Not here to start a Mac vs PC war
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From: Queen City, NC
Originally Posted by exb00st,Sep 10 2010, 11:40 AM
^They also typically make a living off PC's and will derail any comments about a Mac being superior in any way.
I'm not an Apple fan, I'm an MBP fan
.
I'm not an Apple fan, I'm an MBP fan
.
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Originally Posted by Voodoo_S2K,Sep 9 2010, 02:12 PM
Okay, this is getting silly. We all know we can argue all day about this until we all turn blue and faint. I think it's best if we just hop in our cars, but the top down and go for a spin. I know that's what I'm going to do. 
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Originally Posted by 8D_In_Trunk,Sep 10 2010, 09:31 AM
I'm gonna call half 
on this.
If we go with the assumption that Apple is a design and "personal-techonology-system-aggregator"* company attempting to go into advertising, and not a "computer company," you find that the build quality is something people DO clamor for. . .
. . . just not in the same way you're thinking. Apple goes to IMMEASURABLE lengths to be at the edge of industrial design. Good industrial design openly invites the customer into handling and using the product. Great industrial design goes one step further and leads the customer to a particular use model. To that end, Apple is a gold standard.
It's not "build quality" in the conventional sense.
The perfect example of this rolled by a few weeks ago. My mom wanted a new computer. I told her that at this point, OSX and Win7 were going to solve 99% of her problems with equal aplomb (for her). She cringed at the thought of using Windows ever again (the reasons are not germane to the discussion; trust me); she wanted a Mac.
I told her that the baseline MacBook would be more than enough firepower for what she wanted to do. So, off to the store she went.
She calls me a week later. She did not buy a MacBook, she bought a 15" MBP. She held the MBP. . . it felt more solid to her. The screen was clearer (and being older, that's a big deal); and. . . the big one. . . the keys lit up. . . which was also a HUGE deal. I could care less being a young cheap bastard, but for Mom_In_Trunk, it was hot shit.
Do Windows netbooks have similar/same features? Yes, as features. However, are they designed with that kind of fanatacism to design? I tend not to think so at all. Apple spent the money on design, and it made the sale.
She has since started using it, and has bought nearly every Apple software widget under the sun. She'll no doubt get an iPhone when her contract comes up for renewal. Is it that substantially better feature-wise? No, but Apple spent the money on UI and design, and made the sale.
Design makes a difference.
*Yes, people use Macs at work. . . However, as the shrewd have often noted, you win on the low-end, and work your way up. Apple has repeatedly tried to get into the server market, and has failed. It's not fiscally compelling given their business model. Give it time.
on this.If we go with the assumption that Apple is a design and "personal-techonology-system-aggregator"* company attempting to go into advertising, and not a "computer company," you find that the build quality is something people DO clamor for. . .
. . . just not in the same way you're thinking. Apple goes to IMMEASURABLE lengths to be at the edge of industrial design. Good industrial design openly invites the customer into handling and using the product. Great industrial design goes one step further and leads the customer to a particular use model. To that end, Apple is a gold standard.
It's not "build quality" in the conventional sense.
The perfect example of this rolled by a few weeks ago. My mom wanted a new computer. I told her that at this point, OSX and Win7 were going to solve 99% of her problems with equal aplomb (for her). She cringed at the thought of using Windows ever again (the reasons are not germane to the discussion; trust me); she wanted a Mac.
I told her that the baseline MacBook would be more than enough firepower for what she wanted to do. So, off to the store she went.
She calls me a week later. She did not buy a MacBook, she bought a 15" MBP. She held the MBP. . . it felt more solid to her. The screen was clearer (and being older, that's a big deal); and. . . the big one. . . the keys lit up. . . which was also a HUGE deal. I could care less being a young cheap bastard, but for Mom_In_Trunk, it was hot shit.
Do Windows netbooks have similar/same features? Yes, as features. However, are they designed with that kind of fanatacism to design? I tend not to think so at all. Apple spent the money on design, and it made the sale.
She has since started using it, and has bought nearly every Apple software widget under the sun. She'll no doubt get an iPhone when her contract comes up for renewal. Is it that substantially better feature-wise? No, but Apple spent the money on UI and design, and made the sale.
Design makes a difference.
*Yes, people use Macs at work. . . However, as the shrewd have often noted, you win on the low-end, and work your way up. Apple has repeatedly tried to get into the server market, and has failed. It's not fiscally compelling given their business model. Give it time.
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[QUOTE=Saki GT,Sep 10 2010, 09:32 AM] Imo I don't think anyone really thinks the PC support industry is in any danger from Macs, but I know from experience that many IT people see them as abhorrent to the unified system mentality most IT departments strive for - they are different, not as well understood, and make more difficult for an organization striving to cut costs and effort through standardization.
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From: Toronto, Canada
Originally Posted by Voodoo_S2K,Sep 9 2010, 06:02 PM
I didn't bother going through the steps to do an actual side by side comparison, but the two obvious thing I saw was the lack of extended warranty and any RAID on the Mac. That's a $250 and $700 option respectively, which makes the Mac now almost $1000 more than the Dell. We all know Dell and the other major PC vendors always discount their PCs, so its easy to get significant discounts from what their website shows at any given time. Does Apple offer discounts?
One thing I will concede is Apple has become a lot more price competitive over the years.
One thing I will concede is Apple has become a lot more price competitive over the years.
AppleCare is $99 for a MacPro and boosts the resale value way beyond it's price. A 3 year old basic Mac Pro is still going to sell on ebay for $1300-$1500. The Dell xeon desktop which is similar will sell for $700ish. Yes, I looked.
Apple isn't the only vendor of (bootable) SAS/SATA RAID cards for the Mac Pro, they are only one option. You can get essentially the same as LSI MegaRaid (PERC) RAID card after market for the Mac Pro for about the same price as you can for a PC. RAM is EXACTLY the same price in the aftermarket, both use the exact same modules.
RocketRAID 4310 for example:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16816115063
When you tack on $1000 at the front end are you accounting for the $1000 hit you'll take on the back-end when you are done with it? Probably not. How about the cost of adding the PERC or similar to the Dell config? I thought not. In reality you are talking about $99 + $250 for a RAID card or about $350 plus shipping and taxes, not $1000.
All you are doing is making vague generalizations to support an unsupportable argument. The reality is that it's a wash net-net.
The price I quoted *WAS* the discounted price, the MSRP was $500 more! Are you really getting a discount when they pump up the MSRP and advertise how much less you are getting it for? No. All that matters is the out-the-door price. That OTD price btw is 10% from Apple if you give them a business card, 15% less if you give them a student card. That's $350-$500 off the advertised price at the register or checkout bringing a basic Mac Pro to below $3000, hundreds less than the Dell used for comparison.
Sorry to ruin the party with, like, actual facts 'n stuff.
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From: Ft. Worth
Originally Posted by txchopper5,Sep 10 2010, 08:54 AM
I support 70 laptops as part of my job (Along with 800 desktops) and have never seen one of them have more than an average amount of parts fail. We just replaced all 70 after 3 years, and I think i had to replace a memory module on 2 of them and a mobo on a third. The laptop that I personally got rid of after 3 years was also used 8 hours a day, 40 days a week for all 3 years, and was a Dell laptop which isn't even awesome build quality, and costs about 1/2 of its Mac equivalent. Same usage applies to almost all of the other laptops. Alternatively, my sister has had her Macbook for a year and has several keys that stick constantly or don't pick up keystrokes, and her trackpad is so bad that she uses a mouse instead.
Honestly I think that people pay so much more for their Mac machines that they are much more cautious with them, so you see less abuse which means they tend to last longer. Yes, there is something to be said for an aluminum casing ect, but if you spend the same amount on a PC as you do a Mac laptop, you can find many things that are built just as well, minus the aluminum casing, and have much better specs/features.
Honestly I think that people pay so much more for their Mac machines that they are much more cautious with them, so you see less abuse which means they tend to last longer. Yes, there is something to be said for an aluminum casing ect, but if you spend the same amount on a PC as you do a Mac laptop, you can find many things that are built just as well, minus the aluminum casing, and have much better specs/features.
*Written from my MBP*
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From: Toronto, Canada
Originally Posted by Elistan,Sep 10 2010, 10:16 AM
Samsung 27" LCD monitor - $350
The 27" iMac LCD has 2560x1440 resolution, not 1920x1080, and a brightness of 375cd/m^2. That is 30" display res territory, I can't find any LCD online with a higher or equal specs for less than a grand.
http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/product...04&sku=224-8284
Dell's 27" LCD with the same specs is $1100.
The $350 27" Samsung is 1920x1080 (2Mp vs. 3.6Mp 45% lower) and 300 cd/m^2 or 20% less light output. x != y
In your face indeed. Take $1100 of the price of the iMac 27 and what remains starts to look pretty cheap at $599 and $999 for the dual core and quad core models respectively.
Look sis, see what I could have made for you for only $300? See, it's exactly like your iMac, well almost, well not at all, but look! It only cost $300!!
There in lies the secret sauce for why people would bother spending money on a Mac rather than a DIY PC. It's in the details, lots of tini details. Most DIY PCs look like and work like everything else DIY: almost finished, a few rough edges, a ding here, a door that doesn't stay closed. There are lots of people out there who think that everything is easy just because smart people who know what they are doing make it look easy. Taped any drywall lately? Looks easy. It's not.
If your time is worth nothing then any computer would probably do the job of not making money just as well.
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From: Longmont, CO
Heh, thanks for the info cthree. So if I were to downgrade some components to match the iMac (only 4GB of RAM, 3.2GHz Core i3 instead of a quad-core Q9630) and cheap out on the keyboard and mouse, but get a comparable 27" monitor, I'm looking at spending $1910. Which is more than the price of the iMac from Apple. And I have to source and assemble everything myself, and deal with a diverse set up support routes.
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From: Longmont, CO
Originally Posted by ChineseDelivery,Sep 10 2010, 03:56 PM
Here are a couple of other builds if you are interested in pursuing this:
http://tonymacx86.blogspot.com/2010/06/bui...omplete-pc.html
http://tonymacx86.blogspot.com/2010/06/bui...omplete-pc.html
I'm not sure the hackintosh is such a great deal though.
Per that link, $807 for:
Core i5 2.66 GHz
4GB RAM
1TB HDD
9800 GT video
Unlicensed OSX (I know it can be done for $29...)
No monitor, keyboard or mouse
Compared to $1500 for a 21.5" iMac with:
Core i3 3.2GHz ($50 less than the i5 above)
4GB RAM
1TB HDD
Radeon HD 5670 video (no idea how that compares to the 9800 GT)
Licensed OSX (hundred bucks)
21.5" 1920x1080 LCD monitor (maybe three-fifty?)
Wireless keyboard and mouse (hundred bucks?)
Drop the last three items, and throwing in an extra $50 for the CPU difference, and I'm looking at a grand for the iMac, only two-hundred more than the budget hackintosh. For somebody who's not technically savvy or interested in this sort of thing, I don't think it's worth it. I don't think your sister got a bad deal at all by getting a new iMac.
I certainly understand the pride of putting something together yourself, I feel great every time I do some work on my S2000 or 600RR myself. I just don't feel the actual numbers support the original claim that started this thread - certainly not when you compare the Macs to Dell, HP, etc. machines.
I think the car comparison is valid - arguing, like the OP's pic does, that Macs are overpriced when you compare a list of their specific components to parts available from NewEgg is like saying the Z06 is overpriced because you can source an F20C powered Lotus 7 clone kit car and get the same performance for an S2000-level price. Sure, it's true to a point, just like, as I showed, the iMac processor upgrades cost more than the same upgrades sourced from NewEgg. But I think that's missing the whole gestalt of the product.
Please note I'm not saying there's anything wrong with a hackintosh, or a kit car, or the DIY computer scene in general. It's just that Macs aren't nearly as overpriced as many people like to make them out to be.