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Posted on 09/12/2007 5:40:33 PM PDT by Swordmaker
Nothing gets the wingnuts more fired up than a good ol' cost comparison between Macs and PCs. Many people use the price comparison as a way to validate their choice for what platform they are using as if somehow saving $109 will justify the all the time spent on this computer rather than that one.
Usually it starts in the comments of an article praising how comparatively cheap Macs are these days. A PC Troll will pipe in giving you a break down of a similar Dell for $300 less. Then the Mac Zealot will counter with how different the specs really are and when he goes to the Dell site, it's actually $175 more. Cue the recent Dell buyer who claims he got his for $450 below the listed price by using the last Friday of the month special code. Then of course Linux Larry jumps in with how he built his Linux box from spare parts in Mom's basement and only spent $17 for a new power supply and did it over a fun-filled three day weekend.
My eyes just glaze over when I see that pattern these days.
So what is the real deal with the cost of the Mac versus an equivalent PC these days? Well, the real issue is that the question can be framed so many ways, you can support both sides. Do you just compare the number on the receipt for the computer? What about including the cost of anti-spyware and virus software with subscriptions that PC buyers are advised to get? Or should you look at total cost of ownership (TCO) that includes the amount of downtime and professional support that might be required to keep your computer operational? How about resale value? Should you back number that out? You can see that even getting the right question can be quite a furball.
The easiest comparison is the most limited one which just takes into account the out-the-door price. The difficulties with this reside mostly in finding the right PC to compare to a Mac. Because there are only 14 stock Mac models and a bajillion PC models to pick from, you really need to start with the Mac and find the closest match for the PC from a top-tier manufacturer like HP, Sony, Dell or Lenovo. Framed this way, the Mac fluctuates from a little above to a little below the PC price in general. Yes, there are always special deals someone might know about to tip the balance, but as far as telling your Mom to go buy it on her own, this should hold up. See Mac vs. PC cost analysis revisited for detailed info.
What about what the Mac doesn't do? PC supporters are usually quick to highlight that they can go get a $299 special Desktop with monitor and the Mac can't touch that. This goes to the point that Apple just doesn't play in certain markets.
So where does Apple just opt out? In desktops, they don't have any stripped down black or beige boxes and they don't have any mid-range models without integrated monitors. This keeps away the bargain hunters (for better) and the corporate enterprise market (for worse). In laptops, because Apple scales the screen size with features, they don't have any low-end large screen models or high-end sub notebooks. They also don't play in tablets, but that market has yet to prove significant enough to go after.
So where does that leave Apple? With a product line-up that's as carefully designed as their products are. Simple choices usually consisting of Good, Better and Best, each separated by a few hundred dollars. Are they missing out on some markets? Yes, but they are either too small or too low in margin. Ask Dell how the last few years of selling to bargain hunters has worked out for the company.
What doesn't the PC do that the Mac does? Well, first the obvious answer is, "run the Mac OS." But this has varying value to different people. There are legitimate reasons to prefer one OS over the other. But the Mac can claim to be able to run both Windows and Mac OS (as well as Linux and Unix, which both can do).
Secondly, Windows doesn't have an equivalent for iLife at any price. You can patch together many of the functions without the finesse, but there is no seamless package which gets you the iLife experience in Windows.
Lastly, there is Apple's award-winning industrial design to contend with. It's hard to put a dollar value to, but it's clear that PC manufacturers have decided not reach for that market just like Apple has abandoned other markets. Even Sony has backed away from having top-tier product design. (I think Sony is happy these days just getting products and services to market that don't blow-up in their face.)
So where does that leave the comparisons? When you can get an even comparison, you'll find that sometimes the Mac comes out ahead and sometimes the PC comes out ahead. What that means to me is for the time being, price really isn't the issue people seem to make it. Yes, Apple used to have significantly higher priced products, but especially since switching to Intel, they are in the same ballpark as the PC. After reading all the comparisons on the web that I have, I'm calling it a draw.
If you are honestly comparing using a PC versus using a Mac, a 10% price difference either way shouldn't stop you from getting the computer that will really suit your needs. The other differences between the platforms should be much more compelling than the $109 savings you might get judging them solely on price.
Somehow, the price of each sometimes eclipses the value when discussing Macs and PCs. Maybe it's because I make my living using a computer, but I'd venture to say that if you aren't getting many multiples of the price in the value of your computer, you picked the wrong one.
Can we put this all behind us now?!
If you want on or off the Mac Ping List, Freepmail me.
Two weekends ago I took a trip to the Apple store.
Found a nice Mac Book Pro, $2000. Wow, a lot of money.
Came home, got on the Dell website and ‘built’ a similar Inspiron.
Guess what, the Dell worked out to $1902.
That figure does not include the anti virus, etc to add to the Dell.
BTW, the Mac cpu is 2.2 gig, the Dell, 1.8 gig.
Also the Dell is clunky compared to the Mac. A more realistic comparison would probably have been the Dell XPS. A more expensive option.
As soon as OSX Leopard comes out I’m getting the Mac.
ping
The same price can buy me a fast Win Machine, but only with a single OS. Why bother? IMHO, its the Win machines that are more expensive and more restrictive. (Mr. Peel likes to have Linux in a separate window on his Mac). Can Microsoft come out with simultaneous dual OSes that co-exist on the same box in separate windows? I don't think so. Yet both Macs and PC now use Intel.
I bought my PC on sale at Compusa for $199.00, I found my monitor and I only use freeware.
The comments section was laid out really cute. :’) And they were pretty amusing in spots, and interesting.
Macs are MUCH more expensive and higher maintenance in a corporate environment than PCs.
I can say this as an original MacHead. I love’em. I’ve used a lot of different computers over the years, starting with an Amdahl 7000. I did CP/M then DOS. I bought a an SE/30 and I still think its one of the best computers ever made. I really don’t have a dog in the OS fight.
But having to now support all platforms in a wildly diverse corporate environment I can say without qualification that Macs are the biggest pain in the @$z in the whole outfit.
Macs suck up a far more disproportionate amount of support than even the linux whiners, and they are #2.
:-)
In what way(s) do you find OS X machines to suck up more support than Windows (or Linux)?
Our experience has been painless, but we are a relatively small and tech savvy outfit (read: 80% software engineers).
Curious to hear your experience, since you’ve had to support them all.
I’ve never had experience with Macs in the corporate environment, but I find your comments odd. I have had a Mac Titanium PowerBook G4 since Nov. 2002, and I’ve never had a single issue with it. Yes, there is the rare crash, but a quick reboot and I’m back in business. I’ve updated the OS twice from Jaguar to Panther to Tiger with absolutely no problems. I’ve never had to reformat the hard drive or have to recover a major hard drive crash. I can’t wait for Leopard to come out so I can upgrade to a shiny new MacBook Pro.
Comparatively, I’ve had two Gateway tower PCs that have been nothing but trouble. I’ve had to replace hard drives 4 times and one of the two monitors died on me. Gateway tech support’s answer to every problem was always to reformat the hard drive and reinstall everything. I’ve been through that drill countless times and have lost tons of valuable data. Not to mention every time I turn the PC on, I’m greeted by endless pop-ups nagging me to update something or other. Updating all the anti-virus and security software over and over can take several hours every month.
OK, I know Gateway sucks and they are practically irrelevant in the PC market now. But we use Dell at work, and those have been far from trouble free. I remember our whole department got laptop upgrades a few years ago, and almost 50% of them were DOA or had major hardware (hard drive, screen, dock, etc.) failures within the first few months. I was one of the “lucky” ones who didn’t have any major failures, but my laptop never seemed to run right either. It was a total pig running basic software, it would take forever to “initialize the network connection” every time I turned it on, etc.
So I’m totally baffled by your experience with Macs. Exactly what kind of maintenance do they require?
Its not about brand or OS, really. All computers can and will have problems.
In a home environment there’s really little bad to say about Macs. They are good machines.
But in a corporate network they require much more care and feeding than an XP machine. Everything they do is more complex because they just don’t play nice on IP networks... Especially with a Windows AD architecture. Its almost like there is some ghost of that hideous appletalk living somewhere in the machine. :-)
Last week computerworld.com had a article saying the macbook Pro was the best windows Vista notebook on the market. Peaked my interest. I finally had a good few hours using the newest MacBookPro 17” with 4GB of RAM. Used Mac OS, Windows XP, and Windows XP in Parallels. It really is a solid machine.
Ok, so the notebook costs over $3,000 with all the software licenses. It’s worth it, best laptop I’ve ever used, even beat out the top of the line Asus models that use the 768mb video cards.
We had some growing pains going from OS 9 to Tiger but our Macs have caused much, much less grief than our XP machines.
You can turn off Appletalk. In fact, unless you have old printers on your net or are trying to network with OS9 machines, you should.
But I can see where there would be networking issues in a Windows environment.
I have an OS X network at my office, never had any issues. In fact we replaced 5 Compaq Proliant servers with one OS X server. Our support issues have dropped to almost zero. When we were running 2000, there were constant support issues.
Good for you.
Since I don't know your network architecture, all I can say is that your experience is counter to mine. . . and most others who administer shared networks. The Macs are generally much less time demanding than are the Windows boxes. I can only conclude you are doing something wrong on the Macs because I think you know Windows.
We did a study to analyze the actual cost of “Windows” maintenance and support. In part, we did this by asking our I/S Operations group to have their technicians log all support calls that were specifically “windows” related - windows crashed, locked up, driver errors, DLL failures, whatever. We also logged any additional time spent on any Windows maintenance. In other words, we tried to identify as best we could how many man-hours we were investing in simply the “care and feeding” of Windows to keep it up and running. When the analysis was complete, the results were unbelievable - simply unbelievable how much time, effort and money we were investing into the care and feeding of Windows on a PC. When you add that internal support cost into the ROI calculation for Macs the results were undeniable. There are those who would say that the Mac hardware is more expensive than a PC, especially when you add Parallels and a Windows XP OEM license, and if you stop there, that is true (but not a huge difference). However, when you throw the Windows support cost in to the matrix, the results fall drastically towards the Mac, based upon our estimates. Our proof of concept testing found that Windows running on a Mac in the Parallels virtual environment did not require the same degree of support as full-blown Windows PC’s - much less, in fact.As part of my due diligence I have visited 2 companies that have between 10,000 - 20,000 Macs on their network. In both cases the companies have blended networks, supporting both Mac’s and Windows PC’s. In both cases Mac XServes were the controlling architecture. The network management tools and support software that Apple provides allows each of these companies to have fewer than five I/S support personnel. I have more than 5 just to support our fleet of Windows PC’s and related devices. - Computerworld - Auto Warehousing Co. CIO Dale Frantz - July 16, 2007
Those businesses I have been able to convince to go 100% Mac have little to no trouble... and I wind up making far less money from them than I did when they were 100% Windows.
I use multiple platforms....various Microsoft products, OS X Tiger, and some Linux distros (and am playing with BSD right now).
What many people miss isn’t just the issue of cost...that’s the most important, but not only factor in buying a computer. To me, the Mac is the best consumer OS because it’s simple, reliable, attractive to both look at and use.
Windows is the “best” (I use that word with a big grain of salt) biz platform simply because Office and MS Server products rule the roost in the office.
Linux/BSD are the best server platforms if you need something very, very customized. What I love about those platforms is that you can set them up damn near exactly the way you like, anyway you like.
I haven’t had a chance to play with OS X server, but costwise, it’s a very attractive option, and I may look into it for our office. It might offer the best of both worlds....lots of OSS options, but the time savings (in setting up and configuring it) and ease of use of a Mac.
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