Posted on 11/07/2007 2:16:36 PM PST by Swordmaker
Let's put to rest the myth that an Apple computer will set you back more than a Windows PC. In fact, it'll cost you less.
It's time to buy an Apple computer. Indeed, it's been that time for the past five years, at least, but only now, slowly, are people waking up to this fact. Thanks to Apple's relentless flash -- the John Hodgman ads, the iPods, the iPhones -- its Macintosh business is now in league with that of the biggest PC companies in the world. Everyone who's used it agrees that Leopard, the operating system that Apple released late last month, is to its chief rival, Microsoft's Windows Vista, roughly as Richard Wagner is to Richard Marx. This simple truth is dawning: If we forget about computer-industry network effects and monopolistic business practices, if we forget Apple's various ancient missteps -- if we're going just by what's better -- the ages-old Mac-vs.-PC debate is over. Long over. Yell it from the rooftops: The Mac has won.
And yet, you're not buying an Apple computer. Most of the world isn't. There is probably a single overwhelming reason you're clinging to Windows. Macs are expensive. This is what you've been told, and in your research, it's seemed to check out. If they acknowledge it at all, Mac fans will rationalize the higher prices by noting that you're paying for quality. Buying a Mac, folks say, is like buying a BMW (Apple CEO Steve Jobs regularly compares the Mac's market share with that of German luxury cars). But what if you don't want the BMW of PCs? What if you can only afford a Chevrolet?
The present article is an attempt to prove to you that, on price alone, the Mac is not the BMW of computers. It is the Ford of computers. I am not arguing that the Mac is cheaper only if you consider the psychic benefits conferred by its quality. Rather I'm going to illustrate something more straightforward: Even though you may pay a slight premium at the cash register for a Mac over a comparable Windows PC (a premium that gets slighter all the time), it will cost you less money -- real, honest-to-goodness American dollars -- to own that Mac than to own that PC.
Why this should be has to do with an economic truth that has not recently mattered much in the computer industry, but that, in an age of eBay and unyielding obsolescence, is now crucial. It is resale value. Macs fetch far more on the aftermarket than do PCs -- and after years of use, you can offset that cash-register premium by selling your Mac for a better price than you could your PC.
Consider this example: Last Thanksgiving, you could have purchased a fairly well-outfitted Windows desktop -- the HP Pavilion Media Center A1640n -- on sale from some retail outlets for $699. The machine came with 2 gigabytes of memory, a 250 GB hard disk, and it ran on a quick 1.86 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor.
Around the same time, you might instead have picked up Apple's top-of-the-line Mac Mini, which came equipped with a processor slightly less powerful than the HP's (a 1.83 GHz Intel Core Duo), a far smaller hard disk (80 GB), and less memory (512 MB). The Mac Mini would have set you back $799, or $100 more than the HP.
A good way to gauge the current market value of a computer is to check how much buyers have been willing to pay for similar models in auctions recently completed on eBay. Doing so for the HP shows prices ranging from $236 to $257 -- let's say a rough average of $250. Sales of the Mac Mini, meanwhile, go from about $445 to $550. Let's assume you can unload yours for $500.
If you used your HP for a year and then sold it, you would have spent $449 to own it -- that is, your purchase price of $699 minus your sale price of $250. The Mac Mini, for the same year, would have set you back far less: $799 minus $500, or just $299.
I ran such comparisons on many Windows and Mac systems sold during the past four years, and in nearly every one -- whether the machines were laptops or desktops -- the Macs sold by enough of a premium over comparable Windows machines to make up for the greater amount you would have paid when buying them.
In the spring of 2006, for instance, you could have purchased a nice Dell laptop -- the Inspiron E1505, with a 1.66 GHz Core Duo processor, 1 GB of memory, and an 80 GB hard disk -- for $999 directly from Dell. At the time, Apple's roughly comparable entry-level MacBook -- 1.83 GHz Intel Core Duo processor, 512 MB memory, a 60 GB disk -- went for $100 more, $1,099.
Even if you'd treated your machine very well, you'd be lucky to sell the Dell today for $550, while MacBooks have recently sold for $710, $740, $790, and even $800. It would, in other words, be a cinch to sell the MacBook for $100 more than the Dell Inspiron, thereby making up the purchase-price difference you paid earlier (and likely even beating it).
Apple fans have long understood the amazing resale value of their machines. Windows users, on the other hand, might be scratching their heads at my argument; in the Windows world, selling your computer (rather than recycling it) is almost unheard of. After just a year or two of use, a Windows machine gets so gummed up with spyware, viruses and other nasty stuff that it seems malicious to ask anybody for money for the thing.
When I say that it is time to consider buying an Apple computer, what I really mean is that it's time to consider that computers can live longer than what we in the Windows camp are used to. It's time to realize that a 2-, 3-, or even 4- or 5-year-old machine is still intrinsically useful -- if not to you then to someone else -- and you'd do well to take this value into consideration when choosing what to buy.
Last year, the Web entrepreneur Daniel Nissanoff published an intriguing book called "Future Shop," in which he argued that by making all goods more "liquid," eBay and other auction sites would profoundly revolutionize how we shop. The coming "auction culture," he writes, "will shake up the status quo by reshuffling brand values according to how well a product actually sells in the secondary market." Instead of choosing what to buy based on its price tag, we'll take into account "how much it will fetch on eBay next year, which corresponds to how much it will really cost you to own it up until then."
Tech geeks tend to purchase computers as if brands don't matter. As long as the specs are in order, they argue, you can buy a bargain-basement PC and rest assured that it'll work out for you -- the logo on the case doesn't mean a thing for how it runs.
Nissanoff's thesis -- not to mention the completed sales on eBay -- upturns this argument. Even for computers, brand matters. This week I compared prices of several machines from Dell, Gateway and other PC vendors against Apple's lineup of Macs. In most cases comparable Macs sold for within $100 more than the PCs.
But the Apples had something extra: that logo, the design, the history, the clutch of fans willing to snap up any products the company makes. You'll need another computer in a year or two, and at that time, when you go to sell your current machine, Apple's intangibles will count for a great deal -- much more than $100.
I would guess about half of Windows users voted for Kerry in the last election, are you going to stop using PCs because they attract Democrats?
No, I wouldn't turn it down because of that reason, which is precisely why I will eventually buy one (very likely used). That said since I have been happy with PC's for some time, I honestly don't feel I am missing out on anything for not owning a Mac. I have Photoshop, and recording software. Heck with skins I can get a close mock-up to the visual aspect of OSX.
People were early on when Vista was in beta form comparing it to a more MAC-like UI, and maybe that is precisely why I don't care for the graphic gimmickry of Vista. The Aero crap was the first thing I turned off when I loaded Vista Beta. My laptop had Vista pre-loaded and I installed a new 160gb hard drive and the OS that went on it was XP Pro.
What precisely is giving you problems where you have to trick Windows into doing what you want to do? Is it an issue with new programs and unfamiliarity; differences with Apple you're so used to doing a certain way, and having to do it differently is frustrating, and not logical to you?
Here is a hint with the plug and play aspect. I avoid that issue with a camera buy using a $15 San Disk card reader. The camera never needs to be plugged into the computer and the wasted space of installing 2 or 3 software suites for camera editing (I have 3 digital cameras) would be a waste of hard drive space. With the multi-reader it acts as a removeable drive. Simple.
I wouldn't spend $2499 on a Mac, so I'd be buying a used G4 or G5 Mac. Nope I don't need Xeon chips and to be honest I don't even need Dual processors or even core duo. Heck I don't even like Intel, so I'd be opting for AMD Athlon X2 or for laptop Turion X2 if I wanted dual core and had a choice with an Apple. Yeah 1gb is a joke, and I was wondering if the memory is standard DDR2 chips or some proprietary APPLE ONLY chips which are priced at a premium. I bought 2gbs (2-1gb chips) 3 months aqgo for $50, wonder how much it's going to cost for that on an Apple?
Re: how far you can delve into it.
OSX.5 Leopard is a fully certified UNIX which means you can delve into as far as you want with the fully functional Terminal (think Command Line)
Anything you can do with Linux or Unix can be done on a Mac.
On an Intel Mac you can also do anything you can do with any version of Windows for computers.
re: the Quad core XPS for $2349
Sure is. But that’s only one Quad core... Add the second one and see what the price comparison with a Mac.
Given the rate of development of new hardware and software in either market, coupled with the volatility of pricing, I’m skeptical of anyone claiming to answer the question “once and for all” right out of the gate.
Exceptions don’t make rules for me.....not on any subject.
does for lotsda folks here though....they make their rules from exceptions actually
true of any mac store I've seen.....it's like Volvo owners....
So few PCs are sold while they still have significant value, I’m not sure it sure it makes sense to put too much emphasis on resale value.
MacOS was a successful attempt to improve on Xerox's work. Windows was an unsuccessful attempt to copy MacOS.
The base machine usually costs 2 to 3 times as much for the same stuff
See my earlier laptop comparison.
Need more RAM? You can't buy the standard sticks, you need the parity stuff for $100s more - and so on.
The extra 2 GB for my iMac was standard laptop RAM from NewEgg. Only the Mac Pros need special RAM, and that's because they're Xeon, and all Xeons need this RAM. The only difference is that Apple requires a quality heat spreader (easily available from non-Apple sources).
Plus Mac software tends to cost more.
Have you compared the price of iWork and MS Office? have you compared the upgrade price of the OS itself, especially if you're upgrading multiple machines?
As for the virus and malware argument, the real issue is that the coders don’t bother with Macs because nobody uses them. . . that's hardly a real advantage.
It's pretty big. In fact, it's been more than doubling recently. Plus, OS X being UNIX gives them the UNIX developers.
I used Macs since the first one, but not as my main machine. I've used Windows since the unbearable 80s editions. There is now no comparison: Going to the Mac as my main machine was a major relief in every way.
So why aren't you buying her the equivalent Dell workstation at $3900 since obviously the $3000 Mac must be 50% more expensive as you claimed.
This is a real world situation, Filo... and the Mac is less expensive.
Oh, sorry Filo, you said It was 2 to 3 times more expensive... Not 50%...
re: ...so few...
It is just one factor in finding the real total cost of ownership. I thought it would make for some good friendly repartee and it has.
Bump.
Those were the numbers as priced: same video, processor, hard drive, display size, Bluetooth, memory and about the same size battery. They both are close to the same size and weight (a $300 option monitor, not included, cuts it in Dell's favor on this). Other than that, each comes with a few minor things the other doesn't. What's left is warranty: Dell slightly better, but for the difference I could get three years Apple Care and still be $50 ahead.
but when I bought my wife's Titanium (a couple of years ago) it was over $3K out the door.
A PPC Mac I take it. That was the worst time to buy as the G4 chip was in its last throes, already maxed out, and Apple couldn't fit a G5 into a notebook. Let's do it for now: XPS M1710 vs. 17" MacBook Pro. A slightly slower Dell (in processor and video) with otherwise the same specs and close to the same other features comes out about $350 more. And the Dell is a lot bigger and heavier.
Apple charges outrageous prices for memory. I really don't understand why they do that, since they are the exact same chips you can get from any decent memory vendor for a fraction of the price. I upped my iMac from 1 GB to 3 GB myself and saved a few hundred dollars. And it only took about 30 seconds of my time (unscrew the little panel under the front, pop in the chip and screw it back in).
Of course, the last few PCs I bought I also got the minimum memory and upgraded myself (although it took a LOT longer). It's just the sensible thing to do unless the vendor is running a "double the memory for free" special.
I would. I'm totally spoiled now. I've had to dip into a shell once (as aside from going to shell just to play with UNIX), but only because I wanted some esoteric power management settings.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.