Apple Claims PC Is As Expensive As Mac!!

[Kill-Switch]

Microsoft's latest advertisement shows an average computer user, Jane, who wants to buy a 17' laptop. The commercial follows her as she discovers that Mac laptops are too expensive for her budget, then heads to Best Buy where she finds a PC that meets her specifications for $699.

The ad ends with Jane jumping in joy, but -understandably- Apple and its supporters are not as happy.

Business Week's Arik Hesseldahl, along with an Apple spokesperson responded to the aforementioned ad by claiming that PC users don't understand quality and economics, and that they are picking inferior machines. "Yes, $699 beats the $2,800 you'd pay for a Mac with a 17-in. screen. But when it comes to PCs, there's still a great deal more to buy," he wrote.

The first thing a PC user will need to buy, according to Hesseldahl, is a decent Antivirus software. "After the trial runs out you'll pay Symantec $50 a year to protect your PC (and up to two others in your home) from all the nasty viruses, worms, and other malware lurking on the Internet. That's $150 over the three years Lauren is likely to hold on to her PC. No need for antivirus on the Mac."

It is worth noting that Apple has been recommending the use of antivirus software with Macs for almost half a year now. A note on Apple's official support website reads: "Apple encourages the widespread use of multiple antivirus utilities so that virus programmers have more than one application to circumvent, thus making the whole virus writing process more difficult."

"Next," Hesseldahl added, "let's say something goes wrong on the computer once the warranty expires and that it requires the intervention of a third party. Geek Squad will charge you $129 just for a diagnosis. A diagnosis from the Genius Bar in Apple's retail stores? Free."

After that Hesseldahl tried to calculate the cost of getting a multimedia suite similar to Mac's iLife. For some reason, he expected that, in addition to Muvee Reveal($80), and CyberLink DVD Suite($104) , the average PC user needs Adobe's Photoshop Elements, including a membership in Photoshop.com Plus ($140), Sonic Solutions' Roxio Creator 2009, which combines video-editing and DVD-creating tools ($100)and Cubase Sequel ($100).

"Add it all up and it's not hard to imagine Lauren's $699 computer costing something closer to $1,500," he concluded.

"But that doesn't include harder-to-quantify shortcomings. The HP's battery lasts only 2.5 hours on a charge, compared with eight hours for the 17-in. MacBook Pro, which also happens to be 1.2 lb. lighter and boasts substantially better screen resolution: 1,920 pixels wide by 1,440 high, vs. 1,440 by 900 for the HP."

Wow, can you smell the bullshit! Even throwing in all the expensive (optional) extras the Mac is still more expensive by a long shot. There's so much wrong with what he states you could write a book on it LOL

[unacceptable_risk]

Apple prices aren't even in the same universe as PC...

I got mac attacked recently in the tech support section of a riders forum. Some poor bloke had a PSU go fizz on his PC and made the mistake of mentioning it was only 18 months old.. Well all the helpful mac fanboys crawled out of the woodwork to offer their saged advice didn't they..

Just bin it and buy a mac said the first one.. +1 said the next, and the next. I went mac and I'm never going back said the next... +1, etc, etc

Stupidly, I thought I could reason with them. I pointed out that Apples break too.. That was a mistake lol. I copped a couple of pages of just how amazingly wonderful macs are, and how they do such amazing things, none of which any of the fanboys involved actualy use their macs to do of course.. but wonderful nevertheless..

Several people offered objective opinions, but the fanboys were on a roll and wouldn't hear of anything even vaugely uncomplimentary towards their beloved apple products.

So I went to the apple site to see what it would set the guy back to actually replace his PC.. Were note talking about anything super special here.. quad core 2.7Ghz, 4Gb ram.. 2x 640GB in raid 4850 ATI video. 1 24inch screen, A 1 button mouse, annoyingly flat keyboard and all the software that makes a mac so wonderful.. The damm thing didn't leave much change out of $9K USD ffs!!

I couldn't believe it.. I could buy another bike and a brand new PC of similar spec and still have leftover for a night on the town. I posted up that I had given in and priced up a new mac for the OP. Posted the specs and the price and laced the whole lot with a healthy dollop of sarcasm..

But my sarcasm was wasted on them.. I recieved warm congratulations for my change of heart...

[Synthohol]

Macs are like indian food. if you can stand the stench of "mask the smell of rotting meat" curry (currys original purpose) then i say go ahead and dive head first into the world of Macs you have a far stronger stomach than me.
i'll be at the Sushi bar world of PCs if you need me.

[Player0]

My biggest pet peeve is people who *have* to have a Mac to do graphics or video editing. They sneer at the PC as though it's a piece of dirt when it comes to Photoshop. Final Cut is thy lord and master.

And, Photoshop CS3 is slightly faster in OSX than PC on the same system configuration. Final Cut is considered to be the best video editing software available.

If money is no object.

This isn't true in most businesses and certainly isn't in most homes. OSX might run Photoshop faster than XP but that shouldn't surprise anyone since its based on BSD. What they don't tell you is that you can buy PC hardware which is much faster than Mac hardware. So the fastest Photoshop machine *is* a PC even though Windows is less efficient at running software.

And it will cost you a lot less.

As far as editing your home movies do you really need the best and most expensive video tool out there? It's like $1300. There's really only one maybe two applications for video editing on the Mac. The PC has dozens. I personally like Sony Vegas. The Pro version is $550 and more than most people need. You can spend $100-$150 for a decent PC video editing software.

For the price of a Mac and Final Cut you could finance a small independent film. In fact, you can buy a PC and software and do serious video editing for half as much as it costs to buy Final Cut.

The graphics designers at work are getting Macs because they want Macs I guess. I guess if it's a choice between a Mac and a shitty Dell I'd ask for a Mac too. Anything would be better than the P4D Optiplex they give me

[Synthohol]

i will say though at the recording studio we had a good G5 running Pro Tools and Digital Performer and will stomp any multi track pc software i have ever seen.
but again spending close to 4 grand on the Mac, software and interface kit for Pro Tools is ok being its a medium to result in ease of use and the recorded track(s) have full manipulation and more options you can shake a stick at. (without crashing because i have over 200 fonts in my suitcase as Macs do on a frequent and regular basis. graphic designers know what i mean)

rarely do i give props to a Mac for anything other than better screen savers but this recording software designed for Mac is phenomenal and i doubt anything PC would come close. no need to defend PCs in this arena, I concede in this area to the Mac but again, its music, not CS3 or 4 which a well configured PC WILL run circles around for far less wallet extraction points.

I totally feel dirty considering setting up a recording studio here in the basement powered by Mac but having used the 2 softwares i cannot deny its superiority in this small aspect of Mac vs PC.

eeyuchhh, i need a shower now...

[DCMan]

I chatted to someone yesterday who had just bought a mac.. The bit that summed up mac users the best was:

ME: Now that apples and PC's have the same insides, I cant justify paying £400 extra, just for an OS.
THEM: Yeah, but the stuff inside mac's is better
ME: Not really.. The case build quality might be a little better in some cases, and they do some stuff quite well like the magnetic power supply thing, but the insides are identical.
THEM: No, the stuff inside Mac's are better.
ME: No, they use the same processors/ram and everything. An Intel E5450 1.66Ghz processor is the same whether its in a Mac or a PC.
THEM: Yeah, but the ones inside Mac's are better quality ones.
ME: <Gives Up>

The maths in that article doesnt even add up. Let alone the fact that there are free options for much of the software he mentioned which are just as good!

And I love the bit where he says "Anti-Virus is not needed for a mac", or something along those lines. Shame that article was written the day after a Mac based BotNet was discovered!

I have to say, I do quite like Macs for some things. But there's nothing they can do that I can't do on a PC. But the thing which really puts me off buying a Mac is the attitude of Mac users. I don't want to be associated with that.

Anyway - this is the original article if anyone wants to laugh at the discussion at the bottom. Particularly the guy called Pirks, who I think must actually be Steve Jobs, or one of his minions..

http://www.dailytech.com/Apple+on+Mi...ticle14889.htm

[Synthohol]

i still think its Indian food...

[Kill-Switch]

Originally Posted by DCMan

Anyway - this is the original article if anyone wants to laugh at the discussion at the bottom. Particularly the guy called Pirks, who I think must actually be Steve Jobs, or one of his minions..

http://www.dailytech.com/Apple+on+Mi...ticle14889.htm

Holy crap Mac fanatics are pathetic in the extreme, there must be hundreds of posts after that article (every other one being from the Mac Zealot Pirks). I only read so many of them because it'd literally take all day to read them all. People like Pirks are a definite reason why some of the more hardcore computer users would never go near a Mac, the stigma associated with being a Mac user isn't even worth it LOL

[unacceptable_risk]

LMAO DC.. "But its better...."

Hey the 90's just called, they want their status quo back.

Its sad the way mac fanatics lose all objectivity.. I guess after paying as much for a computer as they did, they have to continually justify it to themselves at every opportunity.

Well heres a funny one... IBM handles apple tech support over here, and one of my good mates is a team leader.. Based on a tip off that they are about to start a round of recruiting, I've put in an application.

I hope I get it. The fanboys assure me nothing ever goes wrong with Mac's... So I look forward to being paid to watch youtube for 40 hours a week.

[DCMan]

Originally Posted by unacceptable_risk

I hope I get it. The fanboys assure me nothing ever goes wrong with Mac's... So I look forward to being paid to watch youtube for 40 hours a week.

Brilliant