The Apple Mac Cost Misconception

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You also forgot to factor in the cost of the OS. If you buy a windows os you probably won't need to pay for an upgrade for 4 years at least if you take XP as the idea. Also, most of the time if you buy a windows os when they do come out with an upgraded os stuff will still work for it.

OS X has gone through 6 versions, in about 7 years. Each one would cost you $125 to upgrade. So figure 4 years for your life span of a computer and probably 3 upgrades to keep using it with new software and that is an extra $375.

Oh and what about warranty? That xps model comes with in home service rather than a send away that the mac comes with.

How about you compare the XPS to the Mac version of the same style of system. It's called a Mac Book Pro and costs $2899 to have the same res of screen. Oh and add the OS cost of $375 over the life of the computer and you have $3274....haha.

I mean, you just compared an light mobile laptop to a desktop replacement....are you on crack?!

Just fyi I own a mac and a pc, and both have their good points. This article is not fair, you need to take a step back before you post crap like this again.
 
@ Spartanii

w.r.t. hardware reliability.

You will find that a lot of university and government science labs still have a lot of DX2-66 etc. The reason being the software they run is usually very expensive and is for specific scientific instruments. So a 15 plus year old PC can be found to be robust.

Perhaps a part of the reason newer components fail is because of the demands placed upon them. Don't forget that PC's are likely to have much higher demands place on them both operationally and thermally through gaming.

Perhaps also it is a sign of the times since hardware is not built to be so robust now as its lifetime is considered to be limited and is much cheaper now compared to then.

 
[citation][nom]spartanii[/nom]what about hardware reliablilty? 9 year old I mac still runs fine, 4 year old pc had to replace mobo and psu after only 2 years. My friends Dell's harddrive failed after a year. And his macbook pro hes had for just as long even dropped in my driveway several times still hasnt had any problems with it.. so im sorry if I use blanket statements like MACs are more reliable because all the evidence ive seen points to the conculsion. Seriously how many people have built a pc with out some part crapping out on them at some point. I mean come on my very first MAC 66mhz (dont remember the rest of the specs, com on it was 13 years ago) still works or i should say functions because no new program would work on it but it still powers up and has all my old software still on the harddrive how many people can say that about there first PC?[/citation]


This would make sense....if Mac made their own HDs.....or their own Motherboards for the intel line of macs. But they don't. Just fyi, they have never made their own HDs for laptops.

They may have better quality assurance programs, or you might just be getting lucky. I run a mac repair shop and I see dead HDs and dead Motherboards all the time. I can tell you one thing for sure, the repair costs are much higher on a mac with a dead Motherboard than they are on any other system I have seen.
 
This is pretty ridiculous - you picked about the only two systems out there that Apple beats.

It's no secret that Apple systems are much more expensive than Windows - pointing out that a custom-made boutique PC created by Voodoo costs more does nothing to dispel that point.
 
You really wasted some white space this time. Not a realistic comparison at all. There must be some magic formula at Apple that indicates charging a huge premium for their product outweighs high sales volumes. With the all the Vista hate going around, they could have taken this opportunity to sell a cost competitive computer. YES THEY DO COST MORE! A LOT MORE- Especially in the mainstream market.
 
I think you've jumped the gun here because what people have been referring to is that a comparably priced PC is going to be much better, and they don't mean that in the sense that they will use the exact same components. For example: why would I spend $1100 on that intel processor when I could get one almost as fast for half, or even half the price. I could then take the difference I'm saving an invest in a much better video card which yields much better results.

You manage to inadvertently bring up solid criticisms towards Macs when it comes to how they build them and that is their poor component choice. Why the hell would anyone with a brain pair an $1100 CPU with a $40 graphic card? That doesn't make sense, but it doesn't stop Apple from doing it.
 
The article is totally out of reality, specially for European users.
I'd also like to say, that professional users won't upgrade on non-Apple cheap hardware. Even Kingstone has its own Apple certificate memories, which are *much* pricier than regular DIMMs with no apparent reason!

Apple is against computer progress. I dislike MS, but if Apple was the No1 computer company, the whole computer industry would be 20 years behind than today.

So why Apple is still alive?: Well, they call it, marketing. When you watch a movie, it is most possible that you'll see someone using a Mac! (I wonder why! ;D ). Some good design, some proprietary OS, and the victims are ready to buy!

My conclusion: Buying a Mac, is the worst thing anyone can do for the whole computing industry. Think about it..

 
Tuan Nguyen is a lier, according to Tomshardware own list you can buy a better computer for $1999 then spending it on a Mac. Tuan Nguyen should be fired on the spot, for not ever bother to read Tomshardwares own homebuild computer that beats the Mac hands down in every test.
 
If you really want to use Mac OS X you can run a modified Mac OS X86 - runs on standard PC hardware 😉.
 
well, it looks like there is a lot of mac lovers and haters here, of which i am neither, but just for the sake of the argument take a look at sager notebooks, you can get very good deals on laptops their, for less than the equivalent from apple, or anywhere else. the seem to build mostly gaming pcs, but they also have value models. there top end model even if it cost twice as much as a macbook pro comes with a desktop processor and sli, not to mention up to 1.5ts of storage, without all this it cost 2224 i if i remember right, and is superior to a macbook pro. the point is that this article is well researched, but dell and vigor or most laptop company's gaming ones overprice as you mentioned, but the places that do not beat apples offerings.
 
[citation][nom]spartanii[/nom]what about hardware reliablilty? 9 year old I mac still runs fine, 4 year old pc had to replace mobo and psu after only 2 years. My friends Dell's harddrive failed after a year. And his macbook pro hes had for just as long even dropped in my driveway several times still hasnt had any problems with it.. so im sorry if I use blanket statements like MACs are more reliable because all the evidence ive seen points to the conculsion. Seriously how many people have built a pc with out some part crapping out on them at some point. I mean come on my very first MAC 66mhz (dont remember the rest of the specs, com on it was 13 years ago) still works or i should say functions because no new program would work on it but it still powers up and has all my old software still on the harddrive how many people can say that about there first PC?[/citation]

As others have said... your comment is irrelevent, because Apple doesn't actually make their own hardware. Whichever hard drives, chipsets, cpus, ram, etc etc are used in macs, are available for PC's. And unlike macs, you have the option of choosing even HIGHER quality parts if you so desire.

IBM's laptop devision beat out Apple ever year in laptop reliability tests... so based on your standards, that completely puts your argument to bed. But in reality, it doesn't really even matter. If you frequent a hardware site you should know that the only thing Apple really "makes" is the plastic. IBM/Lenovo, Compal, Sony, Asus, MSI, Foxconn, etc etc etc have been known to make parts with just as high quality plastic.

Like everyone is admitting, Apple generally builds nice machines. But the delusion that you don't pay a large premium for your pre-built cookie cutter "nice machine" is absolute balony in the highest degree.



 
the discussion is flawd to begin with becase macs ARE pc these days. the use pc hardware. the title should have been: "is it possible to buy a pc from an other vendor than apple that costs as much as an apple pc?"
to witch the awnser is of course yes..
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This is another great point.
 
[citation][nom]aL3891[/nom]the title should have been: "is it possible to buy a pc from an other vendor than apple that costs as much as an apple pc?"[/citation]

+1
 
[citation][nom]crom[/nom]I said compared to Vista, not linux in my post. ext3 and AFP are superior to NTFS. It's a fact, not an opinion. Both are much newer than NTFS is. [/citation]

I suppose your assertion that OSX is a "Far superior OS" is a fact also?

 
[citation][nom]deck[/nom]I suppose your assertion that OSX is a "Far superior OS" is a fact also? [/citation]

If only it wasn't telling enough that he has to stoop to the merits of a file storage system to make his point...

 
Just to clarify my position, I got a Mac and a PC. And the PC is much cheaper and faster and got bigger screen 32" LCD. 24" on the Mac.
 
[citation][nom]Demo500[/nom]Tuan Nguyen is a lier, according to Tomshardware own list you can buy a better computer for $1999 then spending it on a Mac. Tuan Nguyen should be fired on the spot, for not ever bother to read Tomshardwares own homebuild computer that beats the Mac hands down in every test.[/citation]

lol!
 
Why the hell would anyone with a brain pair an $1100 CPU with a $40 graphic card? That doesn't make sense, but it doesn't stop Apple from doing it.
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I love reading you guys post. It made me feel that much better about reading thoroughly through the article. I was thinking that I might have been bad mouthing Macs for too long for no good reason. No good reason my foot.

I’m not sure who was the article writer trying to fool (himself?), but he clearly didn’t do it for rest of us. For one thing, it made me sure that Macs were even crappier than I thought them to be. Brainless lunies putting them together… Not sure what to say about their users…

Is there a way to contact the Editor at Tomshardware.com and slap him in the face for letting this article go up?
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If one sane person read this article, it probably wound have aired in the first place. Or it would have been narrated very differently. I’m not really sure who was the author trying to convince and into what? That Macs are just same priced PC’s with a stylish, exclusive OS?

Speaking of the OS- he spent so much time praising the OS, but failed to mention that 99% of software won’t work on it, or it will, poorly. But never mind all that- the OS doesn’t run all that software or runs it poorly, but who cares about that, when it looks good while at it. Shiny too- nice, round, big buttons.

Apple is against computer progress. I dislike MS, but if Apple was the No1 computer company, the whole computer industry would be 20 years behind than today.
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As much as MS is badmouthed, I have to give them huge praise here. If it were up to Macs- we, the professional digital content creators, would have been forced to use OpenGL and Quadro/ FireGL line of cards. Those “professional” cards are just rebranded and repriced geforece/ radeons with (ever so slightly) different drivers. DirectX, might be windows exclusive, but its worlds faster than the silly and outdated OpenGL. Mac users will just have to get used to using slow graphics API and slow GPUs, so they might as well drop any gaming or ‘digital content creation’ ideas out of their heads. Which makes Macs: uber-expensive-calculators-with-option-to-become-PCs-if-they-abandon-ever-so-useless-, but-somewhat-pretty-Kitty-OS.

As many flaws as M$ has, if it was up to Apple, we’d be seriously screwed- forced to use uber expensive hardware, and obsolete software for no good reason. Chances are, no moderately priced hardware would even exist outside the console world.

It would be like the scientific guy from Simpsons said:

So expensive that only the 5 richest kings of Europe will own one.
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