[Matt OS X]

Please forgive me if this question has been already asked million times. I couldn't find it in the search so I'm asking this again. Thanks for your patience.

Here's a question: A friend of mine asked me why does Apple are always expensive comapred to PC's? So What's the best answer and the reason why?

Thanks!!

[ManOfSteal]

Tell him they are not more expensive these days...if he questions that, ask him to prove his point with actual (factual) numbers...

Case closed.

[budster101]

Originally posted by Matt OS X:
Please forgive me if this question has been already asked million times. I couldn't find it in the search so I'm asking this again. Thanks for your patience.

Here's a question: A friend of mine asked me why does Apple are always expensive comapred to PC's? So What's the best answer and the reason why?

Thanks!!

It's a matter of what you get when you buy a machine.

I'll start this ball rolling:

- You get more WITH a Mac than with a Windows Machine.

next...


=-=

EDIT:

If he gives you the Mhz myth ********, then there are numerous articles about this.

Tell him to buy a Mac, then use it for a month and then go back and use a Windows Machine...

He'll vomit. If he doesn't, there is something wrong with him and stay far away!

[SSharon]

ask him why a lexus is more expensive, or a ferrari.
just compute the total cost of ownership and you will see macs are cheaper. time is money and time installing/updating/dealing with anti-virus stuff is a waste of time and therefore money.

[Matt OS X]

Originally posted by ManOfSteal:
Tell him they are not more expensive these days...if he questions that, ask him to prove his point with actual (factual) numbers...

Case closed.

Elaborate more.

[chris v]

why are Apple's WHAT more expensive??

[budster101]

More importantly with the car comparison scenario.

If you were to use your car for work... which would you rather use?

A chevy SS blown and maxed out, straight line speed.
or

A curve hugging sports car that was made with the finest materials, and can also be used as a commuter vehicle. It would be quiet, and fast enough to get the job done well, and breakdowns would be far fewer, so you could work more.

Has he seen any 17" PC Laptops? BRICK...
How about the 17" Powerbook? Sweeet...

Questions?

[Matt OS X]

Originally posted by chris v:
why are Apple's WHAT more expensive??

Generally, Apple's computers and displays are expensive than PC's. Some of my friends said "Why should I buy a expensive apple g5 with 2.5 ghz while PC's tower is cheaper with 3ghz." Things like that...

[JohnSmithXTREME]

Since Apple has lost quite a bit of marketshare over the last 10 years (from around 30% down to 1-2%), they are forced to keep profit margins high. So, in order to charge more for their computers, they have cultivated a "premium" brand in order to justify the higher prices. There is a small, but stable market of people willing to pay more for a computer as long as it is stylish.

There are some people who maintain that Macs are not expensive, but all you have to do is compare, say, an iMac to a similiary spec'd PC to discover than the Mac is in fact more expensive.

However, quite a lot of people are very happy with the Macintosh platform, so for those people, it is worth paying more for a Mac. Why buy something you aren't happy with?

[budster101]

Originally posted by Matt OS X:
Generally, Apple's computers and displays are expensive than PC's. Some of my friends said "Why should I buy a expensive apple g5 with 2.5 ghz while PC's tower is cheaper with 3ghz." Things like that...

If they have already invested money in software, tell them to keep their PC, unless they have dual licenseing.

3ghz means nothing unless they are using their machines for gaming only... the rest is a myth.

I'm a professional graphic designer and I use a Mac over a PC, and will continue to do so, as will many other professionals. Why? Why not? Why does a professional anything use one brand over another in general? They know what works best, that's why.

Oh, and have they ever looked inside that 3ghz PC Tower? .... "Rats nest"

Look inside a G5 tower sometime to compare...

Ask them. Which would they rather upgrade themselves, or add hardware.

[SVass]

Low cost cars used to come with tires that had a max safe speed of 60 mph, soft suspensions subject to rollover in a turn, bad brakes, etc.

Low cost pcs come without firewire, with inadequate memory, no wireless card, and requiring the purchase of extra virus protection software.
sam

[budster101]

I saw this guy with a laptop trying to hook up his wireless on a public network... he rebooted several times, before he figured it was something that had to be configured by hand... he got it to work eventually, then he crashed and had to do it all over again.

This guy was not using a Mac.


All I have to do is sit down, open my laptop, login, and bam, I'm on the net, and cruising, while this PC wanker is fussing for an hour to just get his to work.

If your friend's time is cheap, then by all means, tell him to get a PC.

[JohnSmithXTREME]

Originally posted by SVass:
Low cost cars used to come with tires that had a max safe speed of 60 mph, soft suspensions subject to rollover in a turn, bad brakes, etc.

Low cost pcs come without firewire, with inadequate memory, no wireless card, and requiring the purchase of extra virus protection software.
sam

Low cost macs come with inadequate memory, no wireless, no usefull word processor, no keyboard, no mouse, no monitor, a processor that would have been considered low end 3 years ago, etc. The Mac mini is a nice little computer, but it requires quite a lot of add-ons before you would want to use it.

[Link]

The 1.4ghz g4 wasn't low end until a few months ago, I don't know WHERE you get THAT idea.

[Skip Breakfast]

Since Apple has lost quite a bit of marketshare over the last 10 years (from around 30% down to 1-2%), they are forced to keep profit margins high. So, in order to charge more for their computers, they have cultivated a "premium" brand in order to justify the higher prices. There is a small, but stable market of people willing to pay more for a computer as long as it is stylish.

Even mediocre, mid-level Macintoshes used to be priced at around $3000 with profit margins of nearly 20%. Now, machines targeted at the same market are 2/3 the price with half the profit margin.

[budster101]

Originally posted by Link:
The 1.4ghz g4 wasn't low end until a few months ago, I don't know WHERE you get THAT idea.

And, I'm using a 1 ghz 17" powerbook, with 1gig of ram. I'm running all sorts of aps at the same time, downloading, no crashies.

[wowway1]

Just try to go find a PC that is as well engineered as the G5 tower. You won't find one. And that's what you're paying for - quality.

[Link]

Originally posted by wowway1:
Just try to go find a PC that is as well engineered as the G5 tower. You won't find one. And that's what you're paying for - quality.

Yessum, pulled my mom's g5 out of the wrapping and found it had scratcheson the door and a dented heatsink cover.

Quality indeed.

(I still need to call and chew them out for the door to be replaced, at the least.. I have no way to take it in so the heatsink cover will just have to be that way :|

[ASIMO]

I hear what you are saying.

Yesterday I saw some fujis at $0.65/lb. Insane. I still bought three pounds' worth, though. Them is good.

[Spliff]

Originally posted by Link:
Yessum, pulled my mom's g5 out of the wrapping and found it had scratches on the door and a dented heatsink cover.

What you've got there is terrorism, plain and simple. Some organization�gee, I wonder which one�hates Apple and is trying to destroy them. No doubt they already have members who have infiltrated Apple's manufacturing plants in order to give new computers a good, swift kick and some key-striping.

[chris v]

Originally posted by Matt OS X:
Generally, Apple's computers and displays are expensive than PC's. Some of my friends said "Why should I buy a expensive apple g5 with 2.5 ghz while PC's tower is cheaper with 3ghz." Things like that...

I was just bustin' his chops on the unnecessary apostrophe in the thread title.

[JohnSmithXTREME]

Originally posted by Skip Breakfast:
Even mediocre, mid-level Macintoshes used to be priced at around $3000 with profit margins of nearly 20%. Now, machines targeted at the same market are 2/3 the price with half the profit margin.

All computers have become cheaper, but Apple is still relatively expensive when compared to others.

[Athens]

Originally posted by Matt OS X:
Please forgive me if this question has been already asked million times. I couldn't find it in the search so I'm asking this again. Thanks for your patience.

Here's a question: A friend of mine asked me why does Apple are always expensive comapred to PC's? So What's the best answer and the reason why?

Thanks!!

Dev Costs. Its not free for them to devolpe OS X and all that other great software that comes with Macs.

[mitchell_pgh]

Originally posted by JohnSmithXTREME:
Low cost macs come with inadequate memory, no wireless, no usefull word processor, no keyboard, no mouse, no monitor, a processor that would have been considered low end 3 years ago, etc. The Mac mini is a nice little computer, but it requires quite a lot of add-ons before you would want to use it.

That's assuming you don't own a monitor, keyboard, mouse, etc.

Also, many people have no need for wireless.

[SVass]

Originally posted by JohnSmithXTREME:
Low cost macs come with inadequate memory, no wireless, no usefull word processor, no keyboard, no mouse, no monitor, a processor that would have been considered low end 3 years ago, etc. The Mac mini is a nice little computer, but it requires quite a lot of add-ons before you would want to use it.

As one who has used word processors from Appleworks through Word/Office, Word Perfect to document processors like Frame Maker, I can say that I actually prefer Appleworks for letters, etc as it is simple and the interface remains relatively constant. (And the spreadsheet formulae in Appleworks accept negative numbers which Office did not some revisions ago. I haven't checked recently; but, MSoft originally claimed that 4 byte floating point math was faster than 5 or 8 byte thus leading to an inaccurate but "faster" computer.) Low end cpus are endemic in all low cost machines and actual speed is a complex subject, but generally Intel chips are slower than their reputed clock speed compared to IBM/Motorola chips. The Mac mini was designed to fill one specific niche, for switching low end pc people (or possibly as a digital video recorder). sam

[Stradlater]

Originally posted by Matt OS X:
Elaborate more.

PowerBooks are always cheaper than their similarly-equipped PC counterparts. iBooks likewise.

Macs, these days, are more expensive than bottom-of-the-line poorly-equipped PCs, but look at equivalents and the prices are usually better for Macs, if not pretty equal.

Oh, and 2GHz G5 is not the same as 2GHz P4.

[olePigeon]

Well, a few things.

Part of it is brand. You do pay a premium for an Apple. However, I don't think it's entirely unjustified. Take the Macworld conference for example. The entire PC industry practically holds their breath to see what Apple's coming out with next. Apple is one of the very few companies who can mold form and function. Not only do you get a really cool product, it also works great!

Another part is craftsmanship. Yes, every brand and every product has their lemons, even Apple. I think the ratio of lemons to functional products is much less in the Apple market. Take Apple's displays as an example. While you can get higher resolution displays at the same price or cheaper than Apple, what parts are they using? As Apple stated, they throw away LCDs that their competitors use due to quality concerns. That's what you get when you buy an Apple (that doesn't say you still don't get an occasional display with a dead pixel, it happens, but I'd wager not as often as your average PC competitor.)

Another example of craftsmanship is the G5 itself. Not too many companies take just as much time to make the inside of the computer look just as great as the outside! And because the inside of the PowerMac G5 looks so damn cool, Apple thought ahead and put in a clear acrylic guard so users can even display the inside! I think that's just classy. Just take a look at the motherboard. It's a cool blue color, the chipsets are symmetrical (how many companies take the time to do that?), you have a cool polished silver heatsink with "G5" on the top, and gold colored leads that look just awesome against the blue motherboard along with the silver heatsinks. Not to mention that Apple went out of their way to make the computer practically cabless. Nearly everything is socketable, even the HDDs (and before you ask, yes, I'm an art major and I appreciate the "little" cosmetic masterpieces that Apple takes the time to implement in their products.)

Then we have prices. As someone stated before, why is a Ferrarri more expensive? Even one from 1980s? Because it has an outstanding resale value associated to the craftsmanship and beauty of the vehicle (re: above.) Similar situation with an Apple. You can still find 6-year-old Macs going for couple hundred bucks on eBay. You'd have to PAY someone to take a 6-year-old PC off your hands. Talk about resale value.

While taking the initial plunge into the Mac market may be a little pricey, once you've made the jump, it's no more expensive than a PC (and cheaper in a lot of cases.) The Mac will last you longer than your average PC, you'll make more use of it for a longer period, and when you're ready to upgrade to a new computer, you can sell it for a decent amount and knock off a good $500 to $1000 on your next purchase (depending on the previous model you had.)

I have to jet to work, so I'm cutting short. I'll post a little more later on feature comparisons if you'd like.

[memory-minus]

Originally posted by olePigeon:
As Apple stated, they throw away LCDs that their competitors use due to quality concerns.

Sony buys them and puts these crappy panels in the PSP!

[nredman]

i like fuji apples but they are rarely on sale. macs are expensive though

[sminch]

i believed the "macs are more expensive" line until i looked at getting my first mac - i got a 12" ibook, in part because a roughly equivalent machine from dell was the exact same price. this is a dell i'm comparing it to, so we're not even comparing apples with apples (sorry).

i completely agree with the posters above who mention the added costs of pc ownership (like antivirus software), and the time cost of f@(#ing around with a pc to download patches, configure wireless connections etc etc. my boss has a new ibm that took him two hours to connect to the local wireless network, while mine did it automatically.

even if we assume that macs are more expensive, if you spend hours making the damn thing work you've got to ask yourself how much your time is worth.

if we say: ($250 saved on the computer) divided by ((an hour spent each week doing crap you don't need to do on a mac) times (two year useful life of your computer)) = $2.50 an hour.

damn, that's some cheap time. you wanna come clean my house for $2.50 an hour?

sminch

[m a d r a]

Originally posted by chris v:
why are Apple's WHAT more expensive??

what i was going to say!

[Angus_D]

Originally posted by Matt OS X:

Originally posted by chris v:
why are Apple's WHAT more expensive??

Generally, Apple's computers and displays are expensive than PC's. Some of my friends said "Why should I buy a expensive apple g5 with 2.5 ghz while PC's tower is cheaper with 3ghz." Things like that...

[ALL inline images must be no wider than 480px -- tooki]

[sminch]

whats' youre point?

sminch

[analogika]

1) Find a laptop comparable to the low-end iBook for the same price or cheaper.

2) Now weed out all those that don't *just work* - i.e. where you can count on your machine actually waking from sleep reliably and fully-functioning every time, where wireless connections just auto-reconnect to any network you've ever been logged into when you wake it from sleep within range, where Bluetooth connections just work (okay, you need a $30 D-Link Bluetooth adapter for this).
(Point: You can get crap for cheap. Apple makes a point of trying not to produce crap, so there will always be cheaper - crap.)


If you still have any left (doubtful):

3a) Now add to the cost products comparable to:
iPhoto
GarageBand
iMovie (nothing really comparable available)
iDVD
etc.
(Point: This kind of brilliant software doesn't grow on trees - it costs money. Apple's money. If you want something comparable to GarageBand, figure at least $150 or more on top of the PC's price. And then you still won't have GarageBand.)

Or

3b) Now consider actually working with it over prolonged periods of time (weeks) without restarting, with various applications running and WITHOUT tolerating stuff like forced restarts because menus won't draw, or windows - great when you realize you've hit the system's limits, but can't even pull up the task manager, because the window won't draw, nor the text, so you can't actually quit anything.
This, of course, implies that you're running Linux or *BSD.
In which case, you probably know what you're doing and are already using an iBook for reasons detailed in 2) above.

-s*

[chabig]

Originally posted by SVass:
Low cost pcs come without firewire, with inadequate memory, no wireless card, and requiring the purchase of extra virus protection software.

They also don't come with graphics chips and VRAM. The graphics are usually "integrated" and share the main memory.

Chris

[frankiec]

Originally posted by Matt OS X:
Here's a question: A friend of mine asked me why does Apple are always expensive comapred to PC's? So What's the best answer and the reason why?

I think you're "friend" needs to enter the year 2005.

Does "he" also complain that BMWs are more expensive than Hondas? Does "he" not understand different products are, um, different?

Yeah, well, uh, I guess one cannot convince someone who's lifestyle is Wal-Mart-cheaper-the-better-and-bigger-the-better-woo-hoo-I'm-a-hick.

Bye, troll, and tell your "friend" too.

[Krusty]

Originally posted by frankiec:

Bye, troll, and tell your "friend" too.

Well, I'll vouch that Matt OS X is not a troll (take a look at his sig line and check out his threads raving about iChat w/iSight over the years.)

So here's my contribution:
Every Mac comes fully featured. You will not buy a mac that doesn't have Firewire, at least 100bt, at least a combo drive, a real (though sometimes not impressive) graphics card, and a truly kick-@ass software bundle (including Developer tools that would cost a small fortune on other *ahem* platforms). The drawback is some of these things add value to your purchase (if you use or need them). Unfortunately, if you don't need these things or have already bought them (such as a FW card) then the value added doesn't really count in your favor. If a person is really just gonna surf the web, email, and play games ... a Mac IS more expensive. If you use the software and extras of a Mac, they are quite a bit cheaper in the long run.

To JSX, what "useful" word processor comes bundled uniformly with any PC you purchase? Are you referring to Notepad or Wordpad ? TextEdit is roughly the equivalent of WordPad. Beyond that, you just have whatever word processor specific vendors decide to bundle on a given PC. M$ Word (or even Works, for that matter) is not standard equipment. A vendor has to pay for that to be included on the PC (whether or not they itemize it as a separate cost to the consumer).

[budster101]

Expense is relative to desire:

If a woman wishes to buy a certain brand of shoes or purse or whatever, then she will do so because of either actual or perceived quality or style. It's usually a personal thing.

When discussing such products as computers or cars, or any such item that may or may not be luxury or work related, one can also attribute the purchasing of said items to the afformentioned femalian doctrine.

-

If you like it, buy it.
If you don't shut up and don't.

-

[Laurence]

Even on the high end Apple is not overpriced. The cheapest Dell I could find with dual 3.0GHz Xeon processors 512MB RAM, 80GB SATA drive was around $2400. It was actually difficult to find dual Xeon systems on their web site as they assume that home users don't want them or something? This compares to Apple's $2500 for the dual 2GHz with similar specs (plus firewire, as the Dell didn't have built in firewire... WTF?). $100 difference is not that much when you consider all the benefits of the Mac. I guarantee that for 99% of what the normal person does the mac will be not only faster. but much faster.

I have one of these Dell computers at work and when I start an MPEG encode and minimize the encoder even web browsing is horribly slow. On my 1.6GHz single G5 I can start a few encodes in the background and the system is still very responsive for browsing, editing, etc.

Macs are NOT more expensive if you need a computer to just work and work well.