The price differential for comparably equipped systems has all but evaporated over the past decade at retail.
Where a price differential still survives is with the hobbyist builders of Windows computers, dying breed though they are, with even Microsoft beginning to offer out of the box, closed systems.
These are the skinflints who couldn’t give a rat’s patootie about aesthetics and go to extremes in pursuit of cheap, the sort who empty out condiment bins in restaurants and strip hotel rooms of toilet paper, towels, soap and shampoo.
I don’t blame Orbitz at all for sending these people where they’d cause the least embarassment, lol.
“The price differential for comparably equipped systems has all but evaporated over the past decade at retail.”
I beg to differ...I don’t know what computer mags you look at or stores you go to but Apple computers are always easily some 300 to 500 hundred dollars or more for hardware comparably equipped PC based system and lets not go there on the phone side.
There is more variety in terms of lesser powered PC’s desktops, netbooks, ultra books, and laptops. The big key differences especially with desktops are configurability. And yes, one can still build one’s own system if desired and find that Windows will make all the parts work like one bought “it that way from the dept. store” in the first place!