[The Antiyuppie]

There is NO QUESTION that Apple hardware is absolutely first class. If you’ve repaired laptops (I have, and both of us lived to tell the tale - those screws and connectors are mighty small and delicate), there is simply no comparison between the quality of an HP and Apple laptop.

My only problem with Apple hardware is that it is WAY overpriced, and some of the smaller Apple products are not really built to be easily repaired.

If money wasn’t an issue, Windows users would buy Apple laptops and reformat the disks.

[Westbrook]

> and reformat the disks.

Thereby immediately voiding their warranty and perhaps some other arcane Apple usage restrictions.

[adorno]

My only problem with Apple hardware is that it is WAY overpriced

It's a product made for the "5 percenters", and most people don't have the kind of dough that Apple products cost.

Quality might be there, but, that same quality can be found with other makes, for less money, especially when the components inside, aren't really superior to what the other OEMs use, especially the CPUs, which all come from Intel for Macs.

[johncatl]

I too have repaired laptops and lived to tell the tale. Making a blanket statement about HP laptops in general seems to be overly simplistic, especially in light of the range of models. The Envy and Elitebook models are very different from the low end consumer models in parts and quality.

With the built-in Mac ROM it would be better to install VMware and create a virtual machine to run Windows on the Mac. I've done it for many customers and you can have the best of both worlds on one machine.

I agree that the Macs have high build quality and very good parts selection as well as a lot of attention to design. That same design can make them difficult to repair and causes some issues like the swelling batteries disabling the trackpad and keyboard that happened a couple of years ago

Asus, Sager (made by Compal) and others are easily the equal of the Mac in parts and performance and have a broader selection as well.

The Air was a unique and innovative design and Apple gets high marks for it. It took Intel to create a reference design for the Ultrabooks to get the PC market moving in this category.

I merely pointed out the options available and, as usual, the Mac fanbois responded as expected.

[JCBreckenridge]

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9227976/Apple_s_MacBook_Air_price_cuts_make_it_tougher_on_Windows_ultrabook_makers?taxonomyId=12

This would bring the air down to 999 dollars. My current laptop cost me 199 dollars, has 2 gigs of memory, 120 gigs storage, has access to a DVD and a CD/DVD burner, etc.

Is the alleged ‘quality’ worth paying 5x for a more robust laptop? If this laptop lasts 3 years, the macbook would have to last 15... That’s not happening.