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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.
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.
Why can't they offer the equivalent hardware of an iMac in the shell of a Mac Pro and meet the halfway point in terms of price? That would be the sweet spot for me.
Because Apple stopped catering to people who upgrade their computers a long time ago. The vast majority of consumers never upgrade a single component in their computer, and that's the lowest common denominator that Apple is appealing to. This means they can save cost and increase margin in a very competitive market.
I'm sure I'll come across as a Mac apologist, but it's the god's honest truth. I would love a mid/low powered expandable desktop, but it isn't going to happen anytime soon.
a) no, Macs are not significantly more expensive than PCs
$1600 Dell:
http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/hot-deals/913148
$2800 MacBook Pro:
http://store.apple.com/us/configure/MB604LL/A?mco=MzA3MTE3NA
You can keep trying to peddle that nonsense, but I think most /.ers are capable of comparing $1600 and $2800 and coming to their own conclusions. It's not even a close call.
Look over your own figures, asshat. That 0.26GHz processor difference REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY matters!
In case people take this anon post seriously, let me quickly point out that it's not just a clock speed difference, but an architecture difference. This means a slightly different processor design with a faster bus and faster RAM. I've heard a 10-15% clock-for-clock boost over last gen is the number thrown around, but that's a general number across desktops and laptops of different shapes and sizes. That would make the performance difference about 21% (10% on the clock speed, 10% on the architecture), taken with about a pound of salt (only matters in heavy use cases, doesn't help if you're IO-bound (disk/network), architecture improvements result in very asymmetrical speedups).