Mac vs PC (split from Netbook thread)

[ViPER1313]

perfect timing
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and you love you some Dells

Just chiming in here as well - I bought a Vostro 1520 (same as 1320 above but w/ larger screen) about 7 months ago and love it. My only beefs with it are that it doesn't have an HDMI output and the casing is a little cheap (not as sturdy as an IBM). For the price you cant beat them though.

[Mike]

perfect timing
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and you love you some Dells

that's got the new dell "we want to look like lenovo" look. looks and feels like something you'd buy in some market in hong kong... absolute garbage.

[ViPER1313]

perfect timing
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and you love you some Dells

that's got the new dell "we want to look like lenovo" look. looks and feels like something you'd buy in some market in hong kong... absolute garbage.

It might look cheap and the keyboard has a lower class feel, but all of the components are very high quality: Lite-On DVD-RW, Western Digital HD, Nvidia 9300 based MB, Intel Core2Duo CPU, DDR 800 memory w/ Samsung chips. The cooling system also works well and keeps the case pretty cool to the touch. Touchpad is large and well placed. :dunno:

You can pay extra money for looks and feel - I'll save mine and get something more functional.

[Mike]

i was with you until this...

You can pay extra money for looks and feel - I'll save mine and get something more functional.

GAME ON.

i look at and feel my laptop every day. you're damn right i'll pay extra for something better.

currently shopping 13" and 15" macbook pros. my five year old macbook pro was still going great until i poured water on it. i haven't met a pc laptop yet that didn't feel sluggish or be in dire need of replacing after five years... i've got no good data to back it up, just observation.

also,
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call it fanboys, but i couldn't find a single opinion saying PCs lasted longer.

it's similar to my parents buying a 2003 impala because it was a few grand less than a similar accord or camry. come resale, that car with like 60k miles was worth $3500. the accord or camry? probably $9000. think big picture...

[ViPER1313]

i was with you until this...

You can pay extra money for looks and feel - I'll save mine and get something more functional.

GAME ON.

i look at and feel my laptop every day. you're damn right i'll pay extra for something better.

currently shopping 13" and 15" macbook pros. my five year old macbook pro was still going great until i poured water on it. i haven't met a pc laptop yet that didn't feel sluggish or be in dire need of replacing after five years... i've got no good data to back it up, just observation.

also,
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call it fanboys, but i couldn't find a single opinion saying PCs lasted longer.

it's similar to my parents buying a 2003 impala because it was a few grand less than a similar accord or camry. come resale, that car with like 60k miles was worth $3500. the accord or camry? probably $9000. think big picture...

I do call it fanboy love. How can you seriously argue that Macs "last longer" when their major components (motherboard / CPU) are the exact same as a PC's? I use my Vostro every day and it doesn't show any signs of wear or slowing down. When I worked at CampusNet, 75% of all failures were software related, 15% were dead HDs, 9% were user idiocy (the most common was jamming telephone cords into NIC ports which bends the pins), and the other 1% included dead screens or broken keys on keyboards. And just as many Macs had those issues as PCs. Hell, at least I can replace the ram chips, DVD-RW drive, battery and HD on my Dell without sending it to Apple should one of them fail.

You can't argue resale on PCs either because they have almost no resale. I'm glad that everyone in your family isn't a Honda fanboy though :thumbup:

[Mike]

I do call it fanboy love. How can you seriously argue that Macs "last longer" when their major components (motherboard / CPU) are the exact same as a PC's?

apple exercises a great deal more control over the components. if there is a problem, it's a problem with an entire class of machine, and they can focus on a proper fix more easily. so they put in a bad gpu? sucks, but they have a clear[er] list of the machines that will face the problem. with PCs you've got a different component every day... good luck getting support on the few year old machine. they likely forgot about x component a week after they shipped your machine.

Hell, at least I can replace the ram chips, DVD-RW drive, battery and HD on my Dell without sending it to Apple should one of them fail.

lol wut? do you really think macs are sealed by magic goo? also, i'm really happy you don't send your dell to apple when it fails... that's pretty smart of you... where can i lern me smarts like that?

You can't argue resale on PCs either because they have almost no resale.

right, macs do. my five year old machine was still worth $600 before i woke up in the middle of the night and spilled a glass of water on it. in fact, it's likely still worth more than a pc laptop of the same age WITHOUT EVEN WORKING.

ninja edit: no idea where i came up with the $600 figure. ebay shows 1100-1300.

[Mike]

and since i know mm is full of fact checkers who will find even the slightest slip and turn it into some weak/annoying point... i didn't know the exact manufacture date on my old laptop. it's actually only four years old.

[ViPER1313]

You can't argue resale on PCs either because they have almost no resale.

right, macs do. my five year old machine was still worth $600 before i woke up in the middle of the night and spilled a glass of water on it. in fact, it's likely still worth more than a pc laptop of the same age WITHOUT EVEN WORKING.

Below is what I got from Dell for $663 shipped to my door (7 months ago, in June of 2009):

Vostro 1520
Intel Core 2 Duo P8600, 2.4GHz1066MHz FSB, 3M L2 Cache
2GB,DDR2,800MHZ
NVIDIA GeForce 9300M 256MB Graphics
250GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive with Free Fall Sensor
15.4 inch Premium WXGA TrueLife LCD
8X DVD+/-RW with double-layer DVD+/-R write capability
Intel WiFi Link 5100 (802.11 a/g/n 1X2) 1/2 MiniCard
9-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery

I bought 4gb of ram from Newegg for $52, bringing the total spent to $715 dollars.

The closest Macbook to the above system (with almost identical specs, the Mac has the same processor that is .13ghz faster, 4gb of DDR3 vs DDR2 and a slightly faster video card , but only a 5400rpm HD) costs $1,699.00 (before shipping.)

With that extra 800 to $1000, you could actually race the Civic 3 or 4 times this year. Or take a vacation. Or buy a 2nd Dell for backup purposes and take your girlfriend out to a really nice dinner with the change.

Macs are overpriced for what they are, I don't care how you try to slice it. A quick search on Ebay shows my system selling for roughly what I bought it for :dunno: .

[Mike]

you twice make a point about shipping... i'm not sure why, i couldn't tell you when i last paid shipping for something.

you said you bought your system for $715. i couldn't find a single example going for more than $550, and that was only one... on average, I'd say $450 was the going rate.

and i'm not arguing resale after a year; that's silly, why would you resell/upgrade after a year? let's assume we all do our homework before making such a large purchase and don't sell for a few years.

let's look at a dell latitude d620 versus a first gen 15" macbook pro, both machiens from early 2006:
d620 msrp: $900
d620 resale [today]: $250
d620 cost to own: $650
mbp msrp: $1700
mbp resale [today]: $1200
mbp cost to own: $500

sure, dell always has deals. while not as steep as the dell deals, you can always find a mac for less than msrp as well. point? straight up math says the mac is cheaper to own. factoring in what we know about dell and the market, the dell might edge is out at the end of factoring all that, but clearly not by any large amount.

if you can't understand that math, i can't help you. you get something nicer for roughly the same money in the long run... the exact analogy i was making with the impala versus an accord or camry.

and the points you make about what i can do with the extra money? well, a) i think i've shown that there is no extra money by buying a pc, and b) i'm pretty filthy rich right now... i do all those things already.

[.RJ]

Not having to deal with Dell's tech support and sales monkeys would be well worth the extra $$ (and then some) to me. They've gone in the shitter and its not worth owning one anymore because of it.

[Sijray21]

i guess i'm one of the rare people that don't resell computers. i either donate them or use them as back-ups.

the PC i built in college is still going strong (desktop built to my specs for $700 back in '03) and the only upgrade i have done is move up from 512MB of ram to 2GB. the Dell Desktop my mom has is the same one that she bought for me for my first year in college in '01. the only thing i did with that was install XP and upgrade the ram and that's still running as her back-up without any issues. she now also has an HP 16" dv6t laptop that she enjoys as her everyday computer. this has not had a single issue since she bought it last year around this time.

i actually wanted to buy the mac. i like the macs. for what i was going to use the laptop for, i just couldn't justify the extra cost. the macbook pro (~$1300) vs the hp ($774) made me decide.

if i had a bigger budget for a computer i probably would've went with the mac, but i didn't and that's what ultimately made me choose the hp.

[Apoc]

you get something nicer

That's the part that's debatable. There is no denying build quality, but the people who had Macs in school had nothing but problems living in a Windows world. My Mac hate aside, I just don't want to deal with two extra steps or relearn the way I do things.

Your math is flawed though, because you didn't factor the time value of money of paying twice as much initially. That comparison also assumes people have enough liquid assets to be able to afford a $1700 outlay. Even if it did break even in the end, I don't want to fork out that much cash... which is kinda the point of this thread.

+1 for never reselling

[ViPER1313]

and i'm not arguing resale after a year; that's silly, why would you resell/upgrade after a year? let's assume we all do our homework before making such a large purchase and don't sell for a few years.

let's look at a dell latitude d620 versus a first gen 15" macbook pro, both machiens from early 2006:
d620 msrp: $900
d620 resale [today]: $250
d620 cost to own: $650
mbp msrp: $1700
mbp resale [today]: $1200
mbp cost to own: $500

This is a flawed comparison - I don't know where you are getting these numbers from. There are Macbook Pros all over ebay for ~$700 -> $800 buy it now, making your cost of ownership around $1000 (I am assuming $1700 is what they cost new, could have been less?)

The D620 was an older model and doesn't have the Core2Duo processor in it - a more accurate comparison is the D630, which was available at the time and which are still going for ~$400->600
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I know you could buy a D630 for under $1000 when new, making total cost of ownership ~500, give or take.

sure, dell always has deals. while not as steep as the dell deals, you can always find a mac for less than msrp as well. point? straight up math says the mac is cheaper to own. factoring in what we know about dell and the market, the dell might edge is out at the end of factoring all that, but clearly not by any large amount.

Where can you get Mac's significantly under MSRP? Thats the entire problem with Mac - you have to buy the hardware from Mac, your OS is made by Mac, and Mac tightly controls the pricing.

if you can't understand that math, i can't help you. you get something nicer for roughly the same money in the long run... the exact analogy i was making with the impala versus an accord or camry.

Once again, I will reiterate that car and computer depreciation is not the same thing. Secondly, nicer is obviously relative - for example, I would rather own a 2003 Impala over a 2003 Camry (maybe not over an Accord if both were the same price.)

Lastly, if you want to keep on this American vs Foreign car depreciation thing, you have to take into account all the special rebates, financing offers, etc when buying new that the American companies usually give on cars such as the Impala. Those usually tilt the long term ownership costs back towards neutral when comparing them to the foreign makes (unless you are an idiot and pay full price, then you will get reamed on trade in.)

[Mike]

This is a flawed comparison - I don't know where you are getting these numbers from. There are Macbook Pros all over ebay for ~$700 -> $800 buy it now, making your cost of ownership around $1000 (I am assuming $1700 is what they cost new, could have been less?)

ya, my numbers do seem to be off. i searched again and 700-900 looks more like it. so cost of ownership is suddenly a good bit less on the pc side. i can admit loss when comparing total cost of ownership over the lifetime of a pc, but my original point stands, a mac has a greater lifetime, which alters things a bit. basically, you don't want to be using a pc laptop that is many years old... the build quality simply isn't there to make them last. with a mac it is... you WILL get more years out of a mac.

The D620 was an older model and doesn't have the Core2Duo processor in it - a more accurate comparison is the D630

no, because the macbook pro in question is also just a core duo.

Where can you get Mac's significantly under MSRP?

where did i say "significantly?"

Once again, I will reiterate that car and computer depreciation is not the same thing. Secondly, nicer is obviously relative - for example, I would rather own a 2003 Impala over a 2003 Camry (maybe not over an Accord if both were the same price.)

it absolutely is the same thing. it's a great indicator of the quality of an item after several years of ownership.

Lastly, if you want to keep on this American vs Foreign car depreciation thing, you have to take into account all the special rebates, financing offers, etc when buying new that the American companies usually give on cars such as the Impala. Those usually tilt the long term ownership costs back towards neutral when comparing them to the foreign makes (unless you are an idiot and pay full price, then you will get reamed on trade in.)

i took those into account.

[ViPER1313]

Once again, I will reiterate that car and computer depreciation is not the same thing. Secondly, nicer is obviously relative - for example, I would rather own a 2003 Impala over a 2003 Camry (maybe not over an Accord if both were the same price.)

it absolutely is the same thing. it's a great indicator of the quality of an item after several years of ownership.

I half agree with this - resale price is *partly* a great indicator for the quality of a product. But resale for many items is determined by a host of other subjective BS (appearance, 'cool factor', supply and demand). In Macs case, for both new and used models, I feel the price of the product is dictated more by a clever marketing department and cool looks than functionality and reliability.

[Evan]

mbp resale [today]: $1200
mbp cost to own: $500

$1200 for a 4 year old laptop seems outrageous to me. Granted I dont live within the Steve Jobs Reality Distortion field so maybe $1200 is considered a deal to become a part of the Apple social movement, but I did a quick ebay search on recent completed listings and sure enough, early MBP dont sell anywhere near $1200.
Low price is around $600, high price is $850 if its been upgraded. CPU speed doesnt seem to affect price drastically.
Giving a healthy estimate of $800 resale, you need to increase your mbp cost to own to $900

edit: links removed, looks like this has been covered already anyway

[Mike]

I feel the price of the product is dictated more by a clever marketing department and cool looks than functionality and reliability.

i'm guessing you've never used a mac for a long period, eh? i can say i've used PCs [as we now know them... i spent a few years on a commodore 64, but i won't count that] (and still do) for 23 years. until three years ago, when i was forced to use a mac at work, i felt the same as you.

[BLINGMW]

How can you seriously argue that Macs "last longer" when their major components (motherboard / CPU) are the exact same as a PC's?

It's the overall design that makes them more reliable. How you tie the components together has a lot to do with their longevity. Cooling design, protecting components from shock, all that kind of stuff. The latch, the power connector, the buttons, Apple just does it right first and a few years later everyone's doing it. And if something weird they tried didn't work out (it happens!), they correct it for the next gen. I'm not saying there aren't PCs out there that aren't as well thought out, I'm sure there are, but they tend to cost more.

75% of all failures were software related, 15% were dead HDs, 9% were user idiocy (the most common was jamming telephone cords into NIC ports which bends the pins), and the other 1% included dead screens or broken keys on keyboards.

Now that's true. Random hardware failures are the least of a computer's problems, Mac or PC. So it's kind of silly to talk much about it I guess. :dunno: And when nothing "kills" it, software complexity does. 5 years is about it, Mac or PC when it comes to needing to upgrade. That used to be different, and I could brag that a 10yr old Mac was still useful and a 10yr old PC was not, but that's just not true anymore. They're both file servers or old game players at best and the internet has left them in the dust.

Thats the entire problem with Mac - you have to buy the hardware from Mac, your OS is made by Mac, and Mac tightly controls the pricing.

This is why the "debate" will never end. If you consider that "the problem", when I and other fanbois consider that one of the biggest reasons why they're better, well, we'll have to agree to disagree! The tying of the OS to the hardware is one of the biggest advantages Apple has. For example, I open the lid of this 3yr old MacBook here, it comes out of sleep in a couple seconds, wireless connection is up and it's ready to GO. I open the lid of my 3yr old work Dell laptop... and... hell, I never know what's going to happen. It's fun! Maybe it'll only take 20 seconds or so to reorient itself. Maybe it won't come back at all. Maybe it will, but it forgot that I would like the display to work. Or the keyboard. Or that stuff's ok, but I have to reset the wireless card. And I have plenty of other experience with other PC laptops to know that's kinda normal.

I'll admit it probably costs more to own a Mac.
I'll admit that I don't even really prefer OSX over Windows nowadays. I've gotten used to XP.
On style and build quality the Mac usually wins though.
AND the extra value is there in the user experience. It's just harder to put on paper. Just one more example and I'll shut up- When I was considering getting a HTPC box, I wanted something super small footprint that would have enough proc/video power to handle the next few years easily. I could have put together or bought a PC that would do it for ~$300. But I paid $500 for a Mac Mini ($100 off retail for a factory refurb, which is what I always buy, so there are significant discounts out there). Why? $200 bought me the piece of mind that it would be very quiet, not use much power, and do its job with little management. I just didn't get the impression through my search that there was a little PC out there that wouldn't fall short on at least one of my requirements, and that frustration is worth, well, at least $200. And if OSX sucked as a HTPC, then it would make a fine windows machine instead!

[Sijray21]

For example, I open the lid of this 3yr old MacBook here, it comes out of sleep in a couple seconds, wireless connection is up and it's ready to GO. I open the lid of my 3yr old work Dell laptop... and... hell, I never know what's going to happen. It's fun! Maybe it'll only take 20 seconds or so to reorient itself. Maybe it won't come back at all. Maybe it will, but it forgot that I would like the display to work. Or the keyboard. Or that stuff's ok, but I have to reset the wireless card. And I have plenty of other experience with other PC laptops to know that's kinda normal.

microsoft appears to have fixed this with windows 7. i remember how long it used to take with my old pcs and even with my current pc with vista. i installed 7 about 2 weeks ago and i'm very impressed with the initial start-up and it does appear to be an OS issue since i can notice a different with the exact same pc with a different OS. i thought the commercial was BS, but it appears to be true. starts up and internet is working within 10 seconds? i've never had a pc start up as quick as this one.

i'm not disagreeing with the whole mac vs windows argument, just wanted to point that out.

[BLINGMW]

Well good. The gaps are definitely closing when it comes to OS preference. Maybe my next work laptop will suck less in that department! :thumbup:

OTOH, a friend was just showing me his new whiz bang Asus powerhouse laptop thing a few weeks ago, with Win7, and even one of the stickers on it said something like "instant boot". I guess their idea of of instant and ours was a little different. After I saw it restart a couple times while he was doing various things, he was like, hell no, this thing's getting a SSD right away, this won't do. :lol: I mean, it was pretty fast for a PC, but no Mac has booted that slow in the last 5 years. :oops: But hey, you shouldn't have to boot often anyway, so whatever. The coming out of sleep issue would be a welcome, overdue fix.

For less than the cost of a Mac laptop that would meet the specs of that Asus (about $2000 vs. $750), he'll have a whole workstation with tons 'o RAM, a fat SSD, a RAID array for backup and additional storage, and dual 24" monitors. And hey, the Asus looked pretty well put together too.

Another friend was just telling me how her office bought her a new top of the line Mac workstation and spent $13k on it. :lol: :lol: :lol: I mean, really, come on, you could easily save the cost of a nice used car by going with a PC in that case. Apple gets REALLY proud of their fancy stuff. God bless 'em.