The Apple Mac Cost Misconception

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To all you guys slamming the article... obviously this guy has drank the "kool aid" and will soon be writing for the likes of MacWorld or some other rubbish.. He is no longer the journalist we used to know...
 
[citation][nom]royalcrown[/nom]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.[/citation]
That's not quite fair. The Apple displays are S-IPS, while any $400 24" display is a TN. The quality is completely different. For that comparison to work, you should at least get a good quality S-PVA display for the comparison machine, like the Dell Ultrasharp 2408. The TN display will have significantly worse color and viewing angle than either of the better monitor types.
 
in case you guys missed it, i priced the BASIC single quad core, he said the basic minimum specs for the mac pro were 2 processors and such...wrong apple has a lower priced single cpu version on the front page, and also skipped the apple display, which is fine, but goes with the look.

Most ppl would indeed get the apple cinema if they had an apple, and most ppl would get the mac pro single quad core, with 1 drive, which is whatr i based mt 1200 bucks off of.
 
I hate MAC OSX. I have had nothing but problems getting it to work in my company's network. MACs may play well with each other, but from a professional standpoint, they do not do well in mixed OS networks. Not to mention I have had it crash 3 times on me such that I had to take the stupid thing in under warranty and loose 3 weeks of productivity. They are not as stable as everyone says they are.
 
That's not quite fair. The Apple displays are S-IPS, while any $400 24" display is a TN. The quality is completely different. For that comparison to work, you should at least get a good quality S-PVA display for the comparison machine, like the Dell Ultrasharp 2408. The TN display will have significantly worse color and viewing angle than either of the better monitor types.

cjl, it is very fair, most user won't know that and just buy it because it goes with the theme.

but to indulge you, 649 so only around a 100 bucks accounting for the panel upgrade !
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824001246&nm_mc=KNC-overturesmx&cm_mmc=KNC-overturesmx-_-Monitors+-+LCD+Flat+Panel-_-SAMSUNG-_-24001246

 
I meant the apple is still around a 100 more still, never said I could type. I had to look up pva btw, so I wouldn't know that as a non lcd geek and neither would most users !
 
Question: You want more power than an iMac or a Mac Mini (or just don't want the integrated monitor). But you don't need nearly the power/price of a Mac Pro.

I think part of the Mac pricing problem is there is nothing in this 'middle range' that I lot of users fall into. Actually, I think the Dell Fusion competes nicely against the Mini in terms of performance and aesthetics, but Dell's home support isn't quite up to par with Apple.

Also, you say "You'll buy a baseline mac and upgrade from 3rd party" therefor compare a baseline mac to a PC of the same specs. (1) Most people don't do that. (2) If you are targeting the tech savvy crowd, then you should compare the base Mac to the Base PC with 3rd party upgrades on the PC making it equal, and then doing the same comparison bringing them to the moderately high end. I agree with the others, this article is biased garbaged designed to make Apple look good.

Apple doesn't need biased garbage to look good, they do that fine selling on their merits. Stuff like this makes them look bad.


Oh, and a more fair notebook comparison. Given that ASUS is one of the companies that makes stuff for Apple (along with Foxconn and Intel), I think this is a very fair comparison in terms of the non-performance aspects of quality. With performance and price, this runs Apple into the ground.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220343
ASUS vs Apple Basline Macbook Pro
+$1450 | $1999
+$1550 (full retail) | $1999
+15.4" | 15" (probably 15.4" to be fair)
+2.53Ghz CPU | 2.4Ghz CPU
+4GB Memory |
+320GB Disk | 200GB Disk
?DVD "Super Multi" | ?Dual Layer Superdrive
+9600GS 1GB | 8600M GT 256MB
=802.11N | =802.11N
=Bluetoot | =Bluetooth
=Webcam | =Webcam
6.7LBS | +5.4lbs
1.8" | + 1"
No mag powerconnect | Mag Power connect
* I grant no advantage here. People have tripped over my non magnetic power cable often. It comes out without sending my comp flying.
+VGA&HDMI | DVI

Apple Advantages: Backlit keyboard (great if you can't touch type, useless for most other than adding another lightsource - which can be bad), thinner, lighter

ASUS advantages: Better CPU, memory, disk, vid card, price (including the $420 to get Vista Premium AND MacOS X).
 
Prices are all from Newegg and I picked the cheapest of each item, based on components alone and NOT including an OS it's about $2399.91 for something similar to a MacPro.

- LG IDE DVD Burner ($19.99)
- ATOP Mid-Tower Aluminum Case ($49.99)
- XCLIO 1000W Power Supply ($169.99 w/rebate)
- PPA 4-port Firewire 800 ($38.99 w/rebate)
- ASUS DSEB-DG, Dual 771, Intel 5400 w/8 memory sockets ($489.99)
- iRAM 2GB PC2-6400 ($105.99)
- Intel Xeon E5440 Hapertown ($714.99x2)
- HIS 2600Pro/512MB ($64.99 w/rebate)
- Keyboard/mouse ($30?)
 
The author is trying to climb an impossibly steep mountain here on Tom's. Everyone here is a hardware fanboy and can care less about what OS they are running as long as it plays the latest games at high FPS and and gives them their useless 3dmarks scores. or ego-boosting float@home points. I know, I'm one of them. I love my hardware. I love building game crushing systems and do it without spending too much $$. Com on, thats half the fun anyway!

But I also own a mac that I use as a programming/media/productivity/server administration machine and I love the hell out of it. OS X is fast, modern, and pretty to look at. I have the power of the *nix terminal at my finger tips which I use to SSH into a Arch linux server for quick and dirty command line love. Built-in VNC that is a snap to use. I hate to do a comparison like this, but OS X is like a super polished linux distro running on a BSD-Mach kernel sans the extensive customizability. I understand why the author wrote this article. The instant, personal flaming of anything mac is a little ridiculous. He felt he needed to defend his new platform discovery. The poor guy even acknowledge the short comings of the platform and where it needed to improve before it could be consider a hardware enthusiast platform. Yet, some commenters still reiterated the same all crap. Jesus, read the WHOLE article before jumping into the comment box.

Now with that being said, I'm not a OS X fanboy. I don't sip Steve Jobs' kool-aid. I think WIndows Vista is a perfectly fine operating system. I know macs are an extremely poor choice for a gaming machine. I know I paid a premium for my mac and that I could have built a $500 dollar linux machine that did the same thing. Yes I know, OS X can only run on proprietary hardware (with advantages and disadvantages). I accepted these facts and took the plunge to spend my $$ on a mac anyway. I don't regret it. I use it for what it was built for and it has been a great machine and a great platform and I thoroughly enjoy using my machine. So why did I buy it? Curiosity. I wanted to try a new platform. And yes, the sleek stylings and 'coolness' factor were in play here. I plan to buy another one when this one shits the bed, even with the ~$400 premiums.

You don't have to personally bash the author. The people who did need to get over themselves. People are after different things. If building a gaming machine that punches out 60+ FPS in Crysis is your priority then thats fine. Other people would say spending $1800+ on a computer that will basically only play games is stupid. If you enjoy building $800 linux machines and like to hand configure everything and customize every aspect of your system thats fine too. Some people would say its stupid to waste all that time and energy on something that is suppose to ease the technical burden off the user anyway.

Now, tom's hardware is a hardware enthusiasts website. So, most people here read because they want to know what hardware will get them extra frames (or F@H points) in their game for the least amount of $$$. Lets try and keep the main articles within the scope of what Tom's is all about.

Lets all
 
Between this article and the last Mac related one, I almost can't bring myself to read Tom's anymore. Every time I read a pro-mac article anywhere I laugh a little because they are always people using pseudo-facts and logic to try and justify their purchase of overpriced hardware. When you buy a Mac you are paying for a brand name, similar to buying a Harley. I'm no windows fanboy either....I use xp, vista and various flavors of linux on all my assorted PC's and I use macs often at school. If OSX could be legally and easily isntalled on PC's I would surely do so, I like the OS, but I absolutely refuse to pay all that money for a name.
 
Cherry picked systems, Dells usually come with a 30% discount. I can still build a PC cheaper myself!

In May I had this built for my wife around a 1720 (I cut down the order info from the copy and paste).

Inspiron 1720, Intel Core 2 Duo T7250, 2.0GHz, 800Mhz, 2M L2 Cache
Ruby Red Color with Microsatin Finish
4GB, DDR2, 667MHz 2 Dimm
High Resolution, glossy widescreen 17.0 inch display (1920 x 1200)
256MB NVIDIA GeForce Go 8600
160G 5400RPM SATA hard drive 5400 RPM
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium Edition, English
Integrated 10/100 Network Cardand Modem, for Inspiron
8X DVD+/-RW Dual Layer Drive
Intel 4965AGN Wireless-N Mini Card
Integrated 2.0M Pixel Webcam
No Virus Protection Requested (Already had, but it was free anyway)
56 WHr 6-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery, Inspiron 1720
2 Year Limited Warranty
Soft Contracts - Banctec
Warranty Support,1 Year Extended
Warranty Support,Initial Year
Dell Hardware Warranty PlusOnsite Service, Extended Year(s)
Type 3- Third Party At HomeService, 24x7 TechnicalSupport, 1 Year Extended
Dell Hardware Warranty PlusOnsite Service, Initial Year
Type 3- Third Party At HomeService, 24x7 TechnicalSupport, Initial Year
Dell Wireless 355 Bluetooth Mod
Dell Travel ExpressCard RemoteControl, IR $9.34
Premium Deep Rich Red with Soft Touch LCD back color w/ 2.0M pixel Camera Insp 1720

Sub-Total : $1149.93
Tax : $107.10
Order Total : $1257.03

So the total was $1150 excluding tax and including 2 years on site support/warranty which I paid for as an extra 1 year for $150 or so! Taking the $150 out, the cost was $1000.

Lets see how the mac beats that at 2x the price ....

ok. 0.4GHz extra in the CPU, more cache (?), does that contribute much? Not really as a system. After all I could have paid a little more ($200) for the better cpu but it did not seem worthwhile.

Backlit keyboard ... junk,

200GB HDD rather than my 160GB drive. My wife will not use it all and if she does, I would buy a 7200rpm drive to replace it anyway. I did not buy a larger drive because it would be cheaper for me to buy it and put it in myself than add it on as an option.

Where the 1720 excelled! ...

$1000 vs. $2000
17" 1920x1200
4GB ram
It had all the extra trimmings too as had the mac.


 
No matter how articulate you may be you will never convince us "real world" computer users\admins that a MAC is a better machine in any way other than a toy for dumb users that don't know any better. You would have a better chance of convincing us to switch back to AOL. Lets come down to earth and just realize that trendy sheep...err people will buy whatever the trends tell them to purchase no matter what the price.
 
[citation][nom]exiled scotsman[/nom]If building a gaming machine that punches out 60+ FPS in Crysis is your priority then thats fine. Other people would say spending $1800+ on a computer that will basically only play games is stupid.[/citation]
WHAT? your post almost made sense up until here. I have a gaming PC. Funny how it plays games AND does everything a mac does... and more.


Macs have a few advantages like true color calibration but they are very few and price/performance ratio certainly isnt one of them as this article tries to prove. I am just shocked at how bad this article is.
 



For someone who was "in the computer business for some 40 years", I am shocked with you remark.

Please explain why Apple has so few viruses for OSX? Might it be becuase not enough people use it to care about it? The vast majority of viruses are written to effect the majority of people (who happen run Windows, believe it or not). The few viruses that apple does have are normally extremely crippling. Apple handicaps their own customers with the B.S. that you don't need a virus scanner or firewall. When you get one on a Mac, that's it, go home, game over. Although rare, it does happen, and enough where it is an issue. Now you are starting to see Malware on Macs (I know, I have one).

- If you really want to pick at the superiority of Apple OS, then lets to so. They just recently got the ability to "go back in time" and retrieve files there were once deleted. Great, widows had this since.... DOS!

- They just recently gave the ability to dual boot Macs. Windows have been able to do this with Linux for.... EVER!

- Windows has active security measures to ensure that you are protected while it being a MS product or third party. Apple has only 3rd party applications for security that they say you don't need.

- As an Enthusiast, I can not customize my Mac. But I can my PC.

- Everyday use, I need to use MSE6-7 on WebPages to view thing I want to. Apple... you cann't view them because you need MSE6-7... which is not offered for Apple.

- Everyday use for office applications are done with ease, on a PC. Using a Mac with Apples software or Microsoft software will only infuriate the user because nothing is placed in a convenient or logical location.

- Checking e-mail is great on a Mac, but it is just as great on a PC.

- I like to play game, do you? I want to play Crysis on my Mac... wait... I can't. What about... nope never mind, the game is too new or won't be made compatible.

- The best part of the Mac that I found was the IM program they include with the OS. I like how it organizes the chat dialog and they give it a great feel. You know what else works great, chat programs like AOL IM or Google talk on a PC. Not to mention you can get programs that combine all you IM screen names (like the Mac does), such as Trillian.

- The other nice thing about Mac is the GUI. It is a very nice interface for looks and operation. It is smooth in what it does... after you wait for it to finish to oddly long boot process. Once you're in, it's great. But until everything is loaded, it is just choppy and slow. I do like the shine it gives things, the auto reflect of icons and the nice clean background that it comes with. Windows Vista runs smoother and boots faster.

- Vista has not as a good solid feel OS as OSX.5 but for the 6th try at a OS, they did a stellar job. Apple has had over 10 tries and still produce a shotty at times OS.

- When you put a CD into a MacBook, it is great. It is clean looking and just sucks the CD right in. Great! Now how do I eject it? I push the eject button... nothing happens. I move it to the trash... Nothing happens. I want to get my CD out, now!!! I press the eject button faster and faster but nothing happens. Out of desperation I fumble my way through the system settings and finally tell the drive to eject it from the system settings. And it works then. When I am Windows on the MacBook, I have the same issue. But all I have to do with that is go to My Computer and the right click and say eject disk. Lo and behold, IT DOES!!!!

- Network Security. Cisco and Apple don't play nice. I have to dumb down my wireless security at home so my Mac can get onto my network. It does not allow it to connect to my access point with a 128bit hex encryption. Go Apple Security!

- Remote disk is a nice feature, haven't used it yet but I want to. But I may never use it.

- The remote it comes with is great! But where can I store it on the laptop? With many, MANY windows lapies, the remote storage is either a special spot made for it or placed into one of the pci slots on the side.

- Plastic case? Why would a manufacture use a thick plastic case? It is an insulator. After using the MacBook for a half an hour or so, just doing web surfing, I could boil some water on the bottom of it. The bottom is just gets to god damn to hot!

- The CPU fan is VERY loud when at full speed. But many notebooks are this way so I can not blame Apple for this. I can comment on the piss poor placement of the CPU fan exhaust being where the lid blocks when open. Who though that was a good idea.

- The battery life is phenomenal! I can sometime get up to 8 hours battery life on one charge! I have not seen a windows machine do that. But, to achieve this time, I must not be using the machine, just leave it on standby so the white LED light pulses to the heart of Steve Jobs. During use, I can get over 3 and half hours of usage, which is still great!

- They keyboard and finger pad.... the keyboard is for people who can break concert with their fingers. I hate how it feels and how much pressure I must use to depress a key. Not only that, but the odd displacement of how far each key is from each other very annoying. It causes me to mistype things all the time and slows down my type rate. The finger pad is good, but it feels like crap and is hard to scroll from time to time and the multi-touch things get tricky as well. Just don't eat greasy food before using, or you will gum everything up.

- The weight. It is a sturdy built machine. It feels solid and hard to break. If you flex the screen, you even get this beautiful cracking noise! Now, this will go by vendor so I can not say Windows machines don't do this. By my old Sony Viao was thinner, larger, lighter and never made cracking noises. Take this one how you will.




Please, please next time do just say thing blindly. Spend time and really think about what you are going to say. I recommend Apple to many people, although my heart is with Windows. They should all try it and see if they like it. But most will buy a windows PC because of the price, performance, and bang for their buck. Apple is a good company, but they need to stay in the mobile market, the small device market. Now that they are just a Linux version... I don't see what is so special about them or as you said "FAR superior".
 
This entire article was a complete waste of 30 minutes of my life reading it. The forum attacks have been humorous at least, but the reality is you have taken specific PC offerings and obviously took the time to hand-pick them to attempt to show some equal level in cost.

The reality is you failed to include that the components in question are more than 1 generation old in many cases and that a much "HIGHER" level of computing could be obtained for less money than the PC you have shown.

Just at BestBuy (which is a simple place to do a comparison)
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8780198&type=product&id=1204332501169

If you upgrade the processor in that laptop at newegg for: $250 it will cost you a total of $1600 and be a far superior laptop as it will have:

4GB ram instead of 2
an 8800M GTS w/512 DDR3 - Leaps and bounds better than an 8600M GT
Larger screen - 17" instead of 15.4 at same resolution (screen can also be upgraded if desired)

And we're talking about a freaking GATEWAY....if you look at other, better, online sources you can get even better deals. If anyone spent any REAL time looking for laptop pricing they could easily find many many offerings equal or higher in power than the Macbook you list for many hundreds of dollars less.

The PC comparison is the single worst thing I've seen since I began religiously following Tom's Hardware in early 2000. That was a very very bogus comparison and not at all an indication of anyone with any kind of sense that purchases/builds computers.

You are comparing Dual Quad core - XEON processor computers, utilizing Server Motherboards and associated equipment.

You also failed to mention that the supermicro motherboard supports onboard Raid 0/1/5/10.....Anyone that "needs" two XEON Quad-Cores or any kind of $2700 Computer will most likely be raiding their hard drives as otherwise, you'd be talking about a big "single point of failure" (kind of like this article)

Anyone can hand-pick specific componenets in this fashion to get a bloated view of equality, but the bottom line is it just doesn't pass the wash!!!

Does Tom even review these articles prior to posting anymore? Whoever is in charge of allow these articles to go up needs a serious talking to.
 
Hi there, I was just reading this article and thought what a load of biased tosh! Nah, just kidding, but it did put me up for a bit of a challenge.

Self build (media centre/uATX) vs. Mac Mini:

Mac Mini:
1.83GHz Core 2 Duo
1GB PC-5300 DDR2
Intel GMA 950 integrated graphics processor.
80 GB SATA hard drive.
Mac OS X.
PRICE: £399 inc. VAT.

Self build (uATX):

2.53GHz Core 2 Duo E7200.
2GB DDR2 PC6400
ATi Radeon 3450
Samsung 750 GB hard drive.
Windows Vista Home Premium (OEM)
Price: £383 inc. VAT & next day delivery.

http://img151.imageshack.us/img151/627/vsmacminiox0.png

The only actual advantage the Mac Mini has over this unit is the size. I did try to keep the size down, but couldn't find an appropriate chassis, but feel the Antec Fusion was a reasonable compromise given its media-centre like appearance. I think you might wonder about Vista Home Premium OEM as a cost cutting measure, so I'll explain, Ultimate doesn't seem to add a whole lot over Home premium in a lot of places, okay so there's bitlocker and all that, but this isn't a laptop, and just like an off the shelf PC, it's an OEM license so really that's fair game. Of course we could shave off £60 if you're a Linux nut but whatever. :)

Mac Pro vs. Self Build:

For this I've gone with the default specifications on Apple's UK site.

2x 2.8GHz Quad Xeon processors.
2GB DDR2 FB-DIMM.
320GB HDD.
ATI Radeon 2600 XT 256MB.
No OS specified in the pre-configured model.
(includes mouse+keyboard)
PRICE: £1749.

Self Build:

2x 2.8GHz Quad Xeon processors (E5440A)
2GB DDR2 PC5300 FB-DIMM
750GB hard drive
GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB
Windows Vista Ultimate OEM.
Logitech cordless Keyboard+mouse.

£1748

http://img386.imageshack.us/img386/7461/vsmacminixa2.png

Okay, very very small price difference there (a quid!), but the difference here is in the specs. As you can see, we have the 9600 GSO which is much faster than the 2600 XT, and a 750GB hard drive, over twice the capacity of the one that comes on the default Mac Pro. Okay, so what? Well, configuring that Mac Pro to a more comparable specification puts it at £1929.01, just under £200 over my own specification. Ah, and here's something, the Pro doesn't come with OS X as standard, it comes blank. To specify OS X server it's going to set you back a further £319 - or £2,248. That's £500 over a self-build. Okay maybe that's a little unfair, if we just want to run OS X 10.5 on it, it's only another £85, making it £2014 - a 'mere' £266 over our pre-built unit. Either way going with the Pro is less bang for your buck, and at the end of the day that's what counts.

I'd do the iMac, but that'd be a little difficult considering there's no 'stick your PC on the back of your monitor' kits out there. Overall, it seems the higher end you go with Macs, the better they get in comparison to the competition, the problem with that is that the higher the price is, the less people want to pay for it.
 
I think it's a damn good article. As long as you don't get Apple's upgrades, the author's got a point.

@Saen -- The slow response time on an Apple monitor is because it's an IPS-type LCD screen (not a TN) -- it's a slower screen, but it's got a much higher color accuracy level, and that's why they're used by professionals.
 
NOTE: Sorry, it was a 160GB hard drive in the 'vs mac mini' specification, I had a 750GB model originally but decided to cut it out as I felt it was a little excessive and could improve the specification more aggressively without it.
 
Yeah, like WTF dude! The AppleMac cost more $$ no matter how you stack it. Hardware cost more and you just can't buy a MB/cpu combo etc... from anywhere, PLUS you have to be "certfied" to buy certain parts. WTF's up w/that Sh*T???? How bout letting anyone buy your product? huh?? duhhh. Don't get me MAC's a good deal for those who can afford it and such but don't try to sell it as a "better" alternative to a PC when I can build one cheaper and better for
 
One of the interesting things about Apple is that they are often very competitive when they release new models. I own the very first macbook pro. I paid 2k, and at that time, the best deal i got at dell was about 1.8k. The problem is that Apple's product prices NEVER change. So when technology changes and everyone is getting newer and better product lines, Apple often falls behind but stays at the same price. This is a huge fault in Apple's strategy when it comes to people like myself who are heavily performance minded. I love my mac, OSX kicks ass and at this point in time, Windows cant touch it. This is not my fanboyism talking, I dual boot in windows all the time, and i have two other non-mac computers. But I won't be buying another mac anytime soon, because like most of you, I also have a budget. In the world that I live in, I can't live without my mac or my windows machine. The biggest problem with computers right now, is Microsoft, because the hardware in our computers are not being used to their potential anymore. That is why I love my mac, because even on "obsolete hardware" it kicks so much ass for everything I need it to do (including games through bootcamp with an overclocked ati m1600 256mb "HL2, Counter-Strike Source, COD4, etc." Hardware is awesome and i love building a new desktop just as much as the next guy, but come on, I'm tired of being f'd with by Microsoft OS. And on the other side, I'm tired of Apple's lame prices and their poor excuse for a competitive LCD panel. At least we have Linux :)
 
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