Lauren Is Right: Macs Cost More Than PCs

microsoft-watch.com ^ | March 30, 2009 2:55 AM | Joe Wilcox

[martin_fierro]

News Analysis. If you're one of those people who insist Macs are comparably priced to Windows PCs, read no further. This post will make you really angry.

Last week, Microsoft started airing the newest "I'm a PC" ad, featuring Lauren

[antiRepublicrat]

Perfect example is the iPod. Pay 4x the cost of a “regular” mp3 player with the same memory, stuck with a required interface, have to deal with DRM

There's DRM on my iPod? I wouldn't have known if I hadn't read about it. Besides, show me anything that comes close to an iPod Touch, or the new Shuffle. There will be eventually, after other manufacturers have copied Apple as much as they can.

[antiRepublicrat]

From experience, 120 mph in a Ford Escort is a bit unnerving and stressful. 140 mph in a Mercedes 300 series is almost relaxing. But it leans back towards stressful when you get above 160, at least in any car mere mortals can afford (I hear the Veyron is quite comfy above 200 mph).

[zeugma]

And that will remain true long as they don’t start outselling PCs. Why write a virus for a few Mac users?

Wow. It took a whole 12 posts for the worthless and completely discredited "virus market share" canard to be posted.

If you've been reading the news lately you might be familiar with the latest attacks against home routers. Are you trying to tell me that the population of home routers with public facing admin access is larger than that of Macs?

You might want to google the 'witty worm", which had a target of just 15,000 hosts worldwide.

I guess it's a part of that big lie thing. Repeat somehing long enough, and people believe it is true.

It gets old for many of us though.

[RachelFaith]

Thanks for those details Swordmaker! The whole thing about a 17” screen is bogus! Not only is that 17” a washed out POS, but the 13” macbook for UNDER $1000 is nearly the SAME in screen pixels and Nvidia powered 5 times FASTER and clearer than that 5 year old Best Buy Boat Anchor they sold her.

Dollar for Dollar she would have gotten a much better Macbook 13 for her money. And none of the time wasting ad ware, or problems.

The resale value 2 or 3 years from now will be higher for that Macbook than the BB POS too!

Total value, total cost of ownership, and cost of use. Mac Beats that “value” PC on every front.

[Mr Rogers]

But on cost for performance acceptable to most folks...Mac does not. Maybe if I played games it would be different, but I surf the net and read news and type email. It doesn’t take much power or performance to do that.

[Hyzenthlay]

LOL, when I saw that commercial for the first time, at the end my reaction was “and now she needs to install Linux if she wants it to work well...”

[Swordmaker]

LOL, when I saw that commercial for the first time, at the end my reaction was “and now she needs to install Linux if she wants it to work well...”

One of her original stated criteria was "Speed." She didn't get it.

[RachelFaith]

She had a $1000 budget. THAT is the point. And for $1000 spec for spec, she or anyone else would be BETTER served with the 13” macbook.

Now if the add said all she needs is EMAIL, and News on the Web. She could get THAT again... VIRUS FREE for a USED G3 macbook for under $200.

And yeah, run OS X on it, and it would likely STILL mop the floor for any comparable priced PC.

[Locomotive Breath]

Yeah those Apple branded hard drives are really unreliable.

[Jack Wilson]

OK, the next time I’m strolling through my neighborhood computer shop I will watch for the aisles of Mac software - where are they again? Somewhere near the 10000+ PC software titles?

[ctdonath2]

I’ve told that story many times.
You’re the first person who clearly understands it.

[guinnessman]

Thanks for the ammo!

[Wyatt's Torch]

I’m with you. I bought a Mac Pro over a year ago and have had zero issues with it. I had a Dell for a few years before and was constantly having problems. God forbid I wanted to upgrade memory or anything else. On my Dell I upgraded some RAM and my DVD Burner no longer worked. I added a hard drive and my USB ports no longer worked. it was insane. I’ve done both of those on the Mac Pro and it was unbelievably easy. Not to mention the iLife suite all works seamlessly. I will never go back to a PC.

[TankerKC]

I’ve always been perplexed by windows people who seem to always want to write articles about Macs? Why bother when it is obivous that you went in looking for any bad you could find.

I’ve always been perplexed by Mac people who seem to always want to write articles about windows? Why bother when it is obivous that you went in looking for any bad you could find.

[TankerKC]

I Think not... googling the set of words: penguins eating polar bears —returned 262,000 hits.

I count three. How did we get on this tangent? ;)

[Neoliberalnot]

I am guessing they are made in China??

[antiRepublicrat]

#1 and #3 myth.

#2 misrepresentation. Vista has copy protection heavily ingrained in the OS. Apple so far has refused, and thus can’t play Blu-ray. What is there now is most likely the basis for a non-intrusive DRM system that will allow Blu-ray.

[Swordmaker]

I count three. How did we get on this tangent? ;)

Polar bears are tasty?

This Google Search—

penguins eating polar bears.

—returns 262,000 hits because it will include any web page with those four words no matter how the words are related or not related.

This proper, more limited Google search—

"penguins eating polar bears"

—returns only 3 hits. Notice the quotation marks around the words making it a phrase. This search only returns web pages with that phrase. That was my point.

[TankerKC]

That was my point.

Which was also the point in post 88.

[Swordmaker]

I Think not... googling the set of words: penguins eating polar bears —returned 262,000 hits.

See Reply 93 for examples of the results from the improper search that GLDNGUN did to get is 23 million hits for the words Mac problems.