So Lauren is the new Microsoft star. Sure, she is prettier than The Dude, but may not be a lot smarter if she thinks the $699 piece of crap low-end PC is anywhere comparable to the Macbook Pro.
But perhaps it does not have to be comparable: she may not need a higher end system at all. Says Harry McCracken:
..asking whether Macs are more expensive than Windows PCs is like asking whether Audis are more expensive than General Motors cars: It’s a meaningless question without context, since the answer is entirely contingent on the models you choose.
He does the most thorough component by component, feature by feature price analysis and arrives to the conclusion that there is no Apple Tax: of the truly comparable laptops the Mac is not the most expensive.
Computers are not just a pile of hardware: they are work / productivity / communication / entertainment devices and are only relevant to us as far as they satisfy our personal needs. So a hardware to hardware, component to component comparison missed the big point, the human “component”.
And talk about “human component” there’s the concept of TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) that we talk about a lot when it comes to businesses (just ask Vinnie), how come we never factor it in with consumer purchases?
Unless you buy a Netbook which still runs good old reliable WinXP, the only choice of MS OS you can get is Vista, which famously fails left and right. I started to chronicle the hassle of just running a Vista PC and dealing with random, unexplainable failures, even created Virtual Invoices to Microsoft for my lost time, but eventually just gave up. The fact is that if you own a Vista computer, you will inevitably spend a few hours per week trying to figure out annoying odd behavior, googling for solutions, hacking your registry – basically just trying to get the damn thing work. And of course it always comes in the worse time, when you under crunch with – you know, your own work, not fixing PC’s.
Compare that to the anecdotal evidence of my Mac-user friends, who, despite occasional hiccups all agree: it just works. I don’t know how much you value your time, but it’s likely not free – the time I spent fixing this Vista crap made me regret my “cheap” purchase. And since my Virtual Invoices won’t ever get paid, I’m essentially working for Microsoft for free. We all are. The TCO of a Vista PC is far more than that of a Mac.
I was (still am) close to buying a small desktop for home. I need to run VM’s on it, mostly, and have it play and collect media. I already have a Macbook (as does my wife)
I thought: Mac Mini. No brainer (I have all macs at home). I thought about getting a PC, which I _thought_ would be about half the price (actually, it’s £750 vrs £613 for a dell studio which is comparable in spec: 2.1ghz/4GB RAM), but then I thought:
what am I going to do with it when I’m finished my VM-based testing? I can’t DO anything with it – I use macs. I dont use windows at all at home (except in said VM’s)
So, I’m about to go get a Mini 🙂
good point on the “it depends on what you are comparing it to”. That ad is a joke, but she’s rather cute, which made it worth the 60 seconds to watch.
oh yeah. The same guy is walking past the door of the apple store when she walked in, as when she walked out (the dude with the camera). Obviously didn’t spend much time in there.
@Nic Yeah, what’d she do? Bounce off the door?! The guy is like two paces from where he was when she “walked in” so she probably didn’t even feel the A/C before she turned around and walked out!!!
I think the point of comparison between Mac and PC is the choices. With a PC you have a much wider variety of choices than you do with a Mac.
On the one hand we could say that Macs and PCs are computers and lump them together into one big list of choices.
Or one could say Mac vs. PC and conclude that a PC is preferable because of the likelihood of finding a machine in your price range that meets your needs.
Ultimately you should, as in the ad, define your requirements and price limit and then go shopping – not only at Apple and Best Buy but on-line and at some smaller retailers too that can give you better advice and post-sales support.
You have absolutely identified that indeed the TCO of a laptop can vary widely and is not equal to the initial purchase price. It is funny however that people fail to consider resale price when thinking about TCO, this blog post (http://www.regexprn.com/2009/03/are-macs-really-more-expensive.html) actually shows that when you consider just resale value that the TCO of a MacBook is comparable to that of a cheap Dell laptop and much lower then higher end HP or Lenovo systems. And you dont have to consider the “human factor” which although is very true, is much more difficult to quantify.