The Apple Mac Cost Misconception

[nukemaster]

He said people do WORSE(in the ignorant sense) things then buy a mac. So in other words. People waste money on worse things then there computer.

I do not think there was any insult.

That said, MODS LOCK THIS THREAD. Its very old now.

 

[enzo matrix]

I really hope tuan has learned to be more professional since this article was written. Some of his comments were very unprofessional and as far as out of line.
Of course, some commenters were far more out of line but that is still no excuse, since tuan is a representative of toms.
I do have to compliment him on not completely losing it though and making an ass of himself, especially after having his article criticized so much. I especially like that he withdrew from making comments around page 5; I hope it was because he realized that he was starting to go over the line. An brief comment, apologizing to the community for his unprofessionalism would have gone a long way though.

Tuan: A sampling of things a professional journalist should not say to his readers:

-Briliant.

-Wow. Talk about narrow minded ignorance.

-You're welcome to leave the site, no one's holding a gun to asking you to stay since this site has become "Tom's Fruits" to you.

-C'mon now.

-You're welcome to go elsewhere.

-Get a clue.

/i]


An Anonymous commenter wrote this, and I could not say it better myself:
While I agree some people arguing against it are being narrow-minded or are in fact wrong, I have to say that the author of the article, Tuan Ngyuen has been everything but professional when dealing with the comments made on his article. I am disappointed to know that there is staff at Tom's with such little knowledge of proper decourm.

Other comments, some of which I don't necessarily agree with:
BTW. The way Tuan is handling himself here is embarrassing. His responses are all either spelling criticisms or telling people to leave the site. If his article is supposed to be "proof" of something then why not have a healthy discussion where he addresses all the obvious flaws?
-Urkel

Hey Tuan, Do you wanna get all the tom's hardware readers on your back or what??!!??!!??
-Nuke_Meltdown

Wow, if I was a THG editor I would 'can' you right now for that statement.
annisman

But you are right however, it is pretty bad that an author on THG has to resort to these tactics to defend his article.
VTOLfreak

I hope that Tuan can come to learn that there are always idiots who will insult you. I hope he will find the best way to deal with them is to ignore them, rather than responding back, especially with berating comments.

I mean no insult to Tuan personally, I just hope that if he reads this, he can take it as constructive criticism and the opinion of one of his readers.

 

[Guest]

First off I don't give 2 shits about the Macs OS. Since Windows Parallels is an option it's totally irrelevant to complain about, but I can't stand knowing people are paying over $600 more for lesser hardware. Compare the Alienware M14X maxed out with the Macbook Pro 15" maxed out, and you'll see a clear difference in price vs. performance.

 

[Guest]

Ok just did a comparison of the basic Mac Pro and a custom built, both from local websites. The custom built PC came at 1300€ while the Mac Pro PC cost 2500€ and I wasn't even trying to make the custom one cheap. BTW the custom PC had better GPU (6xxx instead of 5xxx, better DVD-drive and most likely better PSU (CM SMP 1kW, rated 80+Gold)).

I understand this article was written in 2008, but some of the component choices in the original are ludicrous also. Obviously this is an article that should be updated at some point...

 

[Guest]

Not many people know this, but when your buying a PC no matter if it's Starter, Home Premium, Pro or Ultimate, you are buying the operating system with it, apple doesn't add this hidden cost, when you buy a mac the OS comes with it at no extra cost, and if you have an old mac, you just buy Lion for £20 and no it doesn't have to be on the app sore if you have leopard or before, you can buy one on a disk.

 

[Guest]

"Cherry picking over-priced PCs"

This is so easy to do when PCs vary so much.

The price difference still applies four years later. Some of the portable/smaller options Apple offers are more competitively priced. Some of the extreme high end equipment is also priced comparably to PCs largely because there isn't much competition for server hardware in the desktops PC arena, an area with more demand for per core performance and GPU power than overall theoretical performance in terms of number of cores.

I recently put together a PC that cost less than half of the low end Mac Pro (about 40-45% of the cost) configured to be almost identical. Despite the price difference, the PC had the following extras (no deficiencies worth note other than those noted):

* A CPU that was around 10% faster (roughly a third total more real world when memory is factored in).
* Memory that was about 10 to 20% faster (to be fair the Mac did have ECC).
* A GPU that was at least 40% faster with twice the memory.
* Around twice the performance for the SSD OS drive (to be fair again the Mac did have about 5-10% more capacity).
* A high resolution webcam.
* Two 500mbps max homeplugs (both had wireless so this was an extra).
* An extra 2TB drive to provide the data/backup drive with RAID 1.
* Bluray capability for the main drive.
* A multicard flash reader.
* A high quality gaming mouse.

Although the price difference varies and is not always so extreme, iMacs did not work out well either. When I say something such as twice as fast, I do not mean something like a 6gbps interface over a 3gbps interface, I refer to measures of performance that are reasonably accurate and close to real world.

Are apple products good value for money? Only very rarely and only when they have to be. Add to this, that once you have gone Apple and want upgrade options or want a choice of more exotic add ons your options are very limited even if Macs are now using PC hardware. This gets worse when you note that f you are not comparing one to one but for best performance per price per component PCs workout even more cost effective. Going in you might be able to find a good deal or at least a product with the minimal Apple tax but moving forward will destroy your wallet.

 

[Guest]

I have seen this an will add why it is not so valid for my comparison:

"Also, the simple reason why the above user did what he did was because he configured a hypothetical system. "It’s sure fun to load up on all that overpriced hardware and get a nice big number at the end!" In reality, if real money was involved, an informed customer would not be adding in any of Apple’s ridiculously expensive options, and would instead source upgrades from elsewhere."

Even without selecting a single upgrade, the Mac Pro was a third more expensive than the PC I had put together and significantly less endowed so the reasoning that the premium applies only to additions does not add up. You could not include some components and get them cheaper on the market as a work around. The problem with that is that you cannot select none for everything.

If you were to make an effort you might be able to get the same Mac Pro for less than Apple is offering but it still works out a lot more expensive and somewhat more burdensome.

 

[rjackowens]

Let's settle the myth about Macs being more expensive.

The Apple Mac Cost Misconception : Read more

I don't really think this is applicable anymore. You can get an ultrabook with way better specs than a macbook air for a fraction of the cost nowadays.

 

[swagner1]

I would also like to point out the pc side of the equation. I can build a pc version of the mac mini for $400 cheaper than macs version that not only uses less power and is quieter, but it has nearly a whole Ghz faster processor. This price INCLUDES $200 per unit for manufacturing costs, and profit. It gets even more rediculous with there "ultimate desktop mac" which I can build a pc version that has 32 cores instead of their measly 12 for... GET THIS... $1000 cheaper with all of the same features and plus some!!! Honestly, I don't see an operating system being worth $200 more than a competitor, no less $1000, especially with the introduction of windows 8.

 

[Dondddddddd]

You can try to write an article that has the appearance of not being a fanboy....but you still come across as a fanboy with your irrelevant points.

 

[Steveorevo]

You can try to write an article that has the appearance of not being a fanboy....but you still come across as a fanboy with your irrelevant points.

Fan of beautifully orchestrated CNC, SMT, and 3D rendering. You can try to explain how you can DIY, but it still looks like you did it yourself.