Apple Does It Again New Macbook Pros Cheaper Than Dell

That is true. Apple doesn't sell a stripped-down, you-really-don't-want-this-level model the way that PC manufacturers (who compete mostly on price as a differentiator) do. If you want low end, you can get that stripped down Dell at a price Apple doesn't bother to match. If you already have your monitor and keyboard and mouse, and you just want a new box (even though it's got low end components), you can indeed save a couple of hundred bucks with Dell over Apple.

Of course then you are locked into Windows, whereas even the lowest end Apple can run Windows and OS X and Linux. Of course then you need to invest in anti-virus and anti-spyware software that you can mostly avoid buying with a Mac. To be fair, on the Mac side if you want to run Windows you need to own a Windows license which can add to the cost if you don't have it already.

Bottom line: PC manufacturers compete on price. Apple competes on user experience, and as it happens it now also comes in cheaper on all but the very low end of the market.

Hmmmm. Consider that the Mac Mini comes with core duo, iLife, and Front row and more, just add your old monitor, keyboard and mouse and go rocking, or even get a KV switch and run both systems on the same keyboard monitor and mouse.

Just a thought. Eldernorm

There is a need for PCs at a certain price that Apple doesn't offer. I mean, it is wonderful that they make special extra-expensive editions of iPods (and apparently soon macbooks) that give to charity

What're you talking about? The iPod nano RED is the same price as every other 4GB nano. It's not even expensive at all, it's pretty darn cheap.

I mean, even the evil empire of Microsoft produces an extra cheap version of windows for developing countries to go along with extra cheap hardware.

You make it sound like they did so out of the goodness of their hearts. The reality of the situation is, they know that if they price any higher, then the people in those nations will either pirate the OS (I mean, who's going to stop them?) or they'll just use Linux or another alternative. Companies do pricing like that in other countries only when absolutely required. When faced with the choice to either make some money, even when far less then they're used to, or make zero money.. any company will choose to make some.

The iPod nano RED is the same price as every other 4GB nano. It's not even expensive at all, it's pretty darn cheap.

My MP3 player was $50 cheaper, plays movies, supports microSD, plays and can record the radio. So if the Nano is "pretty darn cheap", my player must be "damn ridiculously cheap".

Many still judge mac as being the platform for gamers

What?! No one ever judged a Mac as being the platform for gamers. Most games run on Windows not Mac OS.

Quick search on Amazon:

5946 results for video games, windows.

859 results for video games, Mac

I would have to agree with greer on this point. As unfortunate as it is, Apples are generally 2nd place when it comes to gaming. That said, as Apple's market share continues to increase, we may see companies such as Valve start moving toward multi-platform games.

However, gaming aside, Apples are generally seen for their security, style, and professional graphics capabilities.

Most games run on Windows not Mac OS.

Just by Parallels for $80 bucks and your own copy and XP and your Mac can now play PC games. Fast (Okay, so they didn't install Parallels, but I think you get the point...)

Are you talking about a Mac Pro or a MacBook Pro? They're different.

Hey B.K. Sounds like you are really into computers. But don't just be a PC geek. Macs come with ultra high quality iSight cameras - built in 200$, super software, and applecare is pretty hot. I have used it myself.

Eldernorm

Sorry for the typo, I am talking about MacBook pro.

Hey, thats completely false. I checked myself both the 15" system prices and the Dell precision came upto $2330, where as macpro is at 1999 without 3 yrs warranty. If you add the AppleCare Protection Plan, it comes upto $2348 which is costlier than the dell

I believe you're looking at the price of the basic 15" Dell, which is indeed $2330. As the author noted, however, that model is not comparable to the 15" MacBook Pro: evening the specs requires upgrading the Dell's standard 1.66GHz processor to 2.16GHz, as well as bumping its hard drive from 60GB to 120GB. These changes do in fact push the Dell's price to $2874.

Same story on the 17" models: the initial price is considerably cheaper, but when you upgrade to comparable CPUs, RAM, and hard drive space, the article's prices are correct.

You do make a good point about the warranties: Dell provides a 3 year warranty standard, Apple does not. In fairness, the article should be updated to include the cost of AppleCare.

@eldernorm: Hey, I am not saying Macs are bad and PC is great. I am just pointing the flase claims in the prices.

@Eric peden: What do u mean by 15" Dell not comparable to the 15" macBook Pro. Yep the specs requires upgrading the basic options of Dell to make it equal to Macbook Pro. Then only we can compare the prices right. At the same time, I didnt comment on the quality of any warranties provided by both Dell and Apple. Mind this post is about price comparision and not abt quality.

To be more clear, the Dell I mentioned above was Dell Precison M65 for 15" and Precision M90 for 17".

@BK: The price you cite for the Precision ($2330) is for the baseline Dell Precision M65, which does not have the same processor as the baseline 15" MacBook Pro. To get to the same processor in the Dell (2.16GHz Intel Core 2 Duo) you'd need to spend an extra $460. You couldn't have configured the two machines with equal specs and gotten those prices.

@cerberus: Y dont u check it urself. Just stop guessing wat I have done. I upgraded all the required specs to match MacBook Pro. And at that point Dell is still cheaper with more better configuration.

"If all you want to do is write nice letters or do some interesting, uncomplicated graphics, the Mac is actually the better machine"

The fact that most graphics PROS use the Mac cast doubt on this point.

"Yeah, the Mac has a leg up on security, but that's no virtue accruing to Apple; Jobs made a very smart business decision to base his boxes on UNIX;"

Well, OS versions pre-OS X were regarded as pretty much unhackable. But that's beside the point: if Apple accrues some benefit from UNIX's heritage-- more power to them. MSFT should be so smart-- or not-- MSFT would STILL be unable to deliver a consistant UI, even if they chose to upgrade to s UNIX core...

"What's even more important is that developing for the Mac is soooo damned hard!"

I am told Apple's dev tools, based on NEXTSTEP, are the most powerful out there, by a lot. But I am not a developer, so this is hearsay. Also, at the user level, Applescript isn't bad --better than VBscript, IMO

Hmm... Really?
Masterful simplification of complexity.
Difficult development... Huh???
Chaos rules! ...and then it dies.

Hmmmmm, have to disagree with you there. After reading several articles on why Apples are safer, I would have to say that - yes unix helps, but its the way the system is built that matters most. The way things work within and outside the kernel are all in the Mac software.

Apple started with a clean slate and made stuff much safer. Microsoft is still (VISTA too) stuck with all the old problems it had 5 years ago. Patches help, but lets see -- 115,000 virsuses, hmmmmm????

As far as developing for mac, hey lots of people do it everyday. There is tons of Mac software including Microsoft word, excel, etc. So, I dont thinks its that hard, just different maybe. ???

And as far as "not that many around" -- Hmmmm, VISTA had a virus released and its not even here yet. NOPE, cant use that arguement.

JMHO Elder Norm

"If all you want to do is write nice letters or do some interesting, uncomplicated graphics, the Mac is actually the better machine (though not by much) but if you have other intentions, the Mac is not. Macs do not do complexity very well. Jobs needs to be thankful that most Mac users don't want complexity, they're satisfied with the boring basics."

Another ignorant PC user.

Get smart, dude.

Unable to post URLs. So go to h t t p www apple com macatwork

Macs do not do complexity very well. Jobs needs to be thankful that most Mac users don't want complexity, they're satisfied with the boring basics.

Well, gorsh, mister, you make it sound like that's a bad thing. I just get so plumb confuserated using one of them Leenux or Winders machines. I reckon only Alfred Einstein or Margaret Cho would have smarts enough to work 'em.

Seriously, dude, 1997 called and it wants its lame troll back. That line was stupid then, and it's outright insane now.

Macs do not do complexity very well. Jobs needs to be thankful that most Mac users don't want complexity, they're satisfied with the boring basics.

This has to be one of the most ignorant statements I've ever read on Newsvine.

Uhhhh...if you like to "tweak and play", Unix is in every way superior to Windows. As for "complexity", my workflow on the Mac runs circles around anything I was able to do on Windows.

Yet another seriously misguided and patently false idea of Mac OS.

Yeah, I'm a little confused about what kind of "tweaking" you're talking about that can be done on Windows but not OS X.

Just as a quick matter of tweaking ability, it's quite possible. Apple's architecture is based on Unix, the same system that Linux employs. If you're discussing modifying core components of the OS, then I would quickly like to point out and acknowledge that you cannot modify root components straight up from Terminal. That could be taken as a flaw or trip-wire, but it's actually a good security feature because it adds a manual layer of protection, and quite easy to go around when programming (sudo).

Macs do complexity quite well

Of course they do, just look at the filesystem.

Of course they do, just look at the filesystem.

I can't tell if you're serious or not. If this is some kind of dig on OS X, try dir C:\Windows on a Windows box, compare it to ls /System on a Mac, then we'll talk about complex filesystems.

Usually I can ignore these kinds of threads, but this one is really hurting my brain.

I was thinking more of hfs+ compared to ntfs, jfs, reiser and the like. And yes, it is a dig at os x.

This is a funny thread. I suspect the original poster has never used OSX long enough to learn how to tweak it. There are many options and third party apps to extend functionality. Just because YOU don't know how to do it doesn't mean it can't be done.

@ Pedantic

It's quite clear from your post that you have either never ever used Mac OSX OR if you did, you used it very little and you had no idea how it worked. Everything you say is completely false. You have no idea what you are talking about.

Macs are every bit as "tweakable" as PCs
Many things you see every day were created on a Mac - - most industrial design houses - the vast majority of every product you hold or use - many architecture firms - many of the buildings you walk around and through - film production and photography - movies, special effects, advertising - writers - books, articles, scripts and news - most websites - a large percentage are hosted on Unix - what Mac OS is built on - most music you hear - recorded or at the very least edited on a mac - science - molecule discovery, astronomy, visualizations for dentistry

So I guess it might just be more than dumb people who want to write or make "ok" graphics.

It kind of scares me to summarize developing for macs as "so hard." I'm studying game programming currently which, as you may imagine, focuses primarily on windows but also on optimization, to make a very long story short. (By the way I've used macs forever, up until school.) During our classes on Windows programming I have to say that the required code for that is considerably more difficult to understand than any other API we've used so far. Example: To create a blank window in either win32 or MFC requires several actual documents of c++ code. The reason as it was explained to me is that Microsoft has been building on top of Windows to allow for some degree of backwards-compatibility. What did that mean for us? It meant that functions took in extra arguments for no reason at all: To use the function on Windows XP, you literally just ignored sometimes 5 or more arguments to a function. They left it in there so that older versions of Windows would know what the function was because, once upon a time, these arguments were used.
I know this is kind of unrelated, but I had to interject when the topic of developing came up. The only experience in coding I have is game related, I admit. However, it should NEVER be implied that developing for Windows is a walk in the park. For instance, creating level editors for a 2d game was a daunting task just trying to make the dialog boxes talk to the separate windows.
ps. if developing is hard, doesn't that mean fewer people will develop viruses for it? I can always hope anyway ;D

To be fair, Microsoft's newest development tools (C#.Net and Visual Studio 2003/2005) are far easier to use than any Windows development tools in the past, and my opinion as a developer is that they're still way ahead of Apple. I disagree that development on OS X is "hard" (unless you think development in general is hard), but it's not as easy as developing a new application using .Net and Visual Studio.

OS X wasn't around 10 years ago, so no one programmed for Macs using Cocoa. They probably used Carbon. New APIs are always going to come along. That's true of Apple and Microsoft both. Microsoft hasn't been dropping support for old APIs quickly. You can still program using their base SDK and have it work in Vista. The same isn't true of Macs, so you're using a pretty bad example there.

If you're complaining about the cleanliness of the API, then .Net is pretty good (and it's a brand new API, not a simple extension of the old one), so again, there's not much reason to complain about the direction Microsoft is heading.

Yes, I have, but NeXTStep isn't Mac OS X. People weren't programming for Macs using Cocoa 10 years ago. In fact, I don't think many people programmed for NeXTStep at all, so I doubt there was even much code out there to port to OS X when it came out.

We're talking about programming for Macs here. People who programmed for Macs had changing APIs regardless of whether the newer API is just a modification of an API for another OS.

Yes, I have, but NeXTStep isn't Mac OS X. People weren't programming for Macs using Cocoa 10 years ago. In fact, I don't think many people programmed for NeXTStep at all, so I doubt there was even much code out there to port to OS X when it came out.

Actually NeXTStep pretty much *is* OS X now. It's why Apple bought NeXT. Sure, they added some things, but the underpinnings are the same. And, there was quite a bit of code out there for NeXT, particularly in the math and science arenas.

Like I said, though, we're talking about Mac programming. Ten years ago, Mac programs were not written using Cocoa. Bringing up NeXTStep is grasping at straws.

You've lost me. You were complaining about Microsoft because its APIs have changed so much. Now you're saying the Mac is better, even though its API has changed as well. You complain about API bloat/rot, yet .Net is a very clean API, and that's the direction Microsoft is moving. I'm not a Microsoft fan (I'm typing this on a MacBook Pro), but it really seems like you're just desperately trying to make Apple sound better than Microsoft.

What I'm saying, as a developer, is that right now (not 10 years ago) the development platform for Windows is easier and cleaner than for Apple. That's my opinion. All of this other stuff is irrelevant to that point. It's either true or it's not, regardless of what things were like 10 years ago.

People install Cygwin because they want to script something or they prefer the command line. I'm one of the latter. I sometimes use Cygwin to do things like parse results of a test, or do complicated code parsing. I don't consider this part of my "development environment". Cygwin is a collection of UNIX-like tools. Those same tools in OS X are just that: tools. They're individual programs that happen to ship with the OS. They may make some complex development tasks easier, but they're not part of the development system proper.

I haven't personally written a huge application in .Net, but I see no reason why that couldn't be done. You didn't present any, either. You're complaining about mixing C and .Net. Of course that's going to be ugly. Mixing Java and C is ugly too, but that doesn't mean Java is ugly.

The development environment I'm talking about (which I mentioned in my first post about this above) is Visual Studio, and I'm comparing it to XCode. I have absolutely no hesitation when saying that Visual Studio blows XCode out of the water. In terms of browsing code, editing GUIs, IntelliSense, debugging (better in many ways, since XCode just wraps around GDB), ease of configuring builds, etc., XCode doesn't even come close.

Again, I love OS X, and I really hate using Windows. Still, I can't ignore the fact that XCode isn't as good as Visual Studio, and .Net is the cleanest API I've seen between Windows and Mac OS X.

I'm tired of arguing about this topic, though. You can have the last word if you like.

Here's another take on Mac/PC development:

http://www.tuaw.com/2006/10/31/the-cocoa-conundrum/

An excerpt:

These are also increasingly Cocoa apps, which makes sense, as they tap those cool Cocoa frameworks...Shoot, Yojimbo exists and works so well precisely because Apple put in some great frameworks (Core Data anyone?)... One might say it is easier to make great apps on the Mac....
Keep in mind much of what you see in Mac freeware stems from those APIs Apple crams into OS X. Journalr can tie into the video or audio because there are pipes for that. There's .Mac sync for those who care. Leopard promises even more, like total access to iCal's data store, which simplifies all sorts of time management issues.

Pardon me for sounding frugal, but an extra 330Mhz, slower hard drive with less space, inferior graphics card, non-Lightscribe DVD-RW DL drive, non-built in wireless card, OS X and the Apple name are not worth the extra $650 I would've had to pay to purchase one. Numbers don't lie.

- 330MHz is quite a bit
- all Macs have built-in wireless and Bluetooth
- OS X is considered by many to be worth as much as a $1000 premium, fortunately it is quite a lot cheaper than that.

But even then, yes the HP is cheaper — unsurprisingly for two reasons: 1, they're using lower spec hardware — I have a sneaking suspicion that it's not 667MHz RAM that they're using, because they don't list it anywhere. They only say "DDR2" which leads me to believe they're using the much slower, older versions. Those are hella cheaper, but for a reason.

And 2: they surpassed Dell as the no.1 manufacturer. Their profit margins are super-slim but they do sell more machines that way.

Now, what makes the Mac a more worthwhile purchase is Total Cost of Ownership. How much does it cost to keep a PC with Windows running smoothly for two years? That's a good deal more than the purchase price, because you'll need to buy anti-virus software and the like, none of which is necessary with a Mac. However, the most important part is the efficiency. Most people who get a Mac and start using it heavily for their work say that they can do their work up to twice as fast on it. In my case, I did a test in my own work efficiency and found that in just the first six months of having switched to Mac, I saved $4000 worth in time (but time=money when you're a freelancer) on the Mac. That was more than the total purchase of my spec'd out PowerBook G4.

Additionally, the user experience of a Mac can't be put in monetary terms, nor time frames. It's something that can genuinely make you a happier person every time you use it, and that's worth much more to me than a few hundred bucks. Think I'm overreacting? Ask any of the people at the d.Construct conference last September, when Aran Balkan interrupted his presentation to gush about his new MacBook Pro and how it had, and I quote directly, made him "a happier person". 400 witnesses, but half of them were just happy he finally joined the club.

Numbers don't lie, but they're often not the only thing that matters.

You still have to account for the 40 less GBs of space on the hard-drive, the slower hard drive speed (major downside), the lack of lightscribe in the DVD, and yes the RAM in the HP is 667Mhz, I've run SiSoft Sandra to be sure. Guys, I like Macs but it just doesn't stand the litmus test of bang for the buck.

Forgot to mention the inferior graphics card.

You still have to account for the 40 less GBs of space on the hard-drive, the slower hard drive speed (major downside), the lack of lightscribe in the DVD, and yes the RAM in the HP is 667Mhz, I've run SiSoft Sandra to be sure. Guys, I like Macs but it just doesn't stand the litmus test of bang for the buck.

Well, I would have to account for the fact the HP can't run OS X, yet the Macbook Pro can run both OS X and Windows. The difference? Priceless...

I don't know if this matters to anyone else, but I'm not a fan of carrying around a 15lb laptop. That's worth a couple hundred bucks to me, not mention the looks of the machine and OS X itself.

The size and weight issue is a factor, that I will grant. But the piano finish with etching on the new HP at least to me, is a heck of alot better looking than the aluminum on a MacBook Pro.

yep, the prices mentioned in the post are not correct.

I would never expect a company that makes so few laptops and PC's as Apple to be able to match a giant like Dell in price, and from what I've seen, it in fact cannot.

Apple sells more laptops than Dell. It is also a bigger company than Dell.

As I noted in an earlier comment, I believe the prices listed in this article are correct. The author clearly states that he compared prices between the MacBook Pros and Dell's Precision lines; he even provides links to the Dell Store pages for these models. I have followed these links, specced out the systems as he described, and verified the prices he gives. He makes no mention of the Inspiron line, which is what you introduce here.

The article's prices are correct. Commenters to the contrary do not seem to be looking at the prices of the systems the author describes. Whether or not the MacBook Pro/Precision comparison is a well-chosen one is something which can be debated. You could make the claim that comparison with a different line of laptops would have been more appropriate, and I would like to see the author explain why he chose to compare the MBP to the Precision instead of, say, the Inspiron (I really would; I don't know the differences myself).

Debating the prices given for the Dells, however, is ludricrous.

I would like to see a link to your price Paul so that I can see exactly what you did to the machine.

I can give you the base link, but nothing more than that since it was a dynamically driven customize deal. Go here and scroll down for "Customize It" on the left most column.

The problem you have with your article is that you are comparing machines with VAST differences. The Dell you used has a Quadro video card in it, which is a substantial upgrade in terms of price over the cheap ATI card in the apple.

If you're really trying to compare apples for apples ( haha), you'de base off the Dell inspiron 6400, which is pretty similar to the apple, with the exception of the speed of the ram. And it is roughly $300 cheaper than the apple. The faster ram in the apple is really the only thing that makes your choice a legitimate one.

If you really want to stick with the difference Dell you started with, the bulk (if not all of the difference in cost) is the Quadro graphics card. If you don't understand how much more costly Quadro cards are compared to your typical ATI cards, hit up newegg and take a look around at the desktop versions.

Lastly, choosing it because it comes in 15 or 17 inch versions is a poor choice, because Dell does their product lines differently than Apple. If you want a 17 inch screen, you typically choose a different model.

While apple may have a 4-5% market share in all personal computers - they have a whopping 12% share when it comes to notebooks. So they do in fact sell A LOT of notebooks.

Actually according to new info Apple's at 6%.

The great thing about numbers is that I, too, can pull them out of my ass:

• HP: 14%
• Apple: 12%
• Dell: 11%
• Toshiba: 9%
• Acer: 8%

Now let's stop being ridiculous and use some real data for a change, shall we? How about quoting sources for starters.

There are no public statistical figures yet that I know of (I've seen them but they weren't public :() that go up to September/October, but what a quick Google search does show is that Apple's market share has risen from 6% in January to 12% in July — only a month and a half after launching the MacBook. source 1, source 2.

Now, what is public information is that Apple sold more than 1.6 million Macs in its last quarter alone, and you can bet your money on it that most of them were laptops. Paired with the fact that the PC market is currently suffering from an extremely slow growth, even a decline in some cases (Dell), all signs point to Apple's notebook market share being substantially higher than 12% by now. We'll await actual public statistics on that one, before we'll call it official.

We're talking about Apple -- which based on recent years would still be flatly dead if not for the iPod -- against the worlds largest PC maker on a PC facet in notebooks. It's no contest at all, Dell is the man, and has the leverage to get parts for lower prices. And they use it.

Apple has made more money from selling Macs than from iPods for the last 5 years that the iPod has been around. "flatly dead"? With more than $10Bn in cash, I would say they're more alive than ever before.

Ironic how you accuse me of unsubstantiated claims, but don't have even the tiniest hint of a source for your seemingly random-number-generated market share figures.

I don't think anyone is orgasming from a computer. I think people who spend a significant amount of time on their computers for work are entitled to seek the best possible user experience they can.

For people spending 8, 12, 14 hours a day on a computer Apple has given them something that is easy to look at, easy to use, and for advanced users can be more powerful since it's based on Unix.

If you're a gamer then Windows is superior. Other than that, Apple can do everything a PC can do.

A computer is not just a computer. There are significant differences between OSX, Windows, and Linux.

2) Configurations must have been certified to run workstation-specific applications and workloads. Dell certifies approximately 40 different applications and is compatible with many more to meet specific customer needs while Mac OS has limited industry-standard application support and compatibility.

Since Apple is not considered a workstation vendor, the comparison being made is sort of apple to oranges comparison. You might try to find a better comparison from the full range of Dell products.

Considering IDC and Gartner are Microsoft and Dell shills, I couldn't care less about their definitions.

Since when isn't Apple considered a workstation vendor? Have you looked at a Mac Pro lately, or perhaps the G5 before that? And, as notbooks go, the Macbook Pro is most certainly a workstation.

As for "industry-standard" applications, Macs not only support what's being used by pro-level users, they're more OFTEN used by pro-level users. Try to find working professionals doing audio or video editing on a notebook (as many do when in the field) who are *not* using Macs. They exist, sure, but you could have them all over to your apartment for tea and still have room on the couch.

Considering IDC and Gartner are Microsoft and Dell shills, I couldn't care less about their definitions.

Ah yes, anyone that doesn't believe Macs are awesome and PC's are... (wait, I forgot... Macs are PC's now) crap is a shill.

Right.

Ah yes, anyone that doesn't believe Macs are awesome and PC's are... (wait, I forgot... Macs are PC's now) crap is a shill.

Right.

Well, the grumblings about IDC and Gartner from *within the industry* have been going on for years.

Just recently, Gartner released its report from last quarter, showing significant gains made by Apple, who climbed to the #4 PC maker, and had significant sales increases over 3Q last year while most others (Dell, for example) posted lower numbers. Apple had the most successful quarter in the history of the company, and most of the sales were from Macs...with most of *those* sales going to 1st time Mac buyers. All of this came from the Gartner report.

Then, the very same day, Gartner releases another report/opinion piece saying how Apple should just give it up and get out of the computer hardware business. Sell OS X to Dell and move on...

So, Dell has lower profit margins, less sales than the same quarter of last year, not significantly more profit on a LOT more sales than Apple...and Gartner says Apple should give up?

Shills.

Ok, so go ahead and build your notebook workstation from off the shelf parts...Oh, wait...nevermind.

3) When people claim that Macs are more expensive, they're comparing them to OEM computers, not home-built computers. Like Sean said, hardly anyone builds their own computer.

The MacBook Pro includes USB ports and a PCI Express expansion slot. You can add various different things to it via those ports just like any PC.

In addition to my right click grip, the keyboards always feel "sticky" and the mouse (right click or not) can be described no better than awkward.

Apple does win the award for inventing the worst mouse ever. I think it was the one that came with the G3. It was completely circular, so that if you just grabbed at it without looking you really had no idea which way you were pointing the mouse!

Thankfully Apple does learn fast and they did away with that mouse very fast.

I've actually liked most Apple mice since then, and the touchpads on the laptops are amazing. I'm neutral on their keyboards on the laptops. However, I will agree that I have never felt right typing on an Apple keyboard. It has always felt off and cheep.

Apple monitors are amazing since they went to the Aluminum frames. The old plastic "easel" framed monitors were horrible! They had the largest footprint on the desktop and basically took up almost the same amount of room as a CRT monitor. Again thankfully Apple learned from their previous mistake and their current monitor line is great. Too bad they are far too expensive. Someone needs to let Apple know that every other company has basically dropped their LCD prices a good 40% in the last two years, while Apple's monitors are still far too expensive. Compare the 20 inch Apple Cinema at $699 to the 20 inch Dell 2007WFP at $340 or the 23 inch Apple Cinema at $999 to the Dell 2407WFP at $680 or the 30 inch Apple Cinema at $1999 to the Dell 3007WFP at $1280. The Dell monitors are also much improved in design over the extremely ugly '05 series. Yes, they are not at Apple levels yet, but they are hundreds of dollars cheaper.

A lot of the Dell displays use the same panels as the Apple displays, so in that case you could buy a Dell and walk away with a comparable display (albeit in an enclosure which, to me at least, looks rather shabby and boring).

As for the price debate: all I know is, the 24" iMac I'm typing on was £360 cheaper than it'd cost me to build a comparable system from parts (including a 23 inch display, which is smaller) and £500 cheaper than getting it from Dell or Mesh. It came with a warranty and AppleCare stacks up better than the Dell warranty (from experience you get answered faster and treated better, and yes, I have owned a Dell in the past).

Oh, and Newsvine needs fewer trolling idiots.

That's because OSX and Windows have different settings for things like mouse tracking speed and key repeat rate. You can easily change this stuff to meet your personal preferences. It's kind of ridiculous to judge a computer based on default settings you can change in ~15 seconds.

When talking about the reaction to the keyboards and mice, I'm not talking about the response time on the screen, that's no big deal. I'm saying the keyboards feel cheep and sticky from the physical act of typing. And I'm not getting along with the whole "push down the whole top of the goddamn mouse to click" thing. And no, I highly doubt that the computers at the school are crap because they're brand new, fully loaded Mac Pros for graphic design and film editing.

Frankly, after spending a lot of time on them over the last semester, I don't know what you Mac fans are raving about.

Ok..for the umpteenth time - many of us do prefer trackpads with a single button - yes, Mouse with right-click is nice but a trackpad is far less complicated with a single button. I teach a lot kids under the age of 15 and you have to see their faces to realize how uncomplicated Macs are - most kids get right to the task they are supposed to do on a Mac - yes, "simple" things like writing a letter (I wonder why is it that most Windows using "adults" always send me one paragraph Word files as attachments when that could have been inside the e-mail itself!). We run Engineering design, Conusulting, Construction and Project Management companies on Macs - and not even the Intel Macs - when you dont have 50,000 software titles to choose from, you realize how useful it is to standardize on text files, open source databases and e-mail as a method of organizing....
AM

The Macbook keyboard is the best keyboard I've ever used

Try an old model M, or the keyboard for any older ibm thinkpad.

I have a powerbook, I have a thinkpad (and have had other thinkpads in the past) & I have a model M keyboard. I use the model M keyboard with my Mac now, and could use it on the thinkpad is I wished. The thinkpad is a very nice keyboard, but I prefer the powerbook keyboard over the thinkpad one. I have always liked the model M's, and am using it now with the powerbook not because it is substantially better - but because it is different in feel to the powerbook. Gives my hands and wrists a rest to use more than one type of mouse/keyboard.

The best keyboard for my hands & typing *ever* was the one Burroughs shipped with their ET2000 terminals.

Keyboards are intensly personal choices.

Cheers, Liam

I agree that viruses would be more common on OS X if more people used it, but I don't agree that they would be just as prevalent if OS X was used everywhere. The fact that Windows runs as an administrator by default allows viruses to do far more than they could in a more secure configuration. Vista may do a lot to make viruses less common.

Unfortunately mac OS is proprietary and therefore, like windows, inferior to a *nix based open system.

Why does "proprietary" mean "inferior"? I don't understand that. If you're really arguing that OS X is inferior to Linux because Linux is open, then you really have a screwed up method of determining quality.

That's not *entirely* an equal comparison, though, as the Dell only offers 533MHz ram in 2 Dimm's, while the Apple comes standard with 667MHz single Dimm.

I'd much rather have my fsb *and* ram running at 667MHz, and have an extra Dimm slot for upgrading my ram later.

Of course, there are the other little things like the built-in iSight camera/microphone...

We're talking about functionality here. The E1505 has the same functionality as the Apple. Even having WinXP Home, instead of Pro... you guys are smart you know software. Its easy to come by (if you know how to aqcuire it) so throw that complaint out. As far as the screen, they match... well, Dell's is a little better.
15.4 inch Wide Screen XGA Display with TrueLife™ details of screen...WSXGA+ (1680 x 1050) with TrueLifeTM (this does cost more, $100)
Apple...15.4-inch (viewable) widescreen
1440 x 900 pixels

You're still looking at like $530 cheaper. OSX and the built-in stuff? camera? Microphone? If you really need that stuff then spend the $530 and get the Mac, cause that's what you'd be paying for.

Like I said, I love Mac computers, but they are for the aesthetic, not the computing power or cost efficiency.

Functionality? If you're comparing "can they both run programs", then sure. They're functionally the same. But, as tcervo pointed out above, they're not comparable performance-wise if the FSB is different. That can make a noticeable difference.

What I mean by functionality is, they both can use bluetooth devices, have SXVGA screens, wireless network cards, and yes... run windows (Both run winxp). So functionally, they are identical (the Dell doesn't run OSX, yet). However they differ in performance, i.e. one runs at a slightly faster speed front side bus. Which, when you are wasting clock cycles at 2.16Ghz anyway, what's the difference? 133 Mhz? Its actually not noticeable unless you are running all sorts of wild memory consuming software. One thing to note however... a slower bus is going to save you on power consumption, so while the macbook pro will run for X hours at 667Mhz, the Dell E1505 will run more hours at 533Mhz.

I still love my Mac though, its actually a kickass winxp platform (its what I am writing this on right now).

(the Dell doesn't run OSX, yet)

And it never will, so functionally the Mac is far more powerful by a few thousand leagues, simply because it can run OS X and all of the thousands of very powerful OS X-only apps.

To say it never will is something you cannot say and I cannot say (yet) with any certainty. so let's just drop that. But I will concede that OSX apps are "slightly" better than most Windows apps. But that is only because of the strong programmer core of customers in OSX, most apps are written for OSX by people who love the operating system. Dell, and most of the PC world's customer core are laypeople or gamers (who really don't know a whole lot about programming).

It's more than that: OS X's native applications that come with the system, i.e. all of Apple's apps, are extremely high-quality so people are much more challenged to compete, their bar is put much higher from the get-go. Additionally, most OS X developers (as in, application developers, not Apple's OS engineers) stick very closely to the OS X HIG (Human Interface Guidelines), whereas people have a tendency to blatantly ignore those on Windows (including Microsoft themselves, which severely lowers the bar for others, thus lowering the acceptable standard of work).

Comparing the OSes for monetary value is highly subjective. You're not going to get far convincing people that Macs are a better value based solely on the OS.

What a selective comparison! Firstly, the author compared the Precision line to the MacBook. Precisions are premium machines designed for engineers, and attract a premium price. Latitudes are much more in line with MacBooks, in quality and in the market they're aimed at. It's disingenious to compare video based on VRAM alone - I can't tell from the US site, but at Dell Singapore the video card is marked as a quarter of the total system cost, at S$800. To be fair the author "wanted to give Dell the best chance possible to beat Apple". [cough]

I'm not sure what article you're reading, but it can't be this one. This one clearly compares the Dell to a Macbook Pro, not a Macbook. So, your entire argument is invalid.