[Mr. Blonde]

And you miss Apple’s business model entirely. They sell hardware with very good software on it. They make money from hardware. A lot of people do buy it because of the software, but it would take a lot of $129 OS X copies to equal one MacBook. Why would they trade a cash cow for almost no money. That doesn’t make any sense.

And how much is building a computer worth anyway? I have no desire to. I don’t think it is a particularly difficult but I still have no desire to do it and even if I did I highly doubt I would be as good at it as Apple’s engineers. That has to be worth a few hundred anyway.

I’m sure you can build a computer cheaper than the equivalent Dell or HP as well. Do you dislike them as well?

[Sudetenland]

No, I completely get Apple's business model. That's why I'm not suckered into buying one. Only a fool would pay $2500 for what should be at most-with profit-a $1200-$1500 computer.

As to building it, Start to power on took 30 minutes. Time consumed is in waiting for the parts to arrive...usually a week or less.

All Apple markets is snob appeal. Their equipment is no better than a PC; they just charge a huge premium for their closed hardware system.