Once and for all, proof that Macs are cheaper than PCs

Machinist.Salon ^ | By Farhad Manjoo

[Blue Highway]

Ok so the memory is standard DDR2 then? That’s good news at least they are using a standard that is easily obtainable and cheap. Anyone remember RAMBUS? I am glad that was shot down in flames when Intel was propping that up as the best thing since sliced bread and a price that would have stiffled new PC purchases with memory that expensive. It was a miracle from Heaven when DDR memory was offered cheaper and eventually able to outperform RAMBUS that sent it to the graveyard. It was great to see Intel cave in as they were moving away from SDram and were never intending to use standard DDR but were forced to due to competition.

[avenir]

“Sure is. But that’s only one Quad core... Add the second one and see what the price comparison with a Mac.”

Per the Apple Store: $2499 for “Two 2.66GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon Woodcrest processors”, i.e. one quad core. The “second one” would raise the price to $3997.

I know the Dell cited isn’t comparable to the Pro processor—I never said it was—but how much would the Blu-Ray/monitor/GeForce 8800/xtra gig ram drive that entry Mac Pro up?

I guess we can’t know, really, since you can’t add a Blu-Ray or a GeForce 8800 to it.

[antiRepublicrat]

Ok so the memory is standard DDR2 then?

Unless it's a Xeon workstation (Mac Pro), then it's fully-buffered chips.

Anyone remember RAMBUS?

Yep, that was a disaster. Despite them being cleared, I still think they were submarining the patent through JEDEC, the memory standards body, so they could threaten their competition. But RAMBUS lives on where it's actually useful -- in game consoles.

[SunkenCiv]

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.

Actually, I only see that in posts by online trolls. The single overwhelming reason I find in talking to family, friends, and acquaintances is, they think they won't have software compatibility with Office (or some other proprietary software on which they rely for various things).

[Swordmaker]

Re: quad core Dell v. Apple Mac Pro

No. Avenir, you are misreading the specs.

The basic $2499 Apple Mac Pro has two Dual Core Woodcrest 5150 Xeon processors. That is a total of four processors. The $3997 price you are quoting is for two Quad core Xeon processors... a total of eight processors. Put two Quads into your Dell and see what price comes up.

Re: the $2349 Dell processors not being equivalent

. Then why are we even talking about it? Re: Blueray in the Mac. Apple does not sell one in their configuration on the store but 3rd party drives are available and are plug and play in that Mac Pro. I haven't priced them. In addition, your single Quad Core processor would have only one front side bus available to it. The two dual core Xeons in the Mac Pro have two FSBs. That makes a big difference.

[dennisw]

Building a (cheap) computer

http://forums.slickdeals.net/showthread.php?sduid=0&t=553826&highlight=computer

[discostu]

Well your first mistake was buying anti-virus and spyware software, the best stuff out there is free, and they’re not just the best because they’re free they’re the best because they’re the best the free part is just a nice bonus. They’d have probably done a better job of protecting your computer.

Next mistake was going to CompUSA, I hate those guys. I also won’t touch the big brands like HP and Compaq, I wind up dealing with them at work and they just do too much weird stuff, and they’re overpriced. I don’t think anybody likes Vista, as for it’s being confusing it’s like 4 mouse clicks away from “Windows Classic” (just like XP) which also turns off most of the memory hogging lame features, there’s always going to be some confusion because MS likes to rearrange things every release for no good reason.

I’m not on any side, I use Wintel machines because they do what I want, the software I want to run is supported on the Wintel platform. Yes I know Apple can pretend to be Wintel and from all accounts does so well, but I want support. If the latest version of Madden is giving me trouble I want to be able to call EA and when I tell them about the machine it’s installed on not be wished luck and hung up on. But that’s me, my call not necessarily applicable to anyone else. I was just pointing out that the reasoning in the article doesn’t add up, resale value is != to cheaper, and Wintel users don’t necessarily just chuck computers away after a couple of years.

[Filo]

MacOS was a successful attempt to improve on Xerox's work. Windows was an unsuccessful attempt to copy MacOS.

Absolutely incorrect. Both Apple and Microsoft were given tours at PARC at pretty much the same time. Both borrowed heavily from Xerox' work and both borrowed from each other.

Statements like the above expose the Mac fanatics true bias and lack of perspective.

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?

So you can cherry-pick a couple of examples of cheaper software, ignoring the various other products that either don't exist on the Mac or are more expensive for that platform. Sounds fair.

Going to the Mac as my main machine was a major relief in every way.

I'm more of a CP/M guy myself but I'm having a little difficulty staying current.

Seriously, though, I'm not knocking the Mac per se. I'm just not buying into all the hype. The Macs are solid, well engineered machines with lots of great features but they aren't perfect, they aren't cheap and they aren't a panacea.

Plus they generally attract the same idiots that buy Volvos or Prius' and slap John Kerry stickers on the back.

Apple has made a lot of mistakes since the late 1970s and they are just now looking like they might be able to recover from them as a company. They aren’t doing it on their computer line, though.

They should have realized long ago that they are a software company. The real competition in the OS space would have done everyone a world of good.

[Filo]

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.

Because she doesn't need any of the workstation features on either product. She could (and should be able to) get by with the dual core desktop we already have (about $1K out the door) but instead "needs" the nearest Mac which happens to cost $3K+ out the door.

The low-end crap-Macs won't work and the Mac laptops don't have the storage or expansion capabilities.

The PC has just about the same speed and storage as the Mac Pro we'll be getting (unless I talk her into waiting for the next gen machines.)

Oh, sorry Filo, you said It was 2 to 3 times more expensive... Not 50%...

I said both, but in different contexts. Perhaps you should learn to read instead of misrepresenting what others say?

Her new 3K Mac won't give her any more than her 1K PC except for the fact that she's a Mac person and can't get her stuff done on the PC. It's not that it's not possible - the PC has all the same software - it's that she, being a Mac person, can't do it.

The PC costs 1/3 of the Mac for comparable usefulness.

An apples to apples comparison of features would yield a PC price probably somewhere in the 2K to 2.5K range for a well built system with all of the same features but probably better video and more storage and RAM. It wouldn't be a Dell, but it would be to the same specs as your cited workstation.

[Swordmaker]

Well your first mistake was buying anti-virus and spyware software, the best stuff out there is free, and they’re not just the best because they’re free they’re the best because they’re the best the free part is just a nice bonus. They’d have probably done a better job of protecting your computer.

Wrong, Discostu. If you are in business, the free home editions are not available to you legally. Who do you think supports AVG and the other "free" anti-virus and spyware makers? Do they get supported by all those people using their free version? No. They are companies who can make their software the best because people pay for it.

Yes I know Apple can pretend to be Wintel and from all accounts does so well, but I want support.

Pretend?! Discostu, when booted into Windows, an Apple Macintosh is not pretending... it IS a Windows computer... and according to many Windows pundits, the fastest Windows machine they have used.

Support? Since the Windows that is supposed to be installed on an Apple Mac is a retail version, not an OEM, all support for the Windows installation is required to be supplied by Microsoft. Calling a third-party software supplier should not make any difference. If you prefer using Parallels or VMWare's Fusion, reboot into Windows with BootCamp and do your trouble shooting there... and they can't claim problems with either... because it is just as much of a Windows computer as any other they may run into in the course of providing support.

[discostu]

Nothing wrong about what I said at all. He was discussing a home use PC, AVG for the home is free, how they manage to keep the lights on is not material to the discussion. If you want good anti-virus software for the home the best product available is free.

Sorry it’s pretending, at least as far as software support is concerned. I’m not talking about support from MS, read the rest of what I wrote, I’m talking about support from the 3rd party software vendors. Windows running on an Apple is not a supported platform for most of the industry. And they can claim problems because there are problems with all those thing. The software I work on professional will not fully work with VMWare, because VMWare doesn’t give proper access to PCI cards and we must access PCI cards (specific ones sold along with the software) to be fully operational. There are still barriers between these almost versions of Windows and real Windows. Eventually they will all be overcome, but for now these barriers exist and keep the majority of the vendor world from supporting them.

[Swordmaker]

Absolutely incorrect. Both Apple and Microsoft were given tours at PARC at pretty much the same time. Both borrowed heavily from Xerox' work and both borrowed from each other.

Do you swallow every myth you hear, hook, line and sinker?

Both Apple's and Microsoft's CEOs were invited to tour the Xerox PARC facility. After the initial tour by Steve Jobs, he asked Xerox for a return visit with some of his engineers. The truth is that Apple PAID Xerox for the 8 hour tour with the engineers and the rights to use what they observed with 1 million shares of pre-IPO Apple stock (worth about $3,000,000 at the time of transfer - Xerox sold it after the IPO for about $15 million). Microsoft did not return for another visit nor did they pay anything to Xerox.

Incidentally, the Apple engineers walked away with absolutely no code or even screen shots of the PARC work. Two years later, Apple hired some of the research engineers that Xerox let go from PARC in an "economy" move.

So you can cherry-pick a couple of examples of cheaper software, ignoring the various other products that either don't exist on the Mac or are more expensive for that platform. Sounds fair.

Cherry picking? I don't think so. We are the ones who are buying the Macintosh software... and we see the prices. You are repeating FUD you've heard and cannot prove. You have been challenged to come up with software that is more expensive on the Mac than it is on the PC... do it. Find us a software title that is more expensive on the Mac. Prove your allegation.

Let's see:

Microsoft Office for Mac from Microsoft's online sales $399.95
Microsoft Office for Windows from Microsoft's online sales $499.95
SoftwareKing offers Adobe Indesign for both Mac and Windows for $255.
They also offer Adobe Illustrator for both Mac and Windows for $214.99.
Best Buy is selling World of Warcraft for both Mac and Windows for $19.95

And I could point out that every Windows title is also available for the Apple Mac when run under BootCamp, Parallels or Fusion... at the same price... which shoots down your "don't exist" claim. Did you know that there are more internet browsers for the Mac than for Windows?

Right. Mac software is more expensive than Windows software.

Seriously, though, I'm not knocking the Mac per se. I'm just not buying into all the hype.

When you repeat canards that have been proven false time-and-time again, especially when evidence is produced in the very same thread that you are wrong and then you repeat your FUD, you really cannot say that you aren't "knocking the Mac." You are.

Apple has made a lot of mistakes since the late 1970s and they are just now looking like they might be able to recover from them as a company. They aren’t doing it on their computer line, though.

"...just now looking as they might be able to recover..." Sheesh. Have you even BOTHERED to research anything? The fact is that Apple has been on a roll since 2001. That's six years, Filo. Apple's Stock has risen from $15 a share to over $380 (accounting for splits)! Apple stock has increased the second largest percentage of ANY company offered on any stock exchange in the last ten years. (The number one company increased from 7¢ a share so really doesn't count.) It is selling record breaking numbers of Mac computers and making record breaking profits (incidentally, 60% of Apple's profits come from their computer division, so it is indeed coming from the computer line), its growth in computer sales is two to three times the industry average and it has more than doubled its share of both international and US sales in the last three years, Apple's notebook sales are ~18% of the market(!) and climbing, and YOU say "[Apple]...are just now looking as they might be able to recover..." from mistakes made 30 years ago. When do you think you might put a "Buy" on Apple stock, Filo?

"Oh, sorry Filo, you said It was 2 to 3 times more expensive... Not 50%..."

I said both, but in different contexts. Perhaps you should learn to read instead of misrepresenting what others say?...

...The PC costs 1/3 of the Mac for comparable usefulness.

Excuse me? Learn to read? Did you not just say you did indeed say both? We have continually provided hard facts and price comparisons of as close to equally equipped computers showing that Macs are either less expensive or comparable to the PCs prices and you continue to spout nonsense about $500 computers being somehow comparably useful as $2500 workstations. Filo, if that were true, then no one would be wasting their money on $2500 workstations be they PCs or Macs.

Her new 3K Mac won't give her any more than her 1K PC except for the fact that she's a Mac person and can't get her stuff done on the PC. It's not that it's not possible - the PC has all the same software - it's that she, being a Mac person, can't do it.

So you allege that Mrs. Filo could be just as productive on a $1,000 single dual core computer as she could be on a $3,000 dual dual core computer? I don't think so. If she does any rendering, transforming, apply any filters, then the dual dual will be much faster making Mrs. Filo more productive. When I was doing graphic arts production, I charged about $100 per hour. The difference in price of those two computers is a mere 20 hours of work... it would not take too long of me twiddling my thumbs waiting for the slower machine to complete some rendering over the useable lifetime of those two computers to waste the short sighted, false economy purchase of a much slower computer... and after that I am eating productive time while I twiddle.

We've already shown you that trying to duplicate that Mac Pro in the Windows world actually can cost you almost a $1000 MORE than the fully configured price of a Mac Pro... so to duplicate the power and functionality of the Mac Pro in a PC is considerably more expensive... I really cannot understand your assertion that a $1000 computer can match either one of those.

If what you claim is true and that she can do her job with a less powerful computer, since she is a Mac person, buy her a Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz iMac with a 24" screen, 320GB HD, and an ATI Radeon Pro HD-2600 256MB Graphic card for $1799. Have one of you enroll in a college course for a semester and buy it for $1699. Add a couple of external 320GB Firewire II drives (I just bought one for $97 at Fry's) and Max out her RAM with memory from Crucial and save yourself $1200.

[HAL9000]

Both Apple and Microsoft were given tours at PARC at pretty much the same time.

The PARC visits were inspirational to Apple, but the Lisa/Mac user interface had only a superficial resemblance to Xerox's. The "look and feel" of Apple user interface was substantially different from Xerox's, with many new paradigms and features innovated by Apple.

Microsoft, on the other hand, simply tries to do a knock-off copy of the Mac's user interface. Windows has been a great marketing success, but it is an inferior product in terms of quality and value compared to the Mac.

They should have realized long ago that they are a software company.

Apple is the "whole-widget" company. This allows Apple to do a better job of integrating hardware and software than Microsoft can (at least until Microsoft starts manufacturing their own brand of PCs).

[Filo]

Do you swallow every myth you hear, hook, line and sinker?

Certainly not. I haven’t bought into the Mac is superior myth, for instance.

Both Apple's and Microsoft's CEOs were invited to tour the Xerox PARC facility. After the initial tour by Steve Jobs, he asked Xerox for a return visit with some of his engineers. The truth is that Apple PAID Xerox for the 8 hour tour with the engineers and the rights to use what they observed with 1 million shares of pre-IPO Apple stock (worth about $3,000,000 at the time of transfer - Xerox sold it after the IPO for about $15 million). Microsoft did not return for another visit nor did they pay anything to Xerox.

Incidentally, the Apple engineers walked away with absolutely no code or even screen shots of the PARC work. Two years later, Apple hired some of the research engineers that Xerox let go from PARC in an "economy" move.

Which has what to do with anything? I won’t deny that MS is cheap and that they took their look and went forward with their product while Apple did a bit more research and then went forward with theirs.

I also won’t deny that Apple had the better windowed operating system, then and now, although current comparisons have MS catching up (relative to 1986.)

Your claim was that Windows was copied from MacOS. That claim is patently false. Both were copied from the work done at Xerox PARC, initially, and there was plenty of copying between in later iterations.

Cherry picking? I don't think so. We are the ones who are buying the Macintosh software... and we see the prices.

I buy Mac stuff as well. The last time I purchased Adobe software (CS) I paid over $100 more for the Apple version than the PC version.

I just checked at NewEgg and they are charging a few $ more for Apple over PC, but it’s in the noise relative to the price of the software. I’m glad that product, at least, has price parity.

Microsoft Office for Mac from Microsoft's online sales $399.95

Microsoft Office for Windows from Microsoft's online sales $499.95

Nice try. The Professional version of Office 2005 for Mac is 499.95 but it is older software than the $499 version of Office 2007 for the PC. It also doesn’t contain MS Access which is a key component of the software.

Comparable versions of Office are substantially cheaper for the PC.

Right. Mac software is more expensive than Windows software.

Glad you agree!

When you repeat canards that have been proven false time-and-time again, especially when evidence is produced in the very same thread that you are wrong and then you repeat your FUD, you really cannot say that you aren't "knocking the Mac." You are.

Sorry, but I do like the machines, I just find the people that evangelize them as some sort of second coming to be very tiresome and entirely wrong.

The fact is that Apple has been on a roll since 2001. That's six years, Filo.

Yep, they’ve pulled themselves out of a hole. Mostly by selling iPods and other gadgets. They still lag considerably in personal computers and will continue to do so for some time, if not forever.

They had the world in the early 1980s and then they got cute. They came out with a crappy Apple /// (I have one), a deeply flawed Lisa system (I have several) and a proprietary Mac system and abandoned virtually everything that made them an early success.

They went from a massive market share in 1980 to a meager one in 1990 to an almost non-existent one in 2000.

If they’re lucky they may be able to flirt with double digits sometime this decade. I still don’t have that kind of confidence in them, though, since they are still a proprietary shop in an open system world.

When someone else is selling Mac clones or when Mac OS is offered for other platforms I’ll reconsider my opinion of their corporate strategy.

When do you think you might put a "Buy" on Apple stock, Filo?

I’m more of a buy low sell high kind of investor. Buying now doesn’t fit that strategy.

If they do what I said above I’ll buy.

Did you not just say you did indeed say both?

Yes, but not in the context(s) you imply.

We have continually provided hard facts and price comparisons of as close to equally equipped computers showing that Macs are either less expensive or comparable to the PCs prices and you continue to spout nonsense about $500 computers being somehow comparably useful as $2500 workstations.

My point exactly. I never said that a $500 computer was of comparable usefulness to a $2500 workstation. I said that my wife, as a specific example, doing her job could be just as productive on the $1K PC we just bought as she would be on the new $3K Mac workstation she wants.

That’s quite a bit different than you represent.

So you allege that Mrs. Filo could be just as productive on a $1,000 single dual core computer as she could be on a $3,000 dual dual core computer?

I don’t allege it, I state it categorically. I know what she does (which puts me at an advantage in this discussion, don’t you think?) and the extra performance she’ll gain from the extra cores will yield her no more than a few seconds a day at her job.

I don't think so.

A perfect sentence for the first three words, then you went and ruined it. . . ;-)

If she does any rendering, transforming, apply any filters, then the dual dual will be much faster making Mrs. Filo more productive.

If she were doing that kind of thing often she’d certainly benefit from the speed. She’s not doing most of it at all and the rest she does so infrequently as to make the speed gains irrelevant.

The main reason she needs a new machine is because her old laptop doesn’t have the hard drive space. With the tower we can dump in extra hard drives as she needs them. Of course, the new PC she has could be upgraded with a multi-terabyte RAID and we’d still be well under the price she’ll pay for the Mac Pro.

When I was doing graphic arts production, I charged about $100 per hour. The difference in price of those two computers is a mere 20 hours of work... it would not take too long of me twiddling my thumbs waiting for the slower machine to complete some rendering over the useable lifetime of those two computers to waste the short sighted, false economy purchase of a much slower computer... and after that I am eating productive time while I twiddle.

You clearly don’t have a lawyer’s mentality. If you used a Mac Classic to do your work you’d be a rich man, charging by the hour. . . :-D

We've already shown you that trying to duplicate that Mac Pro in the Windows world actually can cost you almost a $1000 MORE than the fully configured price of a Mac Pro... so to duplicate the power and functionality of the Mac Pro in a PC is considerably more expensive... I really cannot understand your assertion that a $1000 computer can match either one of those.

It all depends on what you do.

And taking a single vendors offering in comparison isn’t a fair comparison. I could build a workstation class machine for far less than Dell or Apple will sell it to me. I can get any number of other vendors to do that build for me.

With Apple I can buy from Apple or I can buy from Apple. . .

If what you claim is true and that she can do her job with a less powerful computer, since she is a Mac person, buy her a Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz iMac with a 24" screen, 320GB HD, and an ATI Radeon Pro HD-2600 256MB Graphic card for $1799. Have one of you enroll in a college course for a semester and buy it for $1699. Add a couple of external 320GB Firewire II drives (I just bought one for $97 at Fry's) and Max out her RAM with memory from Crucial and save yourself $1200.

That’s certainly an option. My $1,800 will get me pretty much exactly what I got for $1K on the PC side with a lesser video card than I have. Actually, to be fair, the 24” monitor would set me back another $350 or so.

Unfortunately I’ll probably still end up with the tower. Mac folks are into status that way. . .

Besides, as I’ve said, it’ll end up being a business expense.

And by the way, you should NEVER shop at Fry’s. They are thieving bastards and should have been run out of business long ago.

[Swordmaker]

And taking a single vendors offering in comparison isn’t a fair comparison. I could build a workstation class machine for far less than Dell or Apple will sell it to me. I can get any number of other vendors to do that build for me.

OK... let's see you put together a PC parts list and prices with the following:

• 2 - 5150 Woodcrest 2.66GHz Dual Core Xeon Processors.
• ASUS Grade dual 771 socket motherboard with Dual 1.33GHz FSB.
• 250GB 7200rpm 3GB/S 8M cache hard drives or better.
• 1GB (two 512MB) of 667MHz DDR2 ECC fully buffered DIMM or better.
• NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT with 256MB of GDDR2 SDRAM (single-link DVI / dual-link DVI)
• 960 Watt or better Power Supply
• 16x DVD/RW double layer optical drive
• Dual Gigabit ethernet ports
• Firewire2 and USB2 ports
• keyboard with USB2 ports
• Optical mouse with multiple buttons and scroll (ball preferably)
• 64 bit OS
• High quality aircraft grade aluminum metal case.

Any supplier, any builder. Try and keep it under the $2499 price of the Mac Pro.

While you are at it, you might price out similar software for the PC that comes on the Mac free.

It may be possible now... I haven't tried to duplicate Anandtech's attempt to match the Mac by scratch building from available parts in almost a year... but they couldn't do it and I couldn't. I'd be quite interested if you can.

[Swordmaker]

And by the way, you should NEVER shop at Fry’s. They are thieving bastards and should have been run out of business long ago.

What did they steal? Can you find a 320GB external Firewire2 drive for $97 in a brick and mortar store somewhere else?

[antiRepublicrat]

Absolutely incorrect. Both Apple and Microsoft were given tours at PARC at pretty much the same time. Both borrowed heavily from Xerox' work and both borrowed from each other.

Microsoft didn't do anything for quite a while. It was Apple that first came out with a GUI, which Microsoft tried to copy. I'd like to see any evidence that Apple borrowed from Microsoft. Microsoft announced work on Windows after Apple released the Lisa, the GUI forerunner of the Mac.

So you can cherry-pick a couple of examples of cheaper software

I can keep going. My VMWare Fusion for the Mac cost me less than half the price of VMWare Workstation for the PC. IIRC, all the Adobe apps are priced the same across platforms. Can you actually come up with evidence of Mac software generally being more expensive?

Apple has made a lot of mistakes since the late 1970s and they are just now looking like they might be able to recover from them as a company.

They looked like they were going to recover a few years ago. In case you hadn't seen the stock price and constantly rising marketshare (far more than any other in the industry), it's obvious their recovery is not only finished, but they've far surpassed where they've been before.

They should have realized long ago that they are a software company. The real competition in the OS space would have done everyone a world of good.

I know, their hardware sales are just so pathetic, only accounting for a majority of their income.

[antiRepublicrat]

Note on quad-core vs. 2x dual core:

The main problem with packing cores on processors is getting the data to them. The memory and bus can keep up with one core, mostly with two cores with a good cache, but when you get to four cores your chances for one or more cores being starved for data go way up*. In that case, you might as well not have the extra cores, as they sit idle waiting for something to work on.

With 2x2 cores, you have the same processing power, but data isn’t bottlenecked at the one processor containing the four cores.

* Unless you do something like the PS3’s eight cores, but it’s designed for an insanely fast connection to the Rambus XDR RAM running at the die clock (25 GB/s) and an even faster I/O bus.

[antiRepublicrat]

Windows running on an Apple is not a supported platform for most of the industry.

With the exception of certain esoteric applications and managed packages, that's absurd. All the Windows software I bought has no support terms dealing with the OEM. Do you have software that says "Support only valid if you run it on a Dell, Gateway, HP, ....."? Apple is just another OEM when it comes to Windows. And VMWare for the Mac is like running VMWare on Windows or Linux. It's not a problem specific to the Mac.

[Filo]

What did they steal? Can you find a 320GB external Firewire2 drive for $97 in a brick and mortar store somewhere else?

http://www.geocities.com/tarahertz/frys-sucks.html

http://www.doofus.org/frys/

http://billzhouse.com/rants/frys.html

http://www.accesscom.com/~dave6592/frys.html

They steal by repackaging used and/or defective merchandise and reselling it in the hopes that someone will eventually just give up and eat the cost.

Everyone who shops there perpetuates this.

Can I find an external drive (why wouldn't I get USB 2 instead of Firewire?) for $97? I don't know. I do know that if I spend more for it at a reputable retailer I'll be doing the universe a favor.