Comparing prices: Mac vs. Windows laptops

[jason]

Comparing prices: Mac vs. Windows laptops is another article comparing Macs vs PCs. This time it is laptops. Of course they compare similarly configured machines from real companies, not gray market. The answer’s the same as always. Macs laptops cost the same or less than PCs for the same features and function, and the illusory cheaper price is at a cost.

Comments

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Unsurprisingly, MacWorld picked the most expensive variants from the most expensive companies, and added in unnecessary and pointless expensive additions, in order to get the prices close to the Mac versions.

Of course, they also paid Apple's prices for the MacBook upgrades, which is always a mistake. 4GB of MacBook Pro RAM from Apple costs more than $400. 4GB of MacBook Pro RAM from Kingston costs $100.

When buying a Mac, it's *always* worthwhile to buy the minimum configuration and upgrade aftermarket, because Apple relies on the loyalty of their customers to let them get away with gouging.

(The last MacBook Pro one of my clients purchased came to close to $4500 after software. The equivalent Thinkpad T61 with the same hardware and software was $3250.)

[complicittheory.livejournal.com]

Yes, that was the point. Compare apples with apples. People say Macs are more expensive, but they should say Macs are more expensive than no-name puters made out of grey market parts. Of course they are. When I want to cobble together a linux box out of spare parts for fun or something, I can do it for nothing.

It is not useful to compare "after software" unless you're comparing buying for one what comes free on the other, of course. The same goes for after market upgrades. Both mac and PC are best bought with minimum configs and then upgrading them yourself, if you don't care about warranty.

It is not about what a professional can hammer together, but it is about what average people can buy and make sense of without you or me.

I've worked with Macs, Suns, NeXt, Dells, DECs, and many flavours of dos, unix, MacOS, etc. over the past 20 years. And when I want to give someone something that is the most bang, and the least headache for the buck Macs clearly suck the least, and I spend the least amount of time getting them to do the most. Unfortunately, I teach exclusively on dells. That works because there's an entire part of the uni devoted to fixing them up. :)

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

You've missed my point - they didn't compare apples to apples.

They compared (normal) apples to Imported Organic Extra-Oxidant Apples With A CD-Rom Drive And A Blowjob Coupon.

To get a machine equivalent to a MacBook in power and functionality, I don't have to go with Dell's most expensive laptop and ramp up. I can get a much cheap Acer or even a different model of Dell that will give you the same performance for 2/3 the price.

They worked hard to cherry pick examples that might support their point, and they still had to cheat.

It is not useful to compare "after software" unless you're comparing buying for one what comes free on the other, of course.

It is ABSOLUTELY useful to compare "after software", because equivalent software is priced differently AND, as you say, on some platforms it's totally free.

I mean, they even tacked on a $100 piece of Adobe software on the PCs for functionality that's
A) built into Windows already, if not perfectly implemented out of the box in XP.
and
B) available for free, online.
C) the most expensive package of it's type for a home user, even IF you're going to pay for it instead of get it free.

Macs are more expensive than no-name puters made out of grey market parts.

Acer, Lenovo, HP, Dell, Asus, and Fujitsu are not "no-name", and neither are they in any way "grey market".

when I want to give someone something that is the most bang, and the least headache for the buck Macs clearly suck the least, and I spend the least amount of time getting them to do the most.

As I said, I strongly disagree about "most bang", and while you're *usually* right about "least headache", that only ever lasts until you try to do something even slightly outside what the designer of the Mac thought you should want to do.

As soon as that happens, you run into a massive wall of pain, *and*, for most users, there's nobody who can or will help them with it.

[complicittheory.livejournal.com]

ok. I get your point. We just disagree. I'll never see a Dell or an Acre as worth comparing to an Apple. Totally different worlds. Never owned an acre, but Dell's are nightmares. Lenovo HP and Fujitsu would meet my criteria. Dell may have changed, but it when I was buying dells they did not use the same chips from box to box, seemign to throw in whatever was cheapest. But that was 7-8 years ago. All I know now is that we never get a laptop that doesn't fall apart. Though I'd probably bring in the notion of innovation, which costs. But that wasn't part of the original discussion.