1 gig. There is absolutely no reason for me to have bought a new desktop, this one has the processing power necessary, and now the RAM to multitask with today's more memory heavy programs.
What about a new hard drive? HD's keep getting cheaper, maybe I want to upgrade to 500 gigs from an old 60 gig? Maybe I want to add another one for internal backup, or maybe my boss decided a RAID setup would provide better protection against HD failure and the subsequent data loss?
At home I can get by just adding RAM and replacing the video card every few years. Sometimes you want to add another drive in the bay, maybe something proprietary or card specific, maybe you want to take your DVD read and CD RW to a DVD-RW. Pretending there's not a lot of circumstances in which upgrading is the best option is foolish, and this applies both in the office and at home.
I don't own any Macs, but as the subject says, all macs can upgrade ram,and almost all macs have easy hard drive upgrades. As for extra hard drives,USB external drives work great for most people
The only thing at all correct in your post is your comment about upgrading the video card...
I tend to agree with this. I did, once upon a time upgrade my Windows machines regularly, but now it's more of a wait-until-there-is-a-new-generation-and-upgrade sort of game. I don't know anyone who upgrades their machines anymore.
I've had non-techies ask me about upgrading, most of the time I say "well, you can't do X because you don't have Y, and it's actually more expensive to get components that are compatable with Z". The only retailers or wholesalers that have older components have hung on to them to jack the prices up for business' that are running outdated machines.
I bought a Mac Mini recently for my 2nd screen because I wanted a machine just for mail, web and music. It sits there on my desk, doing it's job and not skipping a beat. Sure it cost a little more than other machines (about AU$200), but I know I won't have to screw around all the time with it like I have had to with cheap Windows machines (they have a tendancy to have components die at inopportune times). I'm never going to have to upgrade it, never going to have to fuck around with it, just leave it there and let it do it's job. Plus, it can fit ON my desk rather than taking up room under my desk where, you know, my legs should be.
It's no surprise that my 15" MacBook Pro says "this thing cost $2k, minimum" when I pull it out of my overpriced Tumi bag, even though it looks nearly the same as my similarly expensive 15" Powerbook from five years ago (and still burns my lap). Mac notebooks say that they cost more because they do. It's like getting a BMW (in the U.S.). People instantly know that you paid more than that Accord, Camry, or Hyundai Genesis, even if options could have pushed you up into bimmer territory with the cheaper cars. That doesn't necessarily make it better, but don't say that people are being unfair to Apple about price and then show off your shiny new MacBook knowing full well that it's a point of pride for you at coffee shops.
The real kicker is that, when people ask, my favorite notebooks are my trusty old T42 (great keyboard, high-ish-res screen) or my wife's absolutely awesome Vaio Z. I wouldn't be able to say that unless I was sitting there on my MacBook Pro. I'd get written off as someone who just couldn't afford a Mac.
A few notes:
- Until bootcamp can do two-finger scroll and two-finger tap-to-right-click, it's just not as good as being on even a cheaper Windows machine for running Windows. If you don't need 3D, stick to VMWare Fusion (if you like stability) or Parallels (if you like speed).
- Aluminum is awful for the bottom of a laptop. Hot legs suck.
- Macs just aren't more reliable. Some of the issues, like the nVidia GPU problem, plague the industry. Others, like the white/black MacBook logic-board failures, plague select notebooks (T4x Thinkpads as well) used in particular ways (being carried by one corner). I have no idea why two of the four MacBook Air owners that I know have had logic board failures. Answer? AppleCare if you need it for more than a year.
- You can adjust to the platform differences fairly easily if you're an accomplished computer user. Generally, people who become platform zealots are the people who don't have the chops to use all of them. You see the same thing in yoga circles, with Ford vs. Chevy vs. Honda tuners, with football fans, and between Canon/Nikon/Leica/Instamatic users. It's not causal, but competent users are generally the ones comfortable enough with their personal choices to allow them to be just personal choices.
Hmmm Microcenter has a Mac Mini for $399 after rebate.
That $399 Mini (http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0264432) is the previous model, while the current model (http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0307581) is $599. [I had to check b/c I want a cheap Mini, but was sadly disappointed by previous post.]
Since Dell has been the common comparator in this thread, a quick look found the Dell Studio Hybrid, a similarly spec'd & sized product starting at $499. http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/desktop-studio-hybrid?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs
For what it's worth, I use Apple and Dell hardware.
the article also picked primarily business machines offered from dell/hp/etc. these are always priced substantially higher from their consumer counterparts because they have extended warranties included in the price. if the idiot who wrote the article picked consumer laptops and spec'd them up he would realize the price for a similarly spec'd pc was about $500 less than a similarly spec'd mac, not to mention even being 500 dollars less the pc probably has BETTER specs than the mac.
For a while, a Macbook made out of black plastic cost $100 more than an identically configured Macbook made out of white plastic. I personally can't find any explanation for this that doesn't involve Apple marketeers and crack.
As far as the general issue, yes there is a small premium for Apple hardware, but if you compare to equivalent windows hardware, it is nowhere near as big a difference as it appears. I believe it is still 10% more expensive to buy Apple laptops, but in return you get better support. Apple MP3 players, on the other hand, are really overpriced compared to other manufacturers.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Toughbook.
Now that has a hefty price tag. BUT you can drop the thing multiple times and it willl still startup firefox faster than anything out there (I'm looking at you MacBookPro).
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WTF? It's really called a Mac Book Professional. I see the majority of graphic professionals (i.e. business users) use this model.
Now, every PC motherboard you can find has all the ports built right onto it, permanently.
Not SDTV video output or any sort of video input. For video input, you still need to buy a USB or PCIe TV tuner; for SDTV video output on a machine with integrated graphics, you still need to buy a scan converter or a PCIe video card. Or which line of motherboards do you recommend for home theater PC applications?
Ok - so a mac is more expensive than a pc. This is the thing that most of you don't understand. When you buy that pc, it is loaded with crap that you will never use. You have to spend time cleaning the system up just to make it run. Windows computers are slow because Windows is slow. Windows crashes. Windows requires maintenance almost daily. Windows requires TIME!!! Who did the data crunch to see how much time, which equals money (to me), to keep a Windows based pc running decently? No one - so I don't understand the argument. I have run Windows based computers for over 20 years. I have a MCSE. I have a Windows Server running on a dual-core Intel processor that is only used for file management. I know Windows better than the average person. It is old. Very old. The OS development started with the first beta of Windows NT in 1993 or 1994. Why do you want to even run it? My computer of choice now is OS X Leopard. Why do you ask? NO MAINTENANCE!!! The system runs and runs and runs. It does a system update and it might reboot. The hardware runs and runs and runs. A friend of mine found a G3 Mac in the garbage. I found a video card for it ($20) and it booted to System 9 on the original hard drive. It was built in March of 1999. It is ten years old this month and runs OS X 10.2. I thought that I didn't have any hardware that would run in it. I was way wrong. I had some old RAM PC100 that fit it perfectly so I filled it up to 512megs for free. It needed a DVD drive so I grabbed one and it worked. I bought RAM for my year old iMac for $30 from CompUSA. Why are you all buying upgrades from Apple?? You don't have too. That is a myth at this point. If I had don't these changes to a Windows computer, Windows would have a major COW and want me to re-authenticate the computer or at worse, reinstall the OS. You can even put OS X on a HP, Toshiba or basically any computer that meets OS X hardware requirements. This is the same thing that Windows requires. Personally, I don't mind paying the premium to get a computer that does what it is advertised to do and paying a little extra to have a 3 year warranty. Out of the box, you can edit photos and video, create a professional DVD and web site, edit and create music, integrate perfectly with your iPhone and/or iPod with you music, address book, calendar, setup your network without thinking, download the developer kit for FREE and for $99 get iWorks with a 5 user license. Microsoft doesn't do that. If I need to reinstall the OS, then reinstall it - Apple doesn't care!! The subsystem on the Mac is Darwin which is a Unix system. The memory footprint is small. Memory management is almost perfect - so much more perfect that Windows doesn't have a prayer. Oh - NO VIRUSES!! Just can't happen - just like a Unix based system. Figure it out people please!! The myths about Apple are dead. Go and check out the web site. Do your own research. I did and after 20 years - I bought an Intel based Mac because I like Intel CPUs and I was sick of the maintenance on all of the Windows computer that we had. I always thought that the Intel processor was not being utilized properly. It isn't on Windows. It is on the Mac. In the 15 months that I have had a Mac, I think that I have done 4 hours of maintenance and one day worth of cleaning the hard drive off (I create way to many photos - had to get a 1TB drive - plugged it in and off I went). Back in the Windows day, that 4 hours would have been once a week per computer. There are 10 computers here so that is a weeks worth of work. I have other things to do than fix computers even though I still have fun doing it.
I would love to see a world where it doesn't matter wether you have a Mac or a PC. The line is blurring quickly, but there are still people who hate a product that they have never used or did back in the late 1980's in school!! I would love to see the day that a friend of mine buys a new PC and doesn't have to bring it to me to uninstall all of this extra trial software and clean out the registry so that it will boot in less than 2 minutes (and s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIS6G-HvnkU
Throwing in a 9400 costs Apple a negligible amount of money. The Quadro in the other laptops is multi-hundreds more than the 9800, let alone the 9600. That's a minimum of $300 off the top. And all the quibbling about sale prices is just that, quibbling. That's just part of the game: if you don't get a discount with your big name computer, you paid too much.
And all these kinds of comparisons are pointless. Apple's margins are on the order of 30-40%, regular hardware companies make a few percent. Apple doesn't make these margins with magic, they make them by charging more for their hardware. They might temporarily, right after a new model is announced, get lower margins on particular models... but in general there is no way an Apple can cost as little as a computer from a company that makes 25-30% less profit on it. That's economics.
http://blogs.zdnet.com/storage/?p=442 Basic premise, for the past 5 years Microsoft has 81 percent margins ($189,878 billion) versus Apple's 32% percent ($31 billion). Microsoft tax has been brilliantly spent on Zune (trounced by Apple), Windows search (trounced by Google), and Vista (trounced by XP). I don't agree with the further discussion about antivirus as I feel all computer users should have some form of antivirus and there are free solutions for Macs, PC's, and Linux.
Who cares? Really? It's apples and oranges (no pun intended).
A lot of people arent taking into account the resale value and usability of older macs. I recently opted for a USED G5 for which I got a very good deal. Its nearly four years old. However, I just did some benchmarks and it's still scoring right up there with a brand new mac air. Granted, its a desktop--but its a four year old desktop which boasts similar speeds to current products. Can you imagine what you can do with a four year old pc? exactly. Nothing. I could easily have bought a wintel box new that has 'faster' processors, but then i would have to use windows. For me the four year old mac is still more appealing than a new pc.
A friend and I have chatted about Mac pricing off and on over the years, and gone to the online stores to configure the closeset head-to-head competitors we could. The conclusion was basically always this: Macs are usually price competitive with the most closely configured computer, but if you don't like that configuration, Apple offers very few options and nothing low-end.
From 10/s7/08:
I remembered that last time you told me to spec a dell vs a mac pro, and I
remember the dell being more. And I was thinking about your comment that
the mac pro delta has seemingly jumped. I was thinking instead that the
Mac Pro, tied to "server/high end workstation class" hardware, seemed to
be in the process of being overtaken by low cost gaming gear.
Workstation/Mac Pro level hardware always contains those intangibles, like
ECC memory and super high io bus speed, raid support, and two processor
sockets - changes that always require your entire hardware setup to "jump
class" and be redesigned from the ground up.
So I went out again to price a comparable Dell.
www.dell.com/precision/
http://www.dell.com/content/products/category.aspx/precndt?c=us&l=en&s=bsd
Looking at the Mac Pro it's running two 2.8Ghz "Harpertown" Xeon's, the
Dell site uses different lingo, but I selected the same chip, the E5440.
Apple's minimum RAM was 2G, so I matched that on the Dell as well. This is
important because ECC 1066 ram is still incredibly expensive.
Dell's version of the Mac Pro instantly rang up as... $3800. A full $1200
more than the Mac Pro.
So, Macs are still way cheaper. By an ever increasing gap. The cheapest
online price for an E5440 is $700. That means the two chips in a Mac Pro
are $1400 street value, and the Intel s5000XVN motherboard has a street
value of about $550. That makes the rest of the computer worth $850 -
workstation class graphics card, fully buffered ECC ram, case, psu, os,
hard drive. It's dirt cheap. I'm convinced you could bulk buy Mac Pro's at
edu discount and make a margin parting them out on ebay.
So who other than dell is making a dual xeon workstation?
http://www.swt.com/cgi-bin/calc_linux?hdc=x802&cpu=x28&xxcpu=x440&s8fram1=f2k&scsicard=no&fsaraid=no&hd1=sat1&hd2=no&hd3=no&hd4=no&hd5=no&hd6=no&hd7=no&hd8=no&cdmult=dvd&pevideo=onb&ipmi3=no&monitor=no&monito2=no&fd=no&pen1=no&x8case=atx&x8rail=no&multi_mouse=none&multi_keybd=none&spkm=nospkr&printers=no&modem=none&netcard=none&wirel=no&firew=no&tuner=no&taped1=none&taped2=none&power_protect=none&lxx=fe&Quote=Calculate+total%2C+keep+price+increment+information
Base price: Dual Xeon Workstation: $1599.00
Two Xeon E5440 quad-core CPUs, 2.83GHz, 12MB, 1333MHz FSB, 80W:
+=$1295.00
Supermicro X7DWA-N dual Xeon motherboard w/ 2 Gbit LAN ports
IO port: 6 x USB, 1 x Parallel, 2 x Serial, 2 x PS2
2GB DDR2-667 PC2-5300 FB-DIMM, 2 DIMMs
80GB SATA 3Gb/s drive
Total price: $2894.00 (plus shipping)
So a shit-label linux part
Can anyone tell me how to set my sig on Slashdot?
I agree with you except on 3 things. Monitors, RAM, and HDs should *always* be user upgradable.
Video cards would be next and processors are a distant 3rd, although these aren't usually upgraded by most.
given the need to buy extra-cost adapters to use almost all existing displays, and the lack of HDMI support at all, I'm going to give the ADVANTAGE to the HDMI-packing HP, LENOVO, and SONY.
Here's a tidbit that very few people I've talked to seem to know: the video signal for HDMI is exactly the same as DVI's video signal. So, any device that has a DVI output can also have an HDMI output if you throw in a standard $5 DVI-to-HDMI adapter. Since the MacBooks all use Mini Displayport now, that means to get HDMI, you have to buy the Mini Displayport-to-DVI adapter and follow that up with a DVI-to-HDMI adapter. This ends up being a bit bulky, but it's cheap and it works. Sorry, but reading that in TFA sent me into a spat of nerd rage.
You can set out to cook a dinner with the finest ingredients available and you can either a) make a delicious meal or b) make a steaming pile of crap.
I think that's essentially the deal. Breaking down the hardware is pointless because clearly a Mac and a PC aren't the same thing---though they may share components.
The difference is that many PC designs are ill-conceived, and work, once the components are together, only so so. In laptops, for example, PCs have long plagued me with things as simple as the mechanism for closing the laptop is awful. With a Mac, those things are more thought out and it all just sort of works better together.
As for hardware---who cares. You're not paying for the hardware.
I've been using Apple products since the Apple ][, my friend, and fast they are not.
I've got ten year old PCs that run real-world data processing loads faster, and render web pages faster, than the latest mac with all the bells and whistles. Apple software sacrifices speed for a really pretty, moron-friendly interface just loaded with bling and eyecandy.
And before you ask, yes I do run almost entirely in text mode. If poorly designed web sites didn't force me into graphics display I'd still be using a text browser exclusively. I want to get stuff done, not watch TV. Macs are best for artists and people with computer use patterns that are intellectually equivalent to TV-watching.
No wonder we "never hear folks complaining that Macs are slow" - anyone who does so here gets modded down.
I don't know if the above user's experiences are typical or not, but his experience is valid just as much as the OP's anecdotes of "but you never hear folks complaining that Macs are slow".
TCO used to be a mantra. So if Linux is free, it's infinitely better right? (div/0)
I am a Linux geek, but my daily driver is a Mac because it never breaks. But according to this I should trade my uber reliable Toyota for a Yugo because it's cheaper. Why don't Toyota make cheap, nasty, unreliable, dangerous cars???
Move along, nothing to see here...
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
As long as they keep selling box copies of their OS, I can pay to get "Mac" (which is nowadays just OSX + Intel) on hardware I please.
The Dell Mini 9 and MSI Wind have a huge OSX86 community. If Apple wants to be stingy we will hackintosh.
I guess that's nice, certainly not something I would pay for.
Other computers and notebooks give you access to a hard drive with a standard SATA port by removing 2-4 Phillips screws.
Yes, sadly theese days you pretty much have to treat CPU and motherboard as a unit. Still that doesn't mean there aren't lots of reasons for wanting to upgrade.
Graphics is generally upgradable, yes you may have problems with the uber high end stuff drawing a lot of power (but then apple doesn't offer the uber high end graphics at all) or with the switch from AGP to PCIe but generally it's not a huge problem (and I doubt PCIe is going to get replaced any time soon).
Storage is another area, if I want more storage on my desktop it's no problem I just bung another hard drive in (and maybe add a SATA card if it's an older machine). If I want more storage on an imac/mini I have to either replace the drive (a lot of work and considerablly reduces both the bang for buck and the maximum capacity obtainable) or use a crappy external drive.
Networking is another area, some of us have to use more than one network for various reasons, with the imac/mini the only way to do this is to use a crappy USB adaptor.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
I don't see how Microsoft takes any credit for cheap PCs. Inexpensive PCs are cheap in spite of Microsoft, not because of them. In focusing the comparison only on what Microsoft produces and how they price their product: the Windows Vista OS is priced by Microsoft to be between $199.95 for Home Basic and $319.95 for Ultimate (MSRP).
For your affordable PC you have the hardware vendors to thank for sourcing parts with the basic specs customers want made as cheaply as possible and for making deals to subsidize cost through kickbacks for pre-installing extraneous software.
If you shy away from bigger vendors, you can find very reliable, well built laptops in any spec range for cheap. The fact that Apple points the finger back at Dell/HP only goes to show that they want to hide the real issue here. And that is that when it comes to OSX machines, Apple is the only vendor, and they have a monopoly on the OSX platform.
1. Apple will not open up their business model to allow OSX (which is really the heart of Mac) to be installed on any configuration. This cuts out all OEM manufacturing. Apple loves this, it's their entire business model. Yet at the same time almost none of their hardware is actually proprietary.
2. If Mac allowed OEM vendors to build their own OSX based machines, Apple would become nothing more than an over-priced system builder/Ipod Maker.
3. That stability/compatibility noise I'm about to hear regarding locked off systems is partially correct, however it wouldn't stop Apple from releasing their own, perfectly configured, tested and certified machines for the OSX platform. And with that said, if you even think about bringing up Virus/Spyware arguments, remember that illegal Hackintosh builds don't get these problems either and they run the same hardware that Windows based machines do so you have no argument, it's really and only an issue of compatibility and driver stability, which honestly isn't an impossible feat.
4. Laptops, are expensive when compared to desktops no matter who you buy them from. And will continue to be expensive unless demand for custom builds, using just a case and monitor shell with modular components ever catches on. In the past this has been tried by the system builder industry but there wasn't enough demand and modular parts are still too big for laptops. With that said, you can still find cheaper vendors than HP/Dell/Apple/Gateway.
Where in the hell does 'Tax' come in?
This is simply a "Is a PC better than a Mac" argument, not a 'Tax' argument.
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
I've been thinking about this ad the last few days. First of all, it was essentially scripted. There is absolutely no point in going to the Apple Store first when one is looking for a 17" $1000 or below laptop. She could have checked the Apple website; shoot, she could have looked at the Apple display in the Best Buy. She could have checked craigslist or ebay for a used one, though used Apples aren't necessarily cheap either.
When Microsoft suggests that it is the OS of budget computing, well, that's a tad backhanded and self-inflicted, too. Argue as you will over the merits of Windows, there is no denying that no matter what level of system you build, you can save money by putting Linux on it. Microsoft skates here because they keep the sales channels in line and there's no hardware manufacturer who has really thrown in their lot with Linux and created a user experience that was clearly differentiated from the Windows experience the way Apple did with MacOS first and NeXT/BSD later. If someone did, that would be the winner on power and value for low cost.
It also occurs to me that if every manufacturer's Windows pc was less expensive than the Apple in its class, then wouldn't that suggest there was not an Apple tax, but a Windows discount? The more I thought about it, the more I think we may state a law. As long as Microsoft allows multiple manufacturers to assemble Windows pc, there will always be at least one brand and model that is cheaper than the Apple in its class, otherwise the price-sensitive will choose a Mac.
Think of it this way, if Microsoft could get $500 for its logo, they'd do it. Any company would. You'd do it. You'd be nuts not too. Small margins, high volumes is Plan C.
Yeah, but Macs tend to last a lot longer. So when you want a new Mac, but don't like the idea of trashing the display, you sell it on ebay, and someone will buy it and get good use out of it. Besides which, the value of the actual display is pretty dirt cheap nowdays.
To me the problem is that there are no TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) low cost PCs.
Let me explain. I think we should start to talk about the Microsoft Tax. For me to work in the Microsoft OS+App ecosystem compared to Apple OS+App ecosystem means about 1-2 hours a week wasted on maintenance or senseless Microsoft time wasting programming designs. Even if I spend just 1 hour a week extra, at my hourly slalary it is $7500 amortized over 3 year life span of my computer. I don't have that kind of time to waste.
Paying the Microsoft Tax to me is completely unacceptable. Apple computers would have to be 3 times more expensive for me to even start considering PCs for my use. And I love the fact that I only get quality computers with quality parts which further lowers my need for maintenance. I love how Microsoft is all about the TCO when comparing to Linux solutions, but when it comes to Apple, its all price baby!
If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
It really isnt your problem. I know what I want to use and I am willing to pay what ever mac tax you think exists. I've been building Desktops for about 10 years and have played with just about every flavor of everything: 2k, Win XP, Vista, 7, KDE, Gnu/Linux, OS 7,8,9,10.
The thing I hate the most is how people talk shit about macs with out knowing ANYTHING or having actually used one post OS X.
Of COURSE you cant buy a 17'' laptop from Apple for less than $1000, but frankly, I've been working on a 13'' macbook doing photography and graphic design for the last 5 years with out problem. The chick in the commercial doesn't appear to know the first thing about computers, so in my opinion, she doesnt need a 17'' screen. 13'' would do her just fine. And I saw several on apple's site for less than $1000. Refurbs are the best kind, because its renovated hardware, and cheaper price.
We need to stop this argument, its old and irrelevant. I dont care if your use linux, mac or windows, I still judge you based on how you keep your computer organized and what programs you use, nothing based on what OS youre running. I am elitist even among other mac users, but I dont rub it in your face.
It doesn't exactly take me more than five minutes to get out the hard drive from a non-functioning laptop. Pretty sure I can live without it.
I backup my data...
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
that were as comparably configured as I could manage
His issue is right there. Basic configurations have to compare fairly well to get peoples intrest, options/upgrades not as much so those make the companies more money and as long as he reconfigures machines to match the specs of a mac the whole concept is flawed.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1147437&cid=27056793
The End of Days likes to post using multiple registered accounts here on this website which he uses to mod his posts up with. How lame, and he admits it in the url shown.
If what you said was true, NVIDIA and ATI would be OEM suppliers only - most folks would never have heard of them, and their products wouldn't be sitting on shelves, in nice pretty boxes, being sold to the general public all over the world.
Get OSX license from Apple. Buy Acer Aspire One, download Kalyway ISO and install. Enjoy $200 portable Mini-Mac!
I have a desktop iMac, I ain't paying extra for a laptop thank you Steve!
And just as a sidenote, wouldn't be great if they offered same hardware of an imac (in a similar small form factor) but without the display?
They tried something similar to this, it was called the MAC Mini. Haven't seen any around in a while for some reason...
--- When you start with the conclusion that you want, then throw out any facts that don't agree, is it true?
crappy silverlight
Can't buy a Mac, though luck. Do not want the money on a Mac, though luck. Your stuck to your PC although you would really want to have the Mac.
I'd mean I'd love to roll in a Audi S3, yet I've only have the budget for a Golf GTI. Does the Audi deliver more fun then the Golf? Does the Golf fall apart while the Audi doesn't?
It's all about the brand and the status it gives you. Everyone want to belong to something, but preferably at minimum costs, but then how bad do you really want it then?!
There are things that are just not fair in life, learn to deal with it and not create a whining article about it.
Most likely, the pin architecture has changed again, rendering the socket they've got unsuitable for that new processor ...
Well look at upgrades my PC got: 1) I've changed P4 + Motherboard to AM2 + Athlon 64 x2 (2.1Ghz, easily OCable to 2.7), keeping the case, HDD, DVD drive, power supply 2) 6 month later I've upgraded my graphic card (ATI 1950) and put in second HDD. 3) One year later I've bought yet another graphic card (ATI 4850) and a new power supply. 4) A few month later I've bought a DVB-S2 card and turned my PC into HTPC. 5) I felt my old case was too noisy, so I bought a new case (Antec p182)
...and your arguments do not support your "PCs are WAY cheaper" thesis. A limited number of configurations....means a limited number of configurations, not that your Macbook Pro is WAY more expensive than an equivalent PC laptop.
If you want a $500 POS Special for a laptop, go ahead and buy what you need, and no, it wont be from Apple. No skin of either of your noses.
Bottom line: Dell's prices are volatile and the author of TFA is totally clueless on how to best work that.
Or maybe he just wants to buy shit at a predictable price, instead of having to fiddle fart around with rebates and waiting for odd sales.
My local ford dealer is also just $30 for a syn-blend oil & lube job, and they do a wet wash with hand dry for that.
Anybody else misread that at first?
has survived 2 years w/the peace corps in morocco, but not a spilled softdrink;-} i replaced the motherboard & it's still going strong:-)
and i've tricked out the wife's clamshell ibook w/ dvd/cdrw & 1024x768 lcd, runs great for her usage (web, email & pix of the grandkid:-)
and i've refurb'd several clamshells for great-nieces & nephews...gotta lead 'em away from microserfdum;-)
The article is crap. Lauren doesn't turn down a Macbook Pro, she doesn't get that far because her budget is $1000 and she wants a 17" screen--both reasonable requirements.
McCracken's position is that if you can't get the Mac you want for $1,000, the solution is to boost your budget to $3,000. Going from that starting point, I would stop reading and go over to PC Mag for proper reviews.
I love the ad. As a sometime marketing guy, I look at this and wish I was that good. The main thing this video has going for it is that it deals with fact (the most Mac you can get for $1,000 is a 13" netbook+) rather than pandering to geek mythology the way the Apple ads did. McCracken had to misrepresent the ad to make a case for the Mac because he couldn't argue with the facts presented.
Of course I'm being a little unfair to Apple in this. The Apple ads were, as is usual for Apple, designed to stroke their existing customers, to make them feel cool and superior and "different", not to convert PC owners. Since the message was "in-house", so to speak, an excess of zeal is forgiveable.
I'm a Programmer. That's one level above Software Engineer and one level below Engineer.
So the MacBook Pro wasn't the most expensive, but was it the most expensive laptop in the non-diamond-encrusted category?
Just kidding - I own an MBP :)
...who then goes on to whine some more about his lemon Macbook. Yawn. Apple has the best quality rating of any computer manufacturer, so good luck on never having problems with another brand.
News at 11.
I be surprised if more /.ers wouldn't agree given the fact that Apple is essentially the antithesis of open source.
Yes, given that the bottom half of their operating system is open source, that they submit code for open source projects, and open source some of their services. For the sake of comparison, remind us what Microsoft does wrt open source again?
I disagree. Nowadays, people are holding onto their computers for a lot longer than they used to. It used to be that a 3-5 year old computer was slow compared the latest and greatest, and trying to upgrade it was mostly pointless because the technology had moved on. Now, that 3-5 year old computer is still pretty good, and for the most part does what you want need it do just fine - but it would be nice if it would have a bit more memory, or a bigger drive, or maybe a DVI port so it can drive a big monitor, or maybe USB2 or Firewire ports. That kind of thing is fairly cheap, so people upgrade the machine as they see it's worthwhile to spend a few bucks on "that old computer" because they don't feel the machine is obsolete yet.
Also, you might want to keep in mind that those expansion slots may not be needed now, but they could be very useful later. For example, I knew some people who were pissed at Apple when they dropped Firewire support on the iPod and they had an iMac without USB2. $20 to fix that problem on the PC, and $1500 to fix that problem on the Apple.
I have a Dell Inspiron E1505 that is three years old, it was loaded with the fastest processor, most memory, 7200 rpm harddrive, x1300 video card, best LCD screen(15" 1680x1050). I love the machine.
Looking on ebay, it appears I could get around $400 selling it now.
Ok, so I looked up similar vintage MacBook Pro, looks like they sell for $1000.
But here's the thing. I looked at the MBP, and at the time for the same configuration it was $2400. My Dell was $1200.
$2400-1000 = $1400
$1200-400 = 800.
Yeah, my Dell wasn't quite comparable to the Mac... not as fast of video, heavier, etc. But it did what I needed. So I agree with the original point that if you price out what you need you can get a cheaper machine and I don't think resale makes up for the difference.
Except, as it's already been said here, Macs have never prevented a person from doing RAM upgrades to them. (Often, it's easier than doing on one a comparable Windows machine, since Apple does things like putting in "access doors" you remove with 1 or 2 screws, vs. taking a whole case apart to get to memory slots.)
I've never seen a Mac that couldn't receive a hard drive upgrade either. They use the same drives as any other PC. An all-in-one form-factor like the iMac might require more effort to get to it, but same issue with ANY all-in-one, like an HP TouchSmart.
Granted, that situation with the iPod and Apple dropping firewire support left a few people hanging. (They've made a few people unhappy with the decision to eliminate the firewire port on the consumer aluminum Macbooks now too.) But IMHO, that sort of thing comes with the territory with computer technology anyway. (EG. I have a $200+ high-end AGP video card that I only got to use twice because the motherboard I bought it for died, and everything after that has been PCI express instead. Should I get angry with Intel for not producing boards with AGP slots anymore?)
just a quick glance over the last several years at microsoft and apple's earnings reports reveals a strong contrast to the fact apple charges some unreasonable premium to produce it products. when compared to microsoft, apple charge almost 1/3 less of the gross profit margin. that is when all is said in down the take home almost 1/3 less on a percentage basis of income. that is not perception, it does not get more real than that.
apple gross profit margin on average over the last several 5 years is 30-35%.
microsoft gross profit margin on average over the last 5 years is 80-85%.
for ballmer to insinuate that apple charges some sort of unreasonable tax (with is comments and now commercial) is pure hypocrisy at best, a bad joke at worst.
MSI GT725-075US, Intel P45M + ICH-9(integrated GPU not available - not wired), 3xUSB, 1xeSATA, 1xExpress Card/54, 320GB hdd 7200RPM WD black, Intel Core 2 Duo P9500(2.53 GHz socketed, up to QX9300 supported ATM IIRC), 4GB DDR2, 7-in-1 memory card reader, webcam, microphone, 4 speakers + 1 bass, 1920x1200 17" LCD Panel(glossy IIRC), BR DVD+/-RW(8x), ATI Mobility Radeon 4850HD 512MB GDDR3(standard MXM Type IV(maybe III) IIRC), 9cell battery(c. 3.5h runtime), Vista Home Prem 32b(bleh, key works for 64b if you have install disk), Intel 5100 WiFi card b/g/draft n, 1G ethernet, 1xVGA, 1xHDMI, boatload(well 4) of Audio I/O multifunctional, 1xfirewire 800, 1xmodem, nearly full 104 key kb(couple keys are doubled up on PgUp & Dn and a weird dupe '\'/'|' key), minimally larger than the macbook(height, but it probably will run cooler), 1y warranty(2 & 3y available at extra cost sort of like Apple), c. 7 1bs
$1599 or IOW holy crap batman, OSX costs $1200?! (excluding a discount for ditching Vista...)
-074US is $1350 with P8600(2.4GHz), no BR but 8x DVD+/-RW, 1680x1050 17" LCD(glossy) everything else the same.
- same as -075US, but with 2GHz Q9000, guessing either at -075US price with price drop for dual core models, or 100-200 more than -075US
GT627-218US pretty much similar to 725s, but 3xUSB AND 1xeSATA/USB combo, max LCD offered is 1680x1050 15.4", 1GB GDDR3 nVidia 9800M GS, 2 speakers
$1299
GT628-??? sounds basically like the 627 but with 4GB DDR3 DRAM out in a month or so, and probably only slightly more than the 627s if they're not discontinued
Configurations vary by country as some countries do not get the 1920x1200 panel, get 500GB hdds, etc. Also seems that more countries get a standard 2y warranty(non-onsite) outside of US & Canada. All MSI notebooks come with factory supported c. 14-25% overclocking(FSB) support. Partial aluminum case(LCD/top portion of main portion of case(kb side), bottom is the usual plastic. Sounds like they might be going to carbon fiber cases(kind of ugly in photos) soon though, or maybe they'll just switch to all aluminum case.)
ASUS has some pretty nice notebooks with similar features in slightly higher price ranges with very nice US warranties, 2y with 1st year also being accidental damage coverage. Main drawback is that they're like concrete blocks(size & weight, the G50VT 15.4" looks more like a small 17", and even though the 725 is small for a 17" I still find it a bit large for nice portability and they also tend to weigh more, but they also support dual hdds mostly) 32b Vista again. (ASUS extended nb kb isn't quite as nice as it lacks more keys and has a poor numeric keypad layout.) Plastic case.
or IOW the "exhaustive" mac tax comparison is a phail as it wasn't really exhaustive. Only real plus for the Apple is the LED backlight, but the crappy keyboard completely negates it. (Not to mention I find current Apple notebook designs to be incredibly ugly.) They also skipped the really big guns of gaming notebooks, e.g. alienware and custom Clevo/Sager D901 (IIRC), ASUS W90(4870x2) based notebooks with SLI support... true high enders which Apple has no answer for. (Also doesn't the higher end Macbook Pro have a better GPU than what he listed? a 9800M?)
This is a nice idea for an article, but it really needs a site that actually has access to all of the notebooks being compared, and an author with some technical knowledge. Bottom line is that Apple DOES have a hefty markup, esp when compared to not as well know, but every bit as good(and better) notebooks from other OEMs/ODMs. The only thing missing from them is the ability to run OSX easily(in many cases) and maybe legally(pending lawsuit(s) if they address the EULA problem directly(again)). The non-pro macbooks are in a world of hurt specwise v. similarly priced machines as well, considering the the 725-074US price is close to the macbook pro and it's anemic GPU.