[selkirk]

My brother came over today and asked me to go computer shopping with him.

He had $2000 to spend. He was somewhat willing to go higher, depending on available financing.

He likes my 19" Sony 520GS monitor and wanted something similar, which is around $400.

That eliminated the iMacs. (Which he really doesn't like the case)

We went to gateway and priced out a machine at around $1400 tax included (no monitor). They have 6 months same as cash financing.

While at gateway, we looked at desktops on the apple web site: $2000 for a similar machine. After adding the monitor, this was outside of his price range. 27% interest on the financing was very unattractive.

We went over to CompUSA and looked at the iBook with the CD-RW drive & 384 MB RAM for $1900 including tax. He was very interested in the idea of being able to bring the machine over to my house and play network games with it, but I had to tell him that he probably wouldn't get very good FPS performance on the iBook. CompUSA has the 6 months financing.

We also looked at a cube at CompUSA. My brother very much likes its size and silence (a bonus for the laptop, too). However, they only had a display model, which they wanted $1600 for.

We seriously looked at the Ti PowerBook, but after a RAM upgrade and tax, it would be $3000. Far outside of his price range.

So, it came down to the iBook or the Gateway Desktop, both at the same price.

He considered the iBook. He liked the fact that it was portable. But, he was more interested in having a good monitor to go with it and the Gateway was much faster, so the Gateway won out. (with the Sony monitor)

He finally said "Well, thanks for your help. I was hoping that you could give me some reason for buying a mac, but I'm going to go with the Gateway."

I am disappointed that I couldn't set him up with a mac, but now I have some personal insight into why AAPL is in the toilet.

[Spheric Harlot]

Strange that everybody else's stock is in the dump, too, then, huh?

(What's this doing in "OS X - General Discussion?")

[Scrod]

And this is related to Mac OS X HOW? It sounds rather trollish to me.

733MHz PowerPC G4
256K L2 cache
128MB SDRAM memory
40GB Ultra ATA drive
CD-RW drive
NVIDIA GeForce2 MX
Gigabit Ethernet
56K internal modem

$1,699.00

He likes my 19" Sony 520GS monitor and wanted something similar, which is around $400.

+400
___________
$2,099.00

That definitely seems like a little over $2000. Also if he's a student, or knows a student he could have gotten a nice discount

[Lord Kronos]

Well, if you can't afford a Mac, buy a PC. .

[booboo]

And your point is?

[selkirk]

One more thing...We went to two different CompuUSAs. At the first one, we asked the saleskid to unlock one of the laptops so that we could heft it and look at the back. He disappeared to look for keys. about 20 minutes later, he hadn't come back, so we left. at the other compUSA, they just said they couldn't do that. Am I the only one who thinks that buying a laptop thats locked to the counter is like buying pants that are glued to a wall?

Offtopic? Troll? Yeah, but this is the only forum here that I read and I wanted to share my disappointment with somebody.

Well, my brother uses unix at work and told me that the ONLY reason that he was interested in a mac at all was because of the unix underpinnings of OS X.

(BTW, add an extra 256MB RAM, optical scrollwheel mouse, and tax or shipping to the $1799 its closer to $2000)

In other words a troll. I see.

[The Ancient One]

Gateway - GREAT choice! We have a slew of fairly new PIII Gateways in my (U.S. government) office. They started dying after a couple of months, one after another. The problem was that we all were turning them on and off from power strips. For some reason, they can't survive that for long so we have to turn them on from the front of the tower and turn the monitors on separately. These machines are really cheaply built. Compared to these Gateways, the Dells they replaced were tanks. BTW, we run NT 4.0 and I still manage to crash every so often.

[applenut1]

Originally posted by selkirk:
<STRONG>

(BTW, add an extra 256MB RAM, optical scrollwheel mouse, and tax or shipping to the $1799 its closer to $2000)</STRONG>

people still buy at retail stores and pay tax? you have o be a complete idiot to that.

You do know that you could have bought it at www.outpost.com (authorized Apple reseller) for 1699 and it comes with 256 MB additional RAm, 100 CDRs, no tax, and free ground shipping.

oh wait, you want a optical mouse. add 50 bucks.

big whoop. Perhaps doing some research before buying a computer is a good idea

selkirk said:

He finally said "Well, thanks for your help. I was hoping that you could give me some reason for buying a mac, but I'm going to go with the Gateway."

I am disappointed that I couldn't set him up with a mac, but now I have some personal insight into why AAPL is in the toilet


....Some of you see this as Trolling, I see it as a REALITY (unfortunately).

[Oneota]

Originally posted by applenut1:
<STRONG>
oh wait, you want a optical mouse. add 50 bucks.
</STRONG>

$50?!? Nah, MacAlly's iOptiNet is a *great* mouse and costs $35 from MacWarehouse. I highly recommend it.

[SkullMacPN]

selkirk,

Sounds like you added the RAM and HD prices the Apple Store lists, which shows a big lack of research. Macs can use off the shelf PC ram and hard drives with no problems. Hell, I recently aquired 256 MB of ram for under $45.

Assuming you purchase the comp from Apple, and the extras from outpost.com...
733MHz PowerPC G4
256K L2 cache
128MB SDRAM memory
40GB Ultra ATA drive
CD-RW drive
NVIDIA GeForce2 MX
Gigabit Ethernet
56K internal modem
=$1,699.00 ($1,597.00 if he's a student)
No tax or shipping at the apple store...

Sony 19"
~$400

256MB PC 133 SDRAM
&lt;$50 (pricewatch.com... with shipping)

Total: $2149 (or $2047 if he's a student)

Not too far over $2000.

[Scott_H]

Please post in the correct forum. I'm going to move this one over to The Lounge. Click through to find the thread.

[seanyepez]

Why didn't you just go for a G4 tower?

[itomato]

bah.

[ 07-28-2001: Message edited by: itomato ]

[CRASH HARDDRIVE]

What were the stats on that Gateway? He could have put together a monstrosity of a machine himself for way less than 2 grand, or if he was hellbent on spending 2 grand, got the latest and greatest of each component and RAM out the wazzoo. PC box makers are rip-off artists. One of the bet things about PCs is that they can be obtained cheap, merely by doing a little research, using a little common sense to put things in place yourself and not getting suckered by box makers who charge a huge markup to do what you can do yourself.

And that G4 system is the FAR better deal. It saddens me that someone would by a box-maker POS rather than get sweet deal on a G4.

I'd sooner cough up a lung and have one of my eyeballs scraped out than pay good money to be bent over by the likes of Gateway, charging me an arm and a leg for one of their tacky looking piles of crap, but to each his own I guess.

Side note: It must just be Cali or something, but 256MBs of PC133 is going for about $30 at the moment, or $33 for the faster N/S variety.

[pathogen]

If he had ordered online and shopped for deals, he could have got a still-new 533 Digital Audio G4 from Outpost or some other places, the 19" monitor, a 512MB DIMM, and still bought a pizza to eat Sunday night while he waits for Monday delivery. Oh, and a free Lexmark printer.

Tell him to return the computer to Gateway!

[smacintush]

I went shopping for a new Mercedes today, I only had about $18,000 to spend so I went to the Chevy dealer down the street and got a sweet Cavalier! It was so much cheaper than the Merc. and it was loaded!

[Thunderbird]

My two brothers are both nuts about Gateway. I can't figure out why. They have collectively owned 5 different models over the last 7 years. The sad thing is... ALL BUT ONE of those computers had at least one component that was DOA when the machine was brand new. The defects ranged from non-working CD-ROM's to bad monitors.

I have personally owned 7 Mac's since 1990 (all are still in use somewhere) and I have NEVER had a hardware failure on any Apple component. My old Quadra 840av has over 27,000 hours on it, (currently running as a web server) and has never let me down.

Originally posted by smacintush:
<STRONG>I went shopping for a new Mercedes today, I only had about $18,000 to spend so I went to the Chevy dealer down the street and got a sweet Cavalier! It was so much cheaper than the Merc. and it was loaded!

</STRONG>

Thank god someone said that. I was thinking the exact words.

Originally posted by smacintush:
<STRONG>I went shopping for a new Mercedes today, I only had about $18,000 to spend so I went to the Chevy dealer down the street and got a sweet Cavalier! It was so much cheaper than the Merc. and it was loaded!

</STRONG>

Thank god someone said that. I was thinking the exact words.

[MikeM32]

Just what the world needs more cattle

MOO!!!

I think 2 grand would have gotten me a nice G4 tower, but you can settle for whatever you want. At least the monitor was worth it.



Mike

[RoofusPennymore]

Gateway?!?! Blah! Talk about being suckered. I would say go with a Sony or better yet build your own. Even Dell has better computers Gateway.

[Joshua]

Well, I feel bad for your brother. I bought a Gateway a couple years ago to go with my B&W G3, and it turned out to be a huge freaking mistake.

- The Gateway Easy Pay plan through MBNA (I'm assuming this is what your brother got) sucks. They sugar coat it really well, but once you get a good look at your statement, you'll regret it.

- PC's don't hold their value at all. Once you open up that cow-colored Gateway box, the value of your machine just went to crap. Mac's hold their value VERY well.

- As someone already mentioned, Gateway's aren't built very well. I was on the phone to customer service for a dead mouse/keyboard inside of a week.

- And as for AAPL being in the dumps, well... oops...

[Subzero Diesel949]

I guess he didn't like the dalmatian patterns, so he went with the holstein...

[smacintush]

Gateway?!?! Blah! Talk about being suckered. I would say go with a Sony or better yet build your own. Even Dell has better computers Gateway.

Gateway, one of the most overrated, under built, hunks of garbage in the computer world, except for Compaq.

[nonhuman]

Originally posted by Subzero Diesel949:
<STRONG>I guess he didn't like the dalmatian patterns, so he went with the holstein... </STRONG>

That is the one feature of Gateway computers that would ever make me consider getting one if I were to get a PC. Of course I would then realize that I could build my own kick-a$$ system for less and paint a cow pattern onto it...

[selkirk]

Originally posted by smacintush:
<STRONG>I went shopping for a new Mercedes today, I only had about $18,000 to spend so I went to the Chevy dealer down the street and got a sweet Cavalier! It was so much cheaper than the Merc. and it was loaded!
</STRONG>

Excellent point.

Now imagine that there are roads that only Mercedes can go on and that there are roads that only Chevies can go on. Now imagine that the government collects taxes from the Chevy owners to build the chevy roads and from the Mercedes owners to build Mercedes roads. Now, would it matter to the Mercedes owners how many other Mercedes owners were out there? Would they be concerned if new drivers weren't buying Mercedes? Who needs roads, anyway, when you have a sweet ride like a Mercedes.

Now imagine that it costs $400 million dollars to buy an operating system that will last for 15 years and you sell one million computers a year. How much do you have to charge per computer for the operating system? What if you sold two million computers a year?

Now imagine that you spent $100 million dollars a year on operating systems development and you sold one million computers a year. How much do you have to charge per computer for the operating system? What if you sold two million computers a year?

Now imagine that you sold two million computers a year instead of one million. How much more operating system development could you do for the same price per computer?

I forgot the exact specs on the Gateway, but as I recall, everything was roughly equivalent. The gateway did not have firewire. The mac did not have a floppy drive or some ports. There may be some small difference in component quality like 40MB drive in the Mac is a 5400RPM and the gateway might be a 7200RPM. (The 60MB drive option on the mac is 7200RPM) They both had 40MB hard drives and we priced them at 384MB or RAM. It think the gateway had a faster CD-RW drive. The gateway had a 1GHZ Pentium, which RDF aside, is probably very close to the 733 G4 with no L3 cache. I think the Gateway came with Office XP and windows 2000.

My brother wanted the machine for web browsing, light gaming, and word processing. Thus, large monitor was more important and processor speed was less important.

My brother was interested in buying a mac, but I was unable to tell him what he would get that was worth paying 33% more for a mac than a PC.

[Fran441]

My brother wanted the machine for web browsing, light gaming, and word processing. Thus, large monitor was more important and processor speed was less important.

Why does he need the larger monitor then? The iBook would have been a really good machine for him if that's the case.

Why do you need a 1 GHz Pentium III for 'light gaming' because that's the most processor intense thing you'll be doing with the machine. Plus, if you spent more than $1600 on a computer from Gateway, you should have got more than a 1 GHz PIII (more like a 1.5 GHz P4).

Never buy RAM from the manufacturer. Its always more expensive. 256 MB PC 133 RAM is like $30. 512 is $61. Why would you ever buy RAM from the manufacturer?

Bottom line: You bought an overpriced and underpowered machine.

You should have got a G4 or iBook.

[Mr. Mxyzptlk]

Are you actually reading the posts here man? Looks pretty clear that you've been proven an idiot (well, you AND your friend) but just can't seem to admit it.

applenut is right - DO SOME RESEARCH. Jesus christ, you're spending $2000 and you don't even do any decent looking around? I know this may seem strange to you, but you can use a pen, paper, and calculator (yes, you can do things without a computer) make a little comparative chart.. and boom - you would have seen what a deal the G4 would be.

Give your head a shake man. You could have gotten the G4 for a couple hundred over budget and gotten a WAY better system.

[ 07-29-2001: Message edited by: Mr. Mxyzptlk ]

[MikeM32]

&lt;rant&gt;

2 grand seems pretty steep for a Gaming/Word processing "rig".

You coulda just bought an entry level to mid range iMac for much less.

My brother was interested in buying a mac, but I was unable to tell him what he would get that was worth paying 33% more for a mac than a PC.

33% (or even better) more longevity But at least the Gateway came with MS Word

I'v had my Beige G3/266 Desktop "purring along" for almost 3 years. Both my previous PC's didn't last so long combined

I could probably keep this sucker going for several years more if necessary.

&lt;/end rant&gt;

Mike

[selkirk]

well, interesting news.

about 10 minutes after my last post, my brother came over. I asked him if he bought the Gateway. (we went to two different CompuUSAs and the Gateway store on saturday morning before coming back to my place. He left my place to go buy the Gateway.)

He said, that he went home and took a nap instead of going to the Gateway store and that when he woke up, he decided to buy the iBook instead. he ordered one last night from the Apple Store.

He said that his original plan was to buy a cheap PC and then get a nice macintosh laptop in a couple of years. He changed his mind and decided to get a cheap macintosh laptop now and a better desktop in a couple of years.

He said that he tried the spreadsheet in appleworks and it was satisfactory and he could live with the display on the iBook or even get the Sony monitor later.

I just stood there with a stupid grin on my face.

I am pretty happy because we are both software developers and now we can collaborate on Cocoa software. (I have been learning Cocoa, and I am sure that my brother will too, now.)

To those who think I am an idiot because I didn't do enough "Research" on the mac, I say wake up and smell the reality. We didn't do a great deal of "Research" on the PC side either. I am sure that bargain hunting on the PC side would only widen the gap. Remember, we were not comparing list prices, but out the door costs including whatever taxes and shipping and extras may apply. We also wanted to get a name brand PC.

So, while it seems that the apple desktops aren't very competitive, the laptops seem to be. (I think their last announced sales figures reflect that.)

Final total cost from apple: $1641. (and they threw in a cheap printer) Now we only need to get an extra 256MB and a wheel mouse. He was able to afford this without any financing at all.

[selkirk]

well, interesting news.

about 10 minutes after my last post, my brother came over. I asked him if he bought the Gateway. (we went to two different CompuUSAs and the Gateway store on saturday morning before coming back to my place. He left my place to go buy the Gateway.)

He said, that he went home and took a nap instead of going to the Gateway store and that when he woke up, he decided to buy the iBook instead. he ordered one last night from the Apple Store.

He said that his original plan was to buy a cheap PC and then get a nice macintosh laptop in a couple of years. He changed his mind and decided to get a cheap macintosh laptop now and a better desktop in a couple of years.

He said that he tried the spreadsheet in appleworks and it was satisfactory and he could live with the display on the iBook or even get the Sony monitor later.

I just stood there with a stupid grin on my face.

I am pretty happy because we are both software developers and now we can collaborate on Cocoa software. (I have been learning Cocoa, and I am sure that my brother will too, now.)

To those who think I am an idiot because I didn't do enough "Research" on the mac, I say wake up and smell the reality. We didn't do a great deal of "Research" on the PC side either. I am sure that bargain hunting on the PC side would only widen the gap. Remember, we were not comparing list prices, but out the door costs including whatever taxes and shipping and extras may apply. We also wanted to get a name brand PC.

So, while it seems that the apple desktops aren't very competitive, the laptops seem to be. (I think their last announced sales figures reflect that.)

Final total cost from apple: $1641. (and they threw in a cheap printer) Now we only need to get an extra 256MB and a wheel mouse. He was able to afford this without any financing at all.

[Eugene]

We have 10 Gateways, 14 Sun Ultra1s, 3 Sun Ultra5s, and 3 Sun Blade 100s in our lab. The Gateways are fully loaded 1 GHz pre T-Bird Athlons with 384 MB of RAM, 30 GB HDDs, GeForce 256 DDR, 15 inch LCDs...generously donated by Gateway, very fast...very unreliable. All the Intellimice that shipped with the computers failed, while all the Sun mice are still functional and about 5 years older...a smattering off ball mice, old Sun optical and newer Sun optical...note that these optical mice require those reflective grid mouse surfaces.

Anyway, they're quite unreliable. We have had 10 failed mice, 1 failed LCD, 2 failed floppy drives, 1 failed HDD and plenty else to deal with. The Sun Ultra1s are close behind in unreliabiity, but that's because their CPU and case fans have been running continuously for 5 years! They were login server nodes for our CS department for a long time. Some maintenance, and they function well enough.

The Ultra5s have never had any problems. The Blade 100s are brand new.

We were considering getting 2-3 Macs running OS X, but it was really just forward -thinking...OS X's PAM support is non-existent, making it impossible to integrate with our NIS+ directory services. We could change to LDAP, but that's a major project. Also, native apps on OS X are just starting to appear. Maybe in a year we'll have Macs in our lab.

But I will say this: The Gateways stink, and their service is well behind Dell's.

Still, if I were to switch to x86, I'd build my own PC in an all aluminum CoolerMaster ATC-201 case or maybe a revised Palo Alto PA-810 with dual 120 mm fan mounts.

[Mac-Addict]

Say, Eugene, where can I find the webpage for the Palo Alto? And what do you like about it?

The CoolerMaster looks pretty cool, but I like the 200 better than the 201.

[ 07-29-2001: Message edited by: Mac-Addict ]

[iCartman]

&lt;paraphrase&gt;A sh*tty craftsman always blames his tools &lt;/paraphrase&gt;

Education is a wonderful thing.

[maclove]

Oh SH*#......

Love your Mac...

[rambo47]

Four words for any Gateway buyers: BUT IT RUNS WINDOWS. Bye bye now, thanks for stopping by, give my regards to Gateway's fine tech support crew.

[ 07-29-2001: Message edited by: rambo47 ]

[Face Ache]

Did someone question Apple again?

These forums are no place for that.

[smacintush]

LOOK! It's consumer watchdog Face Ache! yay

Look, it has been proven time and time again that Apple is competitively priced when compared to QUALITY PC makers. Gateway is NOT worthy of being called "brand name". It is generic through and through, just with good marketing.

Apple's record on quality is excellent. With the exception of a few freaks here and there, the quality of the hardware is excellent. I know several people with Macs dating back to '86 that have NEVER had ANY problems.

So, please stop comparing Apple and crap like Gateway. Go price identical Gateways and Dells. Dell's prices are higher because they make a better machine. When you compare Apple to Dell, the gap narrows quite a bit.

Apple's problem is that they don't put forth the perception of value like some others. They rely too much on the consumer to make that determination. Unfortunately, many computer consumers, especially new ones are not very wise in this area. All they see is BIG Mhz, smaller price. Apple's commercials don't help, mediocre commercials with NO phone number, no web address, NOTHING. Just a name. Joe Blow sees this, then what does he do? Usually either goes to a friend, or to retailer and asks about Apple. Then they hear the same ol' BS about Apple not being able to do what the PC does, or that they are too expensive, too slow blah blah blah. Bad for Apple.

Yes, I'm done now.

[Gee4orce]

You brother should have bought an iBook and a Playstation 2 to play games on.

The iBook has something like 94% satisfaction rating on ZDNet - and the 6% of thumbs down votes are almost all windows trolls. He would have been very satisfied with the iBook.

...and no desktop machine is as good for games as a Playstation.

[sek929]

Thank god he didn't get a Gateway....or worse yet a P4 computer. Best way to go with PCs is to build your own. Ex. my friend built a dual P3 1000 mhz 2 gigs of RAM etc... for just under 1700 with monitor.

Also a side note: With all my friends and I going away to college you can imagine that computer buying has reached a peak and I have been the default computer guy to ask question to. I've only sold one Mac (mine ) but at least I've kept the PC-or-bust people away from such horrors as Gateways, Compaqs and HPs.

Hope he loves his new iBook, I know I sure would.

[voodoo]

Hahaha! Bought a Gateway. From that belaguered computer maker, you know. You're not much of a mac advocate if you can't sell someone a mac who is already willing to look into it.

... You have failed me for the last time!

[selkirk]

Ok, lets look at a Dell...


Dell Dimension 8100
Pentium 4 1.5 Ghz
128MB PC600 RDRAM
40GB ATA/100 HD (7200 RPM)
16X/10X/40X CD-RW Drive
32MB NVIDIA GeForce2 MX
10/100 Ethernet
USB Keyboard
USB Mouse / Scrollwheel
3 IEEE 1394 ports
4 USB Ports
56K Modem
1 Yr Ltd warrenty
6 months internet access
H/K Speakers
3.5 Floppy Drive
$1139 (with $150 mail in rebate)

PowerMac G4
PowerPC G4 733 Mhz
128MB PC133 SDRAM
40GB ATA/66 (5400 RPM)
12X/10X/32X CD-RW Drive
32MB NVIDIA GeForce2 MX
10/100/1000 Ethernet
USB Keyboard
USB Mouse
2 IEEE 1394 ports
2 USB Ports
56K Modem
1 Yr Ltd warrenty
1 month internet access
Built in IEEE 802.11 antenna
$1699

I configured the Dell to be as close to the Mac specs as possible.

Dell is offering free shipping.
Apple is offering a free printer ($69 list)

Note how the Dell has faster RAM, a faster hard drive, a faster CD-RW drive and more ports.

The apple does have gigabit ethernet (if you can use it) and an antenna.

Lets assume that these machines are hardware equivelent, although I think the faster components in the Dell will give it a speed edge no matter what you think of a 733Mhz G4 vs a 1.5Ghz P4. (redo that Photoshop benchmark with the more broadly used Internet Explorer or MS Office and lets see how it works out.)

That means that you are paying a $560 premium (50% more) for owning an Apple.

Wake up and smell the desktop reality.

[ 07-30-2001: Message edited by: selkirk ]

[Kozmik]

You don't know much about RAM speeds, do you?

[Eugene]

http://www.paloaltoproducts.com/papi/pc/index.htm

I want it because it will easily fit an eATX board and large cooling fans. They also make an OEM version for Gateway with two 10 mm fans instead of one 120 and one 92.

[selkirk]

Originally posted by Kozmik:
<STRONG>You don't know much about RAM speeds, do you?</STRONG>

No. I don't.

From the Dell website:

Why RDRAM (in the 8100) is Better than SDRAM (in the 4100)
RDRAM allows you to spend less time waiting since it can load a new stream of data before the previous stream has completed

Is this wrong? Enlighten me.