The Apple Mac Cost Misconception

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Really? A mac for the same price as a custom windows machine? Unlikely.

I'm not a Mac hater, in fact the times i have used OS X have been rather pleasant, but this article is hardly evidence to support equal pricing. Lets start with the fact that a 15.4" macbook pro was compared to a 17" xps desktop replacement. Not to say 15.4 is the perfect portability device but its a *LOT* different than 15.4.

After reading this article i hopped on to dell and built myself a new 15.4" xps system. As i had suspected, i was able to configure the following system for $2000, the same cost as a macbook pro.

high res 15.4" screen
4GB RAM
2.5ghz t9300 core 2 duo
250GB 7200rpm hdd
slot load dvd reader/writer
256MB 8600GT gpu
wireless n wifi adapter
built in webcam
built in bluetooth
fingerprint scanner
Windows vista ultimate

It doesnt take someone thats good with computers to realize that there is no comparison between this system and the baseline macbook pro.

Finally, OS X is a piece of proprietary software. If they didnt mind my running it on my custom, non apple branded machine, i might just do it, but apple is unwilling to give me that chance
 
As a long time fan of Toms Hardware I'm disappointed this article made it to the front page. I have worked for two School Districts in the last 5 years. One 95% Mac and one ~40% Mac.

I feel like this article missed the point totally. In reading the comments you say that your arguement is that "Can you buy the exact same thing as a Mac for roughly the same amount as a PC." If that was your true goal that could have been the title and the body could have just been the word "Yes."

The problem is that you implied value. Macs and PC's have different markets. As an enthusiast gamer I will never buy a Mac. I need that control and the Price/Performance. As a Technology Coordinator I absolutely love Macs for the K-6 range. They are worth the extra money that we all know they cost.

Any of us can talk for hours why they would choose a component over another and that doesn't make us fanboys. But it is that need for control in our systems that makes us seem like PC fanboys. If they opened up their OS and their hardware the enthusiast in me would take notice but that would destroy their business model.

Please stop with the Mac or PC articles. I think there is so much hate in the comments because you guys are supposed to be one of the enthusiast hardware experts. Lately I feel like I'm reading the National Inquirer.

*I too miss the days when the charts were up to date*
 
It would be really nice to have graphics with price vs. performance, because that is what Tom's Hardware is all about. Articles around here are usually about computer parts and/or new technology, their pros and cons, and most of the time nice visual graphs that shows how the technologies perform one against each other. That would be the only way you could "put the price myth about [these] systems to rest". Hell, if you broke the EULA agreement of the MACs and put OS X on a PC, I would really consider buying it! Just give me the graphs that goes with it. Words are nice, but you can talk all day long and you wont change a price/performance ratio about a CPU, a GPU, or a computer altogether.

Now, you should edit your article concerning the "proprietary" word. MAC is a proprietary technology in every way I look at it. They could almost sue you for saying they are not!
 
this article is ridiculous, there is no way that a mac can beat the price of a pc laptop. i just got a dell through EPP for 1430, comes with 2.5 vs. 2.4 proc, 4 gb of ram, bigger hd, LED screen same res, 9 cell, 4 year warranty plus accidental protection and lojack, 8600 gt. A similar mac would've costed me 2500 w/ education discount. I'm disgusted that i even thought about buying a mac.
 
"Configuring the real Mac Pro system on Apple?s website following what VTOLfreak?s setup yielded a new price of $5949.00. Even with tax, and expensive shipping ($100), the price came out to be $6554.65 ? where did VTOLfreak get $8000 from?"

Very simple really, he's got it from the european Apple store. Have you ever
checked the prices in Europe? They are almost identical(numerical value) to US prices but in euros. So really the Macs in Europe are too overpriced. I don't see the point of buying a Mac which costs twice it's PC counterpart which even performs better, for just the OS.
And I agree with the others yours comparison is well stupid.
 
Now, the second part is something most of you are destined not to understand... Consider - When was the last time you took a new, manufactured computer out of the box for the first time and booted it up? If it wasn't anytime in recent history, then the hour-long first boot of Vista is foreign to you. About half-way through, the manufacturer takes over. HP wants you to go through THEIR setup process now, including prompts to sign up for an ISP and get setup with HP Update and... Wait... HP Update? What about Windows Update? Oh right, every manufacturer in the PC realm insists on having their OWN utilities overriding OS-related functions. Now I know why everyone else's Vista computers crash so much more often than mine =)
Click to expand...
Allright, this is getting boring, with umpteenth page of comments on the horizon.

Firstly, aj, what you fail to understand is that vendors use these tactics with trialware and vendor utilities because of the great market penetration. In fact, if Macs were in the same position market-share-wise, it'd probably be the same. And actually, the consumer pushback is reaching the tipping point; just look at what Sony is doing. If you don't know what I'm talking about, do some research.

As far as repairs go, I really don't understand what you are talking about. Is your point that we should compare the price of upgrading for Apple to the price of repairing [IBM-compatible] PC OEM equipment and conclude that both are high? Well, no. Let's compare upgrades to upgrades (Apple is more expensive) and repairs to repairs (both are expensive).

Here is the last point I will volunteer. Even more than all the arguments that you can (and you can) configure an equally equipped laptop (at least; maybe with the slight exception of MBA, but screw that with no optical drive and non-replaceable battery; and oh, a lot of reviewers who were so gung ho about it at first has since issued "I'm disappointed with..." articles about the various aspects of MBA) for materially cheaper from more reliable OEMs (let alone the HPs, the Asus's, etc)...

Here's the funny thing. Most consumers do not buy hardware for the sake of hardware. Most do not care about specs per se. It's all about the functionality that it buys you. And you can buy same functionality in the PC vs. Mac for a lot cheaper. And that's the real measure, which is totally overlooked by this article.

Now, I am not saying that there are no compelling reasons to use a Mac if you so choose. I'm only saying (repeatedly, falling on deaf ears) that the author highlighted hardly any of them.

And yes, it also did feel like the article was not edited at all. Which is a shame. I doubt that any of the editors are actually reading these any more, but I wish they would. Like many, I've been reading Tom's for what seems like forever, and they seem to be on a dangerous and accelerating slide into oblivion.
 
I want to like the Mac. Hey, it has BSD Unix at it's core. The problem is, I just can't.
A three year old with a Google browser can figure out that Mac wireless is horrific. Apple should be ashamed. I have over 20 years of computer experience. I can set up a whole home wifi network with PC clients in under an hour. Apple wireless is immature at best. They don't even gray out WPA2 and AES for the older Apple cards that can't support it. I wasted hours sorting out the issues in Mac wireless. The wireless stability is terrible and a little searching on the net confirms it. Most Mac people I have talked to and seen on the forums resort to running their wireless without security so the Mac will connect.
There are forums loaded with Apple engineering mistakes. The Mac Mirrored drive doors is known as the wind tunnel. The laptops are plagued with overheating and wiring issues. Apple's response? "It isn't meant to be set on your lap."
They may be pretty, but I will take a Thinkpad or Dell any day over this glamorous and proprietary nonsense. Apple just doesn't deliver.
 
We dont need to be asses to the guy, make your point with facts.

As far as Imac price...I tried to find the gateway where the pc was in the lcd and they no longer offer it. A similarly spec'd gateway is only 300 dollars cheaper, so i'll give him that (the Imacs stuff is in the lcd so no box or 500 wires). 300 seems quite fair for the coolness of no tower !

The mac pro is a different matter however:

Granted, we can build a pc very cheap with similar performance, BUT you guys need to realize that this is a server type motherboard on the apple and so picking a regular desktop board w 4 slots and ddr is just as biased as you claim he is being. I picked out a system based on a server board, fb dimms and xeon just like the mac pro so as to be equivocal.

TUAN, here is a macbook configured similarly to what the typical user would buy and a very similar pc with the same actual specs, not just similar performance. How can you say that the price difference is not a lot ?

BTW...ther used to be a pc case that was almost an exact copy of the mac case, but I could not find it, so I went for some apple type style on the pc side with silver and metal.



 
Macproquadprice.jpg

pcpro.jpg

 
When a journalist has to start his article defending it, you know he's in trouble from the get go. It is material such as this which is pushing me to other websites. Tom's used to be so much better than it is today.
 
well it's blurry, but I hve the screen shots and the mac is $3898.00...the PC clone is $2684 using newegg and w shipping incl.

Tuan@ I will mail you the screenshots even...I want to know how you can say that's not a big difference and yes, it's not half but 1100 is a lot more !
 
What happened here was a mistake. Comparing a mac that built with 90% Intel parts that's they get for cheap do to buying so many and selling them for a major money, then building a pc with close to the same parts but from a online shops that over prices stuff too. Anyone how writes something like this ether want to step on peoples foot and piss them off or they got paid by apple to write it. Also mac os is UNIX a OPEN SOURCE OS to begin with, add the apple CUTENESS and bam $129 os. And if anyone else see that macs now are $100 more than when they where Ibms power pc chips. Just little fyi.
 
oh, part of the reason is that i picked a 24 inch apple cinema, but to be fair I picked an equivalent, and expensive 24 inch LCD for the PC, bout the Appl one is alonst 900 vs 400 for the pc,. even taking that off the apple makes it 3000 and leaving it on the pc still 2700.
 
Nguyen does not know how to write a cohesive article with consistent perspective. He reiterates ideas far too often, almost as though he keeps forgetting what he mentions in preceding paragraphs. Furthermore, as many have stated, he contradicts his main and sub ideas. A basic course in Jr. High writing would do wonders for him, but unfortunately this may be a little too late.
Tom's Hardware, if you want this site to be taken seriously and retain any amount of professionalism, then please, PLEASE demote this writer from his current position. I'm sure that he is great at computers, but a reporter and journalist he is not.
Thank you.
 
this is LOL article. If Mac OS are not proprietary, enterprise should have used them already 😛 oh wait why Mac OS aint on the enterprise? guess what, theyre afraid to show their holes unlike windows OSes. Custom PCs are flexible Mac PCs are not.

By the way Tuan, your statements on this article, confusing. expensive = not-expensive? 😛
 
[citation][nom]tuannguyen[/nom]I'll respond to the "cheaper PC" posts here in one response instead of individually.The bottom line here guys, is that you can ALWAYS build anything for cheaper. A car, a computer, a PC, a Mac, a house, whatever it may be. You can get from Point A to Point B cheaper one way or another.The whole argument was, can you build the SAME thing Apple builds for less?Even in this question, it is sometimes yes, sometimes no. But the point is, it's not WAY WAY less like some people mentioned. One last person in the article said he build the "exact" same system for HALF the price. C'mon now./ Tuan[/citation]

First of all building a PC maybe cheaper (depends on quality of the build really) but building your own house and car?? unless you are barely touch the basic stuffs and call it a build...

Second, there is no need to put Mac on the pedestal given its unique style and its own OS, there are notebooks out there that are just as comparable. The new Lenovo's are better in quality and options with a different unique style. The HP DV's are more main stream with modern designs and overall good functionality and price. My point being Mac has been riding on the stylish wave the hardest and in some previous models the specs are only comparable to 2nd tier PC lines at best.

Third you ask the question:"The whole argument was, can you build the SAME thing Apple builds for less?" then went on and say "Even in this question, it is sometimes yes, sometimes no." I think that was a half-ass answer. Don't stick meaningless words like "sometimes" in the answer, that was simply a yes/no question and in this case, it's an obvious YES everyone miss their points once awhile, you should admit your mistakes "sometimes".

I'm sure this generated alot of traffics for the site, but at the same time i think it does leave the readers with a bad taste. I mean it seems like the authors write whatever they want and/or believed in (which is fine) but when readers give comments you guys should put it down and absorb the goodness instead of making some smart@$$ remarks about good criticisms.

when more than a few pages comments are against the article i can careless how right the author think he/she is, because obviously he/she is failing to prove the points to the readers. This alone makes this an epic fail.
 
Wait, the article is supposed to be about macs not being overpriced, but on the first fucking page, "there’s no doubt that you can get an equally equipped PC, or build one yourself, for less money", WTF. Tom's, this this the least objective, spun around piece of shit you've ever put out. This site has been on a downward slope for months. I hope this is the bottom, but I doubt it.
 
What about iMACs? No comparison there. That is a mobile-on-desktop, so it WILL cost more than a desktop-on-desktop.
It so happens that you can buy equal performance boxes for less cash. Some would say "O.K. it's an MOD, so it doesn't matter", others will say they are expensive - period!
 
And here I was afraid the blantent stupidity of this article would go unnoticed. Good comments--more than I've ever read over this topic.
 
Ok everyone is complaining that he used "overpriced pc hardware" and that using "much cheaper" hardware will yield "similar" results as the "overpriced macpro"

Benchmark the suckers!

I wonder if the phoronix-test-suite will work on a mac, if it does, that's the best way to go.
 
I have only a few things to say about this article:

#1: The pricing comparisons are totally bogus, and rigged to make the MAC's appear like a good deal. Unfortunately we are not idiots and most of us research things we read, to verify truth. So stop trying to take us all for fools, you idiot.

#2: I went and found many of the same products (for PC)you listed here for much cheaper than you listed them. And some even 50 dollars or more cheaper than what you found, not to mention many of the products you listed here have rebates making them even less.

#3: I have worked in the pc and electronics sales business for many years. I specialize in corporate purchasing in business to business sales
and whenever MAC's are involved it is a pain to try and express value in Macintosh products, as there really is none. The same company could out fit 5 people with new computer equipment for the cost of outfitting only 2.5 people with new computer equipment using the same speced MAC proposals.

#4: A good example of pricing stupidity on Macintosh products is their 30" monitor (The Apple Cinema Display).Priced at a whopping 1,799-2000+ for horrible specifications that dont even compare to high end PC compatible LCD offerings like Samsung, Dell, HP and VIEWSONIC all for prices around 1000-1300 dollars. AND THEY WORK WITH MACS TOO!! What is the extra cost for MR.JOBS ??

#5: I just love how you assmue that most of the readers here have 3-4 different computers, and could actually afford to go buy a 3000+ Macintosh machine and also have their 3 PC's sitting around to , all setup for different purposes. NO ...the actual reality is that most of have a single machine that they use for everything, not one gaming machine and one Web surfer and one Multimedia and graphics design machine. Get a life you pompus moron. We don't all sit around doing nothing all day but typing and getting paid for it. Especially not the garbage you just put out.

#6: Just a quick reminder, this is Toms Hardware, not Steve Jobs hardware. We come here to read about the latest developments in the PC world, and learn how to do things and fix things. Not hear your rant about how MACS are misunderstood, and that we PC guys are missing out.
Get a grip and realzie if you want to start catering to the mac crowd then creat a website devoted to them and they will come.

Myself being a PC guy,can tell you honestly you are waisting your breath, as most of us have done the research and have used mac's before in some form or fashion, and didnt like them, thats why we are PC guys.
 
Apple will never make the upgrade component cheaper. The recent is that they do not want you to upgrade a legacy system. Since they want to maintain tight control on what's is on the market, hardware and software, what better would be to prevent user to upgrade or add new component? User will be forced to buy a brand new system with the latest config, etc tailored to exactly how Apple want it to be and matching peripherals. I'm not saying that a 1 year old ipod will not work with the next year macbook but that if they wish to phase out a component or product they can do so. Also, they are limiting the amount of configuration that a MAC can have, thus, limiting the configuration to be supported. This in turn make it much easier to make it run smoothly. Otherwise, they will have to face many of the problem the PC crowd are currently facing. Thousands of different devices that does the same thing, with their thousands of different drivers from thousands of different vendors. How many of those can be trusted to properly test their stuff among the countless different configuration that can exist for a PC? Also, Printer with parallel cable? Floppy drive? Those things still sell.
 
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