Why? Why does a MAC cost more than a PC?

I have watched this thread for a while, waiting for someone to point out a few errors in the first post.
I think this point was made once, but I'll repeat it here. The Mac Mini is designed for people who have PCs and want to change to Mac OS. These are folks who ALREADY have mice, keyboards, monitors, so on.

Also, the Apple Store lists a NEW Mac Mini (the higher end 2.0 gig model) at 799. A refurbished low- end (1.8 gig) Mac Mini is about 474. If you found a refurbished model for that price (799), it must have had some upgrades such as RAM and/or a larger hard drive. (Mac OS X require LESS RAM to run well, so the standard 1 GB is adequate for most users)
The Mac Mini is more or less a niche machine, aimed at the "switch crowd" It is also designed to be a space saver.
The "general use" Mac is the iMac, and yes, the high end 2.4 Gig TWENTY FOUR INCH iMac is, even with some upgrades, less than 1999. The following NEW machine came to 1949.

2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
2GB 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM - 2x1GB
320GB Serial ATA Drive
SuperDrive 8x (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
Apple Mighty Mouse
Apple Keyboard (English) + Mac OS X
Accessory kit
ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO with 256MB memory
24-inch glossy widescreen LCD
AirPort Extreme
Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR.

The Mac Pro is more for the intensive user, typically the video/film worker, someone using a program such as FC Studio or Shake, or working in animation, all of which is processor intensive. (A company such as PIXAR, for example.)

By the way, if the "quality" difference is not "real", why do Macs rate so highly in quality in Consumer Reports? The answer is QA. You can use same or similar parts, but if you have poor assembly quality control, a lot of crappy machines are going out on the street. It is also not rare for a computer manufacturer to demand higher QA from their suppliers for things such as disc drives, for which they pay a certain premium.

I use Dell every day at work, and have done so for 12 years. Fine for spreadsheets or writing letters. Gaming too, I suppose. (I am not a Gamer). I have had my work machine, a machine that is carefully updated and serviced regularly by our IT folks, replaced twice. (each time my machine was marked as "not repairable") It crashes frequently, (running Window NT) and we have frequent "network issues".
On my Mac the only frequent program issue I have had was with IE for Mac, which I have quit using.

The first Mac I ever bought, a Mac 512K bought in 1984 was given to a neighbor's child and is still running 23 years later. The second Mac I lost track of, (a Mac Plus, bought 1989- sold) the 3rd Mac, a First Gen Power PC, 7100/66, bought 1995, is undergoing updating for home automation, the next three Macs, a G4 tower, (1999) a G5 iMac, (2005) and now a new Dual Core 2 Duo iMac 24 inch, (purchased for 1799) are on my desk, all are running fine, and are STILL USEFUL. I bought newer, faster machines at intervals to increase productivity. It is not rare for me to do research or check email on one machine while working with audio files on another while Shake is rendering on the 3rd. (Shake and FC Studio run very well on a Core 2Duo iMac). I have a home network that has not had any problems is 5 years. I can set up an "AppleScript" program easily for any regular functions to save myself multiple button clicks tedium.

And yes, some Macs are easily upgraded, with new internal drives, optical and magnetic, even new processors. (my G4 has been upgraded from 400mz to 800mz).
I can boot the Intel iMac into Windows XP when I need to, but Fusion is easier and simpler when I need to run a Windows program.

The "Macs are for morons" or "for those who need to be coddled" comment is absurd, unless by coddled you mean someone who simply wants to sit down and get work done without troubleshooting a problem first as someone who wants to be "coddled"?
Our research labs use Macs instead of the Dells the rest of us have to use. I guess our biochemists and geneticists are morons.

I have owned a Zenith, built a Heath, owned several IBMs, an Amiga and a Commodore 64. I have built my own "Wintel" from scratch and owned a Dell Laptop. I have an HP next to the 4 Macs.

I prefer the Macs.



Mac1

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(mac1 @ Sep 29 2007, 07:42 PM) [snapback]519219[/snapback]</div>

I agree - I use an IBM ThinkPad at work, and my previous home computer was a Gateway. However, my staff all use Macs because they are the only machines powerful enough to handle the workload. I bought a Mac G4 PowerBook for home use, and I love it! It has never given me any trouble, has enough power to do absolutely anything, and turns on and off quickly. Yes, it was more expensive than a Dell, but I bought it nearly 4 years ago, and I am nowhere near ready, or needing, to replace it. I've had to replace my PCs over the years after only 3 years of use. I've learned that you get what you pay for.

 

I used to hate Macs. When I enrolled at a professional degree program at the University at Buffalo, they were in the process of adopting electronic textbooks, so my class was forced to buy Powerbook G3s with MacOS 9, and the electronic textbook DVDs. It was a disaster. Fully 1/3 of my class needed repairs on their G3s for one reason or another, and the DVD software was buggy and near-unuseable. Many of us got so PO'ed we went and bought Thinkpad T41s when a Windows-version e-textbook was offered.

I didn't like Macs until I tried a new Intel-powered Macbook Pro earlier this year. Maybe OSX was better than MacOS 9 or something, but somehow I'm having a much better experience with the Intel Macbook and OSX. I liked the Macbook Pro so much, I bought one with the 15" screen (which is great for traveling use).

Personally I think these days the "PC vs. Mac" debate is moot, considering that Macs these days ARE PCs (since they use Intel CPUs and run Windows natively) with the added capability of being able to run OSX. Macs are not any more powerful than PCs since they use the same architecture and components (a Core 2 Duo chip in a Dell is identical to the Core 2 Duo chip in a Mac), but I suppose OSX is probably more streamlined in many respects and offer benefits for many applications.

I carry my Macbook around, and at home I have my home-built Core 2 Duo rig, which is just as powerful as any Intel-powered Mac except it does not have the capability to run OSX.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(hycamguy07 @ Aug 22 2007, 01:34 PM) [snapback]500473[/snapback]</div>

Ummmm, why not?

I bought one refurbed for $700 in 2002. Put a DVD burner in it for $50, a 300GB drive for $99, upgraded the RAm and put in an internal wireless card. At the end of the day, I had a pretty kick nice person machine for under $1k and its still running fine and upggraded to the the latest OS with no hassles. I routinely used it to download video off my DVR, edit and burn it to DVD using freeware. Since its Unix underneath, I downloaded and compiled the full version of dhcpd. Combined with the built in tftp server, now I can use it to remote boot my wireless headless linux based hacked media player. When I work from home, I connect using Cisco VPN and then either use the free Remote Desktop Client to connect to my PC on my desk at work, or use the built in X-Windows capabilities to launch sessions into our Solaris and Linux boxes directly. Its still sitting under the desk w/ 900GB of firewire storage serving as my wireless video, mp3, photo and print server as i type this on my new 17" MacBook Pro. I had to give away my 10 y/o powermac last month, as it still ran and I just didn't need it anymore (though I had overclocked, then upgraded cpu, maxed ram, upgraded hard drive & optical drive, etc to get about 8 yrs use out of it). I've also put optical drives, hard drives, ram, internal wireless cards in ibooks, and imacs over the years. Its not exactly easy, but most laptops (and laptop hardware based desktops) aren't. That doesn't mean you can't.

Macs used to be more expensive. Part of it was because of the proprietary hardware. Part of it was because they were one of the only machines designed and built in the US. No one seemed to care about that, they just griped about the cost. Macs are still designed in US, but now built in asia. Most PCs are not even designed in the US anymore. They farm the whole thing out to Brazil, India, Estonia, Korea, whoever is cheapest this week. To argue that all that matters is the components that go into box is absurd. Design, quality control, testing, integration, amongst others play a huge role in the quality and longevity of the final product. If the cooling design is poor, things die early. If the system voltage references are poor, things run slowly and die early. If the bus architecture is poor, the system runs slowly. Why do you thing Dell makes multiple lines with more or less the same specs at very different prices? Because quality costs money.

The biggest reason Macs appear expensive is they don't sell bottom end, shoddy machines. When you compare equivalent machines, with equivalent specs (including bus speeds and widths, memory speeds etc) Macs are now similar to cheaper than their counterparts. They also don't keep their old machines around. When a new box is announced, the old ones are gone the same day. This is why I've bought all my macs off the refurb site, at a 20-50% savings. If you want to compare toward the bottom end, look at the refurb'd Macbooks that are often around $799. Since its the only way to get a 1-2 gen old mac, its a more fair comparison to the older stuff still kicking around the Dell site as new. Apples quality control on refurbs has been excellent in my experience and everyone I've talked to.

Some examples:

MacBook - White $1099, avail 3-5 days, free shipping, $999 educational, $949 refurb,
13.3" glossy 1280x800 tft screen, integrated 64MB graphics w/HDMI, DVI, VGA, & video out, 2GHz Core 2 Duo, 4MB L2 cache, 667 MHz bus, firewire 400, 2xUSB 2.0, 802.11n, bluetooth 2.0+EDR, 80GB 5400 SATA drive, 1GB DDR2 RAM, DVD / CDRW burner, built in camera, optical digital audio input & output, integrated photo, mp3, web authoring, dvd authoring, movie editing, podcasting & music composition software, pdf writing, media center & remote, 55Wh battery, 1 yr war, Energy Star Compliant

Dell XPS M1330 White - $1807 avail 10/17
13.3" 1280x800 Truelife display, integrated graphics, HDMI, vga out, 1.8GHz Core 2 Duo, 2 MB L2 Cache, 800 MHz Bus, firewire 400, 2x USB 2.0, 802.11n, bluetooth 2.0+EDR, 120GB 5400 SATA drive, 1GB DDR2 RAM, DVD / CDRW burner, built in camera, 2 channel audio w/ simulated surround, 15 month antivirus, spyware cleaner, photo&music pack, roxio creator, 56Wh battery, 1 yr warranty

So, Dell is only about 2x the price on an entry level performance laptop.

MacBook Pro 17" - $3049, avail 3-5 days, free shipping, $2689 educational, $2599 refurb
17" high-res 1920x1200 glossy screen, nVidia GeForce 256MB graphics, HDMI, Dual DVI, VGA, & Video out, 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo, 4MB L2 Cache, 800 MHz Bus, Firewire 400, Firewire 800, 3xUSB 2.0, 802.11n, Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, 160GB SATA 5400 drive, 2 GB DDR2 RAM, DL DVD burner, built in camera, optical digital audio input & output, integrated photo, mp3, web authoring, dvd authoring, movie editing, podcasting & music composition software, pdf writing, media center & remote, 68Wh battery, 1 yr war, 6.8 lbs, 1" thick, Energy Star Compliant.

Dell XPS M1730 - $3648 avail 10/14
17" 1920x1200 Truelife display, nVideo GeForce 256MB Graphics, HDMI, Dual DVI, VGA, 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo, 4MB L2 Cache, 800 MHz bus, Firewire 400, 4xUSB 2.0, 802.11n, 200GB SATA 5400 drive, 2GB DDR2 RAM, Blu-ray DVD Burner, built in camera, digital audio out, 15 month antivirus, photo & music pack, 85Wh Battery, 1 yr warranty, <2" thick, 10.3 lbs

So for high end laptop, Dell has better battery & blu-ray, but is 20-30% more expensive, 40% heavier, & ~100% thicker.

The same trend continues with desktops, _if_ you compare against actual equivalent machines.

Rob

 

I notice Dell gives you 15 months of virus protection for free, while Apple does not even have a discounted version available. Dell is a great company too; I bet in 15 months you can trade in you old computer for a new one, and never have to pay for the software.

THAT is WinTel value, that is.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(EricGo @ Sep 30 2007, 10:52 AM) [snapback]519434[/snapback]</div>

What's a "virus"?

Seriously, Apple doesn't provide free virus protection because Mac viruses are pretty damn rare.
My GF's Dell laptop was infested with viruses and spyware in less than a week. I have NEVER had a computer virus.

(not being stupid, I do have virus detection software, updated frequently, and so far, nothing)

Mac1.