Mac Tax, Dell Tax, HP Tax 858
Harry writes "Microsoft's new Windows ad, with shopper Lauren buying a cheap 17-inch HP laptop instead of a $2,800 MacBook Pro, has unleashed the whole 'Are Macs Expensive?' debate again. I'm diving in with a pretty exhaustive comparison of the MacBook Pro against machines from Dell, HP, Lenovo, and Sony that were as comparably configured as I could manage. The conclusion: High-end laptops tend to carry high-end prices, whether their operating system hails from Cupertino or Redmond. And the MacBook Pro wasn't the priciest of the systems I compared." We looked at this question, not in as much depth, a couple of years back.
Rehash... (Score:4, Informative)
Haven't we all reached the conclusion that:
a) no, Macs are not significantly more expensive than PCs
and
b) there are far fewer hardware configurations available such that when you take any one premium feature and then try to go bargain hunting on other features, Macs will be significantly more expensive.
If you want a laptop with a 17" screen, 512M RAM and a 60G HD, suddenly you're comparing an $800 PC against a $2700 MBP since Apple doesn't make a computer with a 17" screen and less than 2G RAM. But if you actually want all the stuff in the 17" MBP, a comparable PC won't be all that differently priced.
Long story short, buying a Mac forces you to upgrade in areas that you may not need whereas buying a PC allows you to save money on any component of the system that is less important to you.
Re:Premade (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Upgrading (Score:2, Informative)
This just in: Buying from the manufacture cheaper then going with someone else.
Your news is sure to rock the automotive world.
Re:Upgrading (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Premade (Score:2, Informative)
It's not as customizable as a desktop, but DIY laptops are possible... http://www.tomsguide.com/us/diy-laptop-whitebook,review-1286.html [tomsguide.com]
Dell has much more variance in prices ... (Score:5, Informative)
In my experience, Macs are priced by Apple and rarely discounted much until they are EOLed for the next generation. Sometimes Microcenter or Macmall has $100 off or something like that.
Dell, on the other hand, changes their pricing and offers more often than I change my socks. I've found that you can get killer deals on them if you are willing to wait a few weeks until a deal rolls around. For instance (now expired), there were great deals for 17" laptops at 30-40% off what TFA paid:
http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/hot-deals/913148 [fatwallet.com]
http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/hot-deals/912911 [fatwallet.com]
Of course, if you are incapable of that kind of patience, preferring instant gratification, then Dell is more than willing to charge you a lot more if you are foolish enough to just go to dell.com and start clicking on things. [ Slightly OT Side Story: Ever since my boss found out that I know how to work the magic dell website, I've earned huge brownie points for buying the same equipment at basically half the great educational rates offered to my university. Actually, at one point I accosted the school's Dell Rep with a printout of the various orders I put in through Dell Home and asked if they would give an educational institution the same deals available to everyone -- no points for guessing the answer. ]
Bottom line: Dell's prices are volatile and the author of TFA is totally clueless on how to best work that.
Re:That's fine but... (Score:5, Informative)
Simply, they do everything they can do to limit 3rd party markets. The non-removable batteries we see in iPhone and the latest laptops mean little more to me than trying to limit 3rd party parts. If they made batteries removable, there are plenty of laws in various locations that make it illegal for them to attempt to prevent other people from selling parts compatible with your computer. Apple does this with everything it possibly can and control the market for 3rd party software as much as possible as well. Ostensibly, this is to control the quality of the user experience.
Re:That's fine but... (Score:5, Informative)
Why can't they offer the equivalent hardware of an iMac in the shell of a Mac Pro and meet the halfway point in terms of price? That would be the sweet spot for me.
Because Apple stopped catering to people who upgrade their computers a long time ago. The vast majority of consumers never upgrade a single component in their computer, and that's the lowest common denominator that Apple is appealing to. This means they can save cost and increase margin in a very competitive market.
I'm sure I'll come across as a Mac apologist, but it's the god's honest truth. I would love a mid/low powered expandable desktop, but it isn't going to happen anytime soon.
Re:Rehash... (Score:5, Informative)
a) no, Macs are not significantly more expensive than PCs
$1600 Dell:
http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/hot-deals/913148 [fatwallet.com]
$2800 MacBook Pro:
http://store.apple.com/us/configure/MB604LL/A?mco=MzA3MTE3NA [apple.com]
You can keep trying to peddle that nonsense, but I think most /.ers are capable of comparing $1600 and $2800 and coming to their own conclusions. It's not even a close call.
Re:Upgrading (Score:3, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Rehash... (Score:4, Informative)
Score 5 informative? No, not informative. Simply wrong.
A 15.4 inch Dell Latitude E6500 with the same 2.53 GHz Core 2 Duo as the 15" Macbook Pro, an NVidia Quadro NVS 160M (a much higher end card than the 9600 that comes with the MBP), 2GB of RAM and a 250G SATA disk with a freefall sensor goes for $1229, right now on Dell's website.
The equivalent Macbook Pro is over $2000.
If you don't believe me, go check Apple and Dell yourself.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Where's the MTTF? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Non-Silverlight video link? (Score:1, Informative)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIS6G-HvnkU [youtube.com] .7 seconds on www.youtube.com
You are welcome.
Re:Rehash... (Score:5, Informative)
Look over your own figures, asshat. That 0.26GHz processor difference REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY matters!
In case people take this anon post seriously, let me quickly point out that it's not just a clock speed difference, but an architecture difference. This means a slightly different processor design with a faster bus and faster RAM. I've heard a 10-15% clock-for-clock boost over last gen is the number thrown around, but that's a general number across desktops and laptops of different shapes and sizes. That would make the performance difference about 21% (10% on the clock speed, 10% on the architecture), taken with about a pound of salt (only matters in heavy use cases, doesn't help if you're IO-bound (disk/network), architecture improvements result in very asymmetrical speedups).
Re:Upgrading (Score:4, Informative)
You are right - you cannot buy a $400 (new) macbook.
You also cannot buy a $20000 (new) Ferrari.
What's your point?
I believe the article shows that for similarly spec'd machines, the cost between an Apple and an HP/Dell/Lenovo is comparable.
Just because Apple doesn't offer a very low end laptop doens't necessarily mean their stuff is overpriced. And according to the article, it is not, with regards to the systems that were compared.
Oh Lord (Score:3, Informative)
that ram from apple is far better than that crap you get from the bottom price rung on newegg.com ... please tell me you don't really believe this.
Please tell me you don't actually believe that Apple's RAM is anything other than thoroughly mediocre.
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Rehash... (Score:3, Informative)
Fine, get the same processor on the Dell -- $375 upgrade (not worth it IMO, but whatever). It's still $1100 cheaper than the MBP. While we are at it, add $35 for 802.11n wireless, $20 for bluetooth, $55 for a creative expresscard sound solution (not that I believe you can hear the difference, but I'm humoring you guys here).
Still $1000 cheaper than the MBP.
Re:Fanboy reacts to negative Apple publicity... (Score:3, Informative)
Nonsense, CUPS was open source before Apple. Apple liked the technology but not the GNU license. First they negotiated with the developer to grant an exemption for OS X. Eventually they bought the rights to it. Now as the copyright holder they can do whatever they like in their own products. Anyone else is bound by the GNU licensing.
Re:you do realize macs can upgrade memory and disk (Score:4, Informative)
-Go to www.crucial.com.
-select your model mac
-buy ram, which is the same ram (price and spec) as the crucial ram you'd buy for any other computer...
Re:Wrong question (Score:5, Informative)
I could really care less if I could have bought a "PC" for $500.00. I do high end video editing and a lot of virtualization as well. I use every 800 Firewire bit of my 17" MBP and am very happy with the purchase.
That's fine. Of course you could be doing high end video editing, virtualization, and Firewire on a PC too, for a fraction of the cost... but if money is no object to you, knock yourself out!
As long as you realize that your experience isn't typical: most people do care how much money they spend, and would rather save $500-$1000 getting a system that still meets their needs.
Re:Initial investment (Score:3, Informative)
I didn't see any clear statement on the page provided that said that. Having ran a macbookpro before under Linux, I was able to determine that while there was dedicated videoram, the video memory was still in fact, shared with system memory.
Then something was funny with your Linux install, because all the Macbook Pro's ever made came with dedicated memory. The first [apple.com] Macbook Pro's came with ATI Mobility Radeon X1600's, which had dedicated, not shared [wikipedia.org] memory. Then Apple switched to Nvidia 8xxxm [apple.com]/9xxxm [apple.com] chips, which all have dedicated [wikipedia.org] memory.
The only exception to this is the brand new 17" Macbook Pro's, but that's only because they have two [apple.com] graphics processors, and only if you're using the 9400m option. If you switch to using the 9600m processor, it uses dedicated DDR3 memory.