Well, you’d have to be an idiot to think that there is no market for cheap stuff.
But what annoys me is people saying things like:
Apple computers are overpriced - they’re not. They don’t make cheap computers, but the computers they make are not overpriced for what you get.
Apple computers are for people who don’t know how to use a real computer - absolute bullshit. OS X is Unix underneath. Every Apple comes out of the box with bash, vim, emacs, gcc, perl, python, sed, awk, and zillions of other Unix utilities already installed (Java too, if you’re into that). No Windows laptop does, and getting any of that stuff to work properly under Windows is a miserable task.
Apple computers really aren’t any better than PC’s, just better marketed and hyped up. Also bullshit. You can debate Windows vs. OS X vs. Linux all day, and they each have their strong points, but there are many very solid, very rational, very good reasons why I prefer OS X over Windows and Linux - and one of them is not that I think it makes me look cool to carry a MacBook around.
And as another feature I challenge someone to find in a competing laptop - a glass screen, which is basically immune to getting scratched like conventional plastic screens?
Part of this discussion is what we care about, apparently–I couldn’t care less about the screen as long as it’s 1920x1080 or 1200, I don’t need a scratchproof screen, I don’t need firewire, etc. The basic point is, the guts of the machine are pretty much the same regardless.
But in response to your challenge, I invite you to look at the HP HDX 18t, which includes the glass 18" screen, firewire, hdmi, etc. Frankly it’s not that the apple doesn’t have a lot to offer, it’s that it doesn’t have a lot to offer many of us that’s worth the extra $1000.
And hey, I fix Macs same as PCs, I’m probably buying a Mac Mini as my next home machine (to run Windows Vista as a Media Center repeater =P), the point I’m making is that if you’re concerned with the guts of the machine and performance, but not really all that fussed about the exterior and extras, then there is no way a Mac can price compete with a PC. Hence why I said “under the hood, they’re the same”.
Cygwin is miserable? I have more trouble getting the Mac to give me goddamn admin access–which brings me to my real response, familiarity arguments about the OS are goddamn stupid on both sides.
But that’s just wrong–the components underneath the hood are the same. THE SAME. The computer itself is IDENTICAL, to the point I can swap processors/memory/hard drive between a MacBook Pro and a HP of half the cost and both machines will run fine (after I’ve installed nice platform-agnostic Linux on both. =P) The stuff surrounding the computer is different, but to many of us, that’s “hype”. I don’t need it to be pretty or light, I need it to manipulate numbers and pixels really fucking fast without breaking either my or my employer’s budget.
See the aforementioned HP HDX 18t. This is an example of what most of us are getting at–I have to look at the highest-end PC model to compare all the features a Macbook Pro has, and it still comes in cheaper…and I can get the same guts with a cheap plastic case and screen for less than 1/4-1/5 the cost. Frankly, the price premium just isn’t worth it to 95% of the computer-using public.
Okay, well, it’s a bit different to claim that Apples are too expensive because they have so many features, as opposed to saying that Apples are just plain overpriced, like Nike sneakers or Gucci handbags or something.
Certainly, if you don’t care about any of those features, and don’t care about OS X, you can save money by buying a PC. But if you do care, buying an Apple isn’t significantly more expensive than buying a PC with the same features.
As for that that HP - it doesn’t have a glass screen - just a glossy plastic screen. It also weighs 3 pounds more than the Apple (almost 1.5x the weight) is about twice as thick, has 4 hours of battery life instead of 8, has a fluorescent backlight, blah blah blah. You might not care about any of that, but many people do - and the 17" is worth the money if you do.
Which specs are you reading, the ones I saw on HP’s site said it had a glass screen.
And yeah, I do think part of the overprice on Apple stuff comes from the useless cosmetics. They’re hell to repair too, so the TCO is higher on that end. Basically, I hate working on the fuckers, and I hate budgeting for the fuckers, so by extension I hate them in general.
As for the battery life, I’ve found for any serious computing that that 8 hours is entirely theoretical, and they’re roughly comparable with PCs. And if you’re not doing serious high-drain computing, why the hell did you spring for a Macbook Pro anyway?
Many, mind you, is defined in your post as “less than 5% of the population”, judging by Apple’s numbers.
To answer the OP, the commercial quite obviously shows her purchasing the computer from a Best Buy.
I’m a PC user, but the commercial fails to appeal to me - but I think that’s because my reasons for buying a PC (gaming computer) probably put me in the minority of the market, and Microsoft is probably trying to appeal to the non-computer literate people out there who just want something that can do email, internet and word processing and won’t cost too much. I felt the commercial should’ve hammered more on the “this computer does everything I want for way less than a Mac would” (heck, one of the versions of the commercial doesn’t even mention the money) and less on “oh it’s so pretty and does all this cool [re: useless] stuff!” (which is basically the same argument the Mac ads make).
I think you’re someone like me in that you fall into the pool of being advanced enough that you look at this from a far different perspective than most computer purchasers do. There’s a huge pool of people who don’t really know much anything about computers and wouldn’t recognize any of the things you named. Quite a few of these people DO buy Macs just because they can’t figure out how to use a PC. These same people blow huge wads of money taking their computer to Apple repair to fix every last little thing which could probably be solved with a modicum of effort by any even semi-knowledgable person.
wow, watching mac people get defensive is pretty hilarious. They don’t even know what to do and the first 10 criticisms or so got refuted almost instantly.
Hahaha are you serious? Unix has many great characteristics, but absolutely nothing about it makes people computer experts.
The truth is that both systems have good points and bad points. Mac goes out of their way to portray themselves as cool and counter-culture as a marketing strategy. A big selling point for Macs is “reject the system everyone else uses”. sorry it makes you feel bad when people point that out.
And you’ve never really used windows if you think all that is a miserable task. I’ve accomplished all of it without every really noticing that it happened.
I think the bottom line is that Macs are BMWs and PCs are Toyotas. Can we agree that there are perfectly good reasons why someone should buy a Toyota rather than a BMW, and vice versa?
I chose Toyota because it basically covers the full range of auto prices, from the Yaris to the more expensive Lexuses (Lexi?). But your way is good, too.
Gucci handbags are not overpriced - not for the people who buy them (I don’t - I prefer my handbags and my computers to be more affordable). Like Apple they have exceptional design. They are handcrafted. They are very high quality - a designer purse like Gucci will last a woman twenty years - a purse from Target might get through one season. And like a Mac, people who own designer purses are getting something from the label as well as from the quality and design of the purse.
Hey, I have been pretty clear from the start I’m arguing componentry and not outside crap, specifically because someone tried to make the (bullshit) argument that Macs use higher-quality internals.
magnusblitz, I’m with you–my current PC cost me $2300 and change to hand-build, including the OS and dual monitors.
Just for the lols, I went to the Apple Store. A similarly equipped Mac Pro ran me $5167 with one monitor (but ooh, it has a LED backlight whothefuckcares) and a slower quad-core CPU with the “Xeon premium” (speaking as a veteran sysadmin, this is also a whothefuckcares.) instead of the paint-blisteringly fast Core 2 Duo Wolfdale sitting in mine.
System core specs:
Xeon 2.63 quad vs. C2D 3.33 dual
8GB RAM vs 8GB RAM
2x 1TB Drives with RAID on both.
Radeon 4870 vs. Radeon 4870
Apple Wireless Mouse vs. Logitech Wireless Mouse
Dual 18x Superdrives vs. 16x DVD+/-RW, 4x Blu-Ray
1x 24" Wide LED monitor vs. 1x 24" Wide, 1x22" 4:3 conventional LCD panels.
OSX vs. Windows Vista Ultimate (don’t judge me, bitches, I need media center AND whole-disk encryption)
Extraneous bullshit:
Solid aluminum case vs. solid steel case (I use a Cooler Master Cosmos 1000–if you’re a build your own gamer who goes to LANs, BUY THIS CASE NOW it is utterly indestructible and looks awesome)
7.1 sound with optical in/out on both.
4x Firewire on Mac vs. 2x Firewire on PC
5x USB on Mac vs. 10x USB on PC
4x 3.5 bays on Mac vs. 7x3.5 bays on PC
2x 5.25 bays on Mac vs. 5x 5.25" bays on PC
$2,300. vs. $5,167.
Five. Fucking. Thousand. Dollars.
I rest my fucking case.
