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.
It’s a matter of testing effort and being able to repro problems. Apple is vastly different hardware, which opens it up to vastly different problems, and every company has to decide where to spend the money to build expertise. Dells, Gateways, and HPs are all still basically the same machine, Intel based PCs with CPUs from the 8088/86 line. For a while nobody supported AMD CPUs, not necessarily because there was anything wrong with them but because nobody was convinced their product wouldn’t have unique problems on AMDs and the market share wasn’t enough for them to justify the testing effort to verify it. I never said VMWare on a mac was any different, I said there were differences between running under VM and running in a real machine which causes some companies, including the one I work for, to limit our support of it.
Hmmmm... let's see... TOTAL: $ 2804.77
Mac price $2499... the build it yourself just parts is $305.77 more expensive than the already built, software included, warranteed, and shipped Mac.
I believe XP Pro qualifies ad an operating system, FRiend. Your opening shot makes the rest of your post worthless - because you contradicted the facts.
Most of Mac hardware is industry standard. Apple is using the same Intel CPUs, the same RAM, the same disk drives, the same peripherals, etc.
There are some minor differences. The Mac does have a custom ASIC, like many other PCs nowadays. And Macs have unique case designs and circuit boards.
The fact that Macs can boot up and run Windows is the best evidence that Mac hardware is compatible with the PC industry.
I didn't contradict that fact that Windows is low-quality crap. I just missed where he mentioned XP in his post.
The only thing different about it (that matters in this case) is that Apple uses EFI instead of BIOS. This is a direction the whole PC industry will eventually go, but Apple did it first, as usual.
http://www.geocities.com/tarahertz/frys-sucks.html
Let's see... unsubstantiated rants from 2001.
http://www.doofus.org/frys/
Last updated May 24, 2000
http://billzhouse.com/rants/frys.html
Last updated 1999 includes a rant about a laptop from a supplier, not Fry's that was un-configured... in 1985.
http://www.accesscom.com/~dave6592/frys.html
Last story was from 1996... some comments from up to 2002.
Do you have anything that is current??? Looks to me as if your Fry's data is about as outdated as your Apple data.
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.
They often reseal an opened package... but then they discount it and state that it is resealed. You have the choice of buying a new package for more $ or trying the resealed package. I have often purchased the reseals at a substantial discount and have most often gotten a brand new item. Those times when the item was defective, I had no trouble returning it. Once they replaced the resealed with a brand new sealed one.
Used, returned merchandise is heavily discounted and offered on tables up near the front door. They had a 50" Plasma the last time I was there... returned, cosmetic damage by the original buyer... price was $750. They had a new one of the same model in the back for $1750. If I had a place for it I would have bought it.
How is any of this theft?
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.
The $97 320GB drive was both Firewire II and USB II and came with cables for both. That was pretty neat because I had a Firewire 2 cable ($19.95) in my shopping cart to purchase. I put it back after the clerk insisted on opening one of the drives to find out what was included. I was willing to take the box she just opened but she insisted I take an unopened box instead.
It’s good evidence but it’s not good enough for support by mass market products. There are differences, whether or not those differences cause problem with 3rd Party Software X is unknown until 3rd Party Software maker runs some tests, until they run those tests they’d be dumb to say it’s supported. It’s the basic math of mass market software, never say you support this environment until you say it with confidence, to say it with confidence means sinking man hours into testing it. There probably is nothing there that will cause a problem for 95% of the software out there, but if you’re in the 5% and you didn’t test it first and find that out you’re opening a big bag of worms if you say you support it. Again look at AMD, a lot of companies added verbiage specifically about supporting Intel processors when AMD first started hitting, not because AMD was necessarily bad or different but because nobody was sure their stuff worked on AMD, then AMD got enough momentum that they decided to do the testing, then it worked, then they dropped the verbiage.
Still waiting for that less expensive workstation listing ... cheap, cheap, cheap, cheap... that’s the sound of economical crickets in the night...
Boot Camp upgrades the EFI firmware to include BIOS compatibility.
I’m sorry, but your initial point was that he omitted an OS - and your subsequent opinion point is eligible to be ignored because it follows a clearly incorrect opening salvo. I’m not even disputing your opinion, to be honest, although I don’t agree about the superiority of OSX. I don’t have any data to support or contradict that conclusion.
“No. Avenir, you are misreading the specs.”
No, I misread your post I think. I thought you were saying the $2499 Pro had Two QUAD Cores, whereas it has Two DUAL cores. No disagreement.
“Then why are we even talking about it?”
Because one of the larger contexts of these threads is that it would be “better” for a PC user to switch to the Mac and OSX. I reject this a priori notion because those who cannot stomach the Mini or the iMac are left with one desktop option: the Mac Pro. The Dell workstations you lovingly price as more expensive are just as useless to the average potential switcher as the Pro is.
Apple offers nothing like the XPS Dell currently has on their site with the Blu-Ray, the GeForce 8800 (with 756mb ram, I might add), the extra ram, the monitor. For $2439 you are getting a whole lot more fun out the door than that spartan $2499 Mac Pro.
Who cares what you CAN do with the Pro? That Dell is all the PC most users could dream about, and it’s all on there NOW. I wonder why you are always down on Dell and other PC makers. WIRED recently praised several Windows based PC’s in their GEAR awards. They didn’t say Windows sucked or that PC hardware is junk.
What’s wrong with those people at WIRED?
Again look at reality. There is no difference in processors, no difference in chipsets, and now that HAL9000 has told me that the EFI has BIOS support, no effective difference in the BIOS. What you are saying is the equivalent of me telling people don't buy HP computers because most software companies have not specifically tested their software specifically on HP computers.
I can't imagine calling up support for some software you bought at Best Buy and having the operator say "Sorry, we don't support MegaPaintX on HP computers, only on Dell and Gateway."
The idea is ludicrous with the exception of those very niche packages that only get support on specific approved systems (and then you usually buy the software and hardware as a package anyway). And the problem is still industry-wide, not just for Apple.
2x 2.66 GHz Xeons: $1,568
Mobo dual Xeon PCIEx16: hard to tell, about $400
Video: $80 (but no dual-link DVI)
Hard drive: $70
512 MB FBDIMM x 2: $76*
DVD burner: $30
1000W power supply: $300 (even picked low-end)
We're at $2,522. I've already passed the $2,499 price of the Mac Pro, and I haven't even bought a case, keyboard, mouse, fans or operating system. Earlier comparisons had the Mac much further ahead since they were done at the beginning of a release cycle.
* You can't save by just getting one 1 GB chip because the memory system is multi-channel, and actually runs best with at least four chip slots filled.
Filo has told me he really isn't interested in the facts and I assume he will continue to spread the 2 to 3 times more expensive nonsense he been posting on here. I also did the pricing... Check out post 82. We're pretty much in agreement.
I thought about building an iMac equivalent along the same lines... but even that wouldn't sway Filo... his mind is made up.
I told you exactly where I got my prices: the lowest price on the first page of a Google search for the specific component. No lies or misrepresentations.
Did you or did you not say that Macs were two to three times more expensive than equivalent PCs?
By the way, your PC figure is not 25% less its 20%.
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