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to get a cheap laptop from Dell to run an instrument in my lab. Once I customized it as required, it was $1,100 with coupon. If the propriety software could run on OSX, I could get an iBook for about the same (with some customization).

The issue isn't which is cheaper - it's which is cheaper for your particular needs. Obviously, Dell, because they offer a trillion different things, might just be able to sell you a cheaper laptop if you don't need much horsepower or memory. However, I suspect that the majority of people need options that will put the Dell in a similar price range as an Apple.

Who really cares about these comparisons. Faster slower, does it really matter. Slightly less/more expensive? I just don't get it.

The reality is that the Apple is cheaper for most individuals especially if you count your time and I do since I charge for it. We dropped Windows when we were spending more time and/or money just keeping the thing working at the slowest paced Macintosh.

One of the biggest hurdles that Apple has to get into the business sector is that an entire industry of individuals has cropped up over the last 10 years to deal with the Windows problems. There is no incentive for Windows to be as good as or better than Apple. As long as we have inertia and lack of leadership in business, they will continue with the product that everyone uses.

As the society becomes more and more the same and less individualist this becomes very important. How many people do you know look at you funny when you say you have a Mac? And how many of the people looking at you funny really know what they are talking about? Very few.

The IT guys are driving this decision.

It's Bill's fault!

It's Dell's fault!

It's the IT guys' fault!

It's the consumers' fault (because they're too stupid)!

It's the government's fault!

It Dubya's fault!

I love it...

It's the emoticon's fault.

Some folks know the price of everything and the value of nothing.

And some people think they know everything.

I seem to remember Einstein had a phrase for that. Went something like "The more I learn the more I realize that I know nothing."

Or something to that effect.

Oh, and talking about value. I sure as heck wouldn't pay $150 for 2GB of SDRAM and some codecs in firmware.

Sheeesh.

Macs have always been more expensive than other computers. Apple has made it a hallmark to steal every red cent from anyone stupid enough to buy their computers. It is amazing that people will spend $1000 more for a computer that has worse specifications than another merely because of the logo on the front. Mac users are lemmings that have too much money and just want to play around with a toy.

Real computer users will always pick Windows because of the ease of use and build-in security. No real company would ever purchase Macs because they are all slow expensive toys that have no software to run. Oh sure, if you want to browse the web or import pictures the Mac is useful, but for any other task no one writes software for it.

Good thing for Steve Jobs that there are rich people that like throwing their money away on cute looking computers rather than on systems that can get real work done.

If you know about value you presumably value your time. Precisely why Macs cannot be compared to Winboxes. There is no comparison to be made. It's only amtter of time before more WInbox users get to see and try Macs - and switch.

They'll regain the joy of computing and forget their piss-poor Winbox waste-of-time experience!

Evil_MS_User

You compare a state of the art dual core processor with last years Pentium D, affectionally known as The Space Heater, that sucks up battery power like it's a white line on a mirror.

If you can't compare equal systems now that Apple is using Intel processors then you really have a fanboy problem yourself.

"Me" do you think that your opinionated screed, based on belief over knowledge is going to change anyone else's opinions?

Can you provide precise definitions for:

(a) real computer user
(b) ease of use
(c) build-in security

As a further exercise, can you explain to the rest of us not real computer users, including java developers like myself, why a windows troll such as yourself spends so much time hanging around pro-mac sites?

The more I think about "Me", the more I consider "Me" loose in the head.

My productivity and efficiency at work are reduced significantly from regular application and systems crashes, and re-booting my "IT-enhanced" PC. Yes, my PC is the state-of-the-art piece of feces.

Hmm, I wonder how much time and money are lost each year from this pathetic conglomeration of ill-conceived networks and uncooperative software. Maybe, some PC apologist out there has a quantified the “crap factor” for PC’s and “doofus quotient” for PC-centric IT personnel.

Big Al,

Remember that we're comparing _desktop_ systems here. Yonah has a performance advantage over Dothan when comparing similar clock speeeds, and it generates less heat with less power consumption - which is great for _laptops_. But heat and power consumption aren't problems on _desktops_.

The Dell system above has a 1GHz advantage over the iMac, which negates the technological advantage of the Core Duo.

maczealot wrote:

"Yes, my PC is the state-of-the-art piece of feces."

I am convinced that if SJ packaged his feces in shiny aluminum cans with the Apple logo and sold it for $100 a pop you would be first in line to buy - believing that in a decade it would become a collector's item and you could sell it for a million bucks.

Sammy
The reason that MDN (and others) use Dell for comparison is due to their position in sales of PCs and more importantly due to Micheal Dell's oft quoted remark that Apple should sell off the assets and give the money back to the shareholder's. That kind of arrogance pisses people off long term.

And as for AMD inside. You can buy an e-machine with an AMD CPU, but I suspect you would rather not do so.

Machines running Windows will soon have to have a new calculation factored into Cost of Ownership: whether to cough up the $$ to MafiaSoft's virus protection racket.

I don't think there's any doubt that Apple has as its only goal the gaining of both market and mind share. Without a doubt, it's the goal of most companies, but in Apple's case they absolutely NEED to increase share in order to survive ... and they're doing it at the expense of their customers. Substandard component parts, low-end processor technology (even now for the time being), bus speeds that only recently achieved parity with the PC world, and on and on.

You Apple drones are so utterly blinded by the Kool-Aid that you really can't see it - most people don't want to pay a premium for a pretty logo with a bite out of it if it sits on computers that have never seemed more like toys than they do now.

Well, there you have it folks, straight from the horse's ass, er, I mean mouth, Bill Gate’s little lackey, EMSU, can only think of PC’s in terms of digital dung. Having chosen to play in Microsoft’s malodorous sewer of software EMSU has soiled his mind as well his hands.

How appropriate that a PC apologist, well versed in the finer qualities of Microsoft excrement, would consider the fetid conclusion of intestinal peristalsis to have any monetary value. Thank you, EMSU. I suppose that every day is turds-day on your Windows calendar.

“If dirt was trumps, what hands you would hold!” – Lamb.

Ha! maczealot got pissed off! As if I cared. Your opinions aren't worth anything simply because you never back them up with either logic or facts. You're just another rah-rah fanboi coming here to shout "me, too!", hoping for some recognition. You must be such a loser in real life.

Pshaw.

If my Mac is a toy, then how come there are so many games for PCs? I don't use a Mac to have the latest or fastest hardware, I use it for the OS and geting shit done.

EMSU, I admire your dogged persistence although I find your lack of originality and public display mental maladroitness disdainful.

“The Dell system...has a 1GHz advantage”

Translation: Dell plus Windows has been elevated from a large turd to violently erupting projectile diarrhea.

I think MDN should run a story presenting the top 10 dickhead quotes from contributors and put idiots like "Me" (see above) near the top of that list.

we can all laugh as we read their stream-of-consciousness drivel, the literary equivalent of oozing snot.

maczealot, mike.

ROFL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

windows users, they just dont get it do they? HAHA!!

My PC has a 3.2 Giga-turd processor. I also have installed X(tra)P(utrid) or is it Windows 2000 (pounds of feces)? Anyhow, just wait till MS Evacuation, I mean, Vista, is released. I’ll show you guys!

Oooooh. maczealot is going all pedantic on us. I'm so, like, y'know, impressed, y'know.

Dude, come up for air. It's cold and lonely down there. Go get laid or something...

I know three syllable words!

eMachines are ultra low budget computers that obviously cut alot of corners to meet their $300 price range, despite using an entry level AMD chip. You get what you pay for in this cheap market segment regardless of who makes them.

As far as iMacs are concerned, there isn't anything quite on the market from Intel or Apple that can offer a better value and performance package of the Athlon X2 series (likewise for Opterons vs Powermacs). Despite what the headline above says, PC retailers like Monarch Computers and United Micro custom build their computers using quality brands (Gigabyte, Asus, etc...brands you will not find in OEM style retailers like Dell) that will bury an iMac in performance and price.

Of course, since MDN only likes to compare to Dell, their ignorance will persist.

Sammy:

One thing you are forgetting, Sam. No PC comes with OS X.

Even that might change real soon.

Besides, you can turn the tables as well. No Mac comes with a desktop CPU as powerful and advanced as a 64-bit AMD chip with integrated memory controller. Nor can you find the newest graphics hardware on a Mac. Etc... etc...

No PC on this planet holds any attraction for me if it cannot run OS X. I am required to use Windows at work, I choose to take advantage of OS X at home.

Sam:

I think that Apple will adapt advanced hardware into its Mac much more quickly than Microsoft can develop a better operating system.