I guess that's the biggest difference between Apples and Everything Else.
Is there a reason for that?
Do they do everything better? Work better?
Somebody with an Apple computer please chime in, cuz I really don't know why I'm supposed to spend so much extra if I want a Mac.
Are they the Italian shoes (stylish, pretty, does what any other shoe does, costs 4 times as much) of the computer world? Or is there some real value in Apple's price?
Spec out equal machines. You'll find the Mac is usually pretty competitively. Problem is, most people compare a Mac to whatever commodity junk is on sale at Best Buy that week. Apple isn't particularly interested in the low end of the market. They build their machines with a lot of beels and whistles, and they generally build them to last.
Actual price difference between similar machines is usually pretty small.
Price is the biggest difference? Hardly.
Do they do everything better? No. But they do a lot of things better.
Work better? Usually.
No Windows machine can do what my Mac does. It comes with a full Apache server out of the box, and easily runs OS X, Windows and Linux, all at the same time.
This subject has been beaten to death here many times before.
http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/off-topic-discussion/why-macs-are-better-than-pcs-for-dr-boost/10030/page1/
http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/off-topic-discussion/what-computer/876/page1/
It all comes down to what value you place on a computer and what you want to do with it.
I am a long time geek and built my own overclocked PC beasts for years, but now I'm all Mac at home. I turn it on, it works, the OS is stable and doesn't degrade itself over time like XP. I paid a grand for my laptop and $600 for my Mac Mini. Both worth it to me. Can I build a faster PC cheaper? Heck yes, but I got tired of "making it work" all the time.
Apple allowed clone Macs a long time ago but got tired of the crappy quality and the resulting bad rep their "Macs" were getting overall. They canned the clone market licenses and brought all Macs back in-house. Quality is under control and the OS works perfectly with the hardware. The overall package ends up with a better overall presentation.
One of the "advantages" the Macs have is also one of the criticisms, restricted hardware. Since they have a pretty tight hold on the hardware, there are far fewer options to deal with which means they can concentrate on what they have rather than many many possible variations.
If you add up the number of motherboards available, the types of video cards etc. The number of combinations quickly become insane. Having fewer choices makes things easier.
I guess you could think of them as the rotary engines of the computer world. Not as much to go wrong, a little weird, but it will cost you some money (fuel vs initial cost). Some people love em', others hate em'
I use a Mac to run my Windoze. It's easier and few issues than on my old Emachine.
Actually I run my Mac and Windoze at the same time on the same machine. Soooooooooooo much easier.
If it is soooo much easier why do you have to run multiple OS's?
I could buy your argument if you just ran a single OS, but to me adding more than one OS to a computer does not make it sooooo easy - it amkes it more complicated.
I have been tempted to buy a mac for home use. I really just surf the interwebs and email from home - don't do much anything useful and am tempted by the easy aspect of macs.
As far as I can tell you are just paying more for a white case and a different OS.
Are you kidding me? PC rulez! Mine came with this cool software for mail and has this "help box" where you get to type in a question and get 100 of their best answers!!! Awesome. Who needs a best friend, dad, shrink, sock puppet, pastor or anyone else! Can MAC do this?
I dunno, the mac I am posting this on was only about $240 
.
Of course I have one of the overpriced metal ones as well. And I could not have bought a PC that truly matched it in spec for any cheaper, really. If you are budget limited, check out the refurbs. There are often some very good deals there, especially right after the products are updated.
http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/specialdeals
I totally want to do a "Mac vs. PC" faux-mercial about this. It would just be me, taped twice in two different outfits. The "Mac" me would have hip facial hair and designer clothes. The "PC" would wear frumpy business-casual stuff. The PC would be commenting how they both looked awfully similar. "Mac" would comment, "What are you talking about? I have this hip and tasteful glowing icon."
Tim Baxter wrote: Spec out equal machines. You'll find the Mac is usually pretty competitively. Problem is, most people compare a Mac to whatever commodity junk is on sale at Best Buy that week. Apple isn't particularly interested in the low end of the market. They build their machines with a lot of beels and whistles, and they generally build them to last. Actual price difference between similar machines is usually pretty small.
Ooh, I'm totally going to do this. I will compare the standard Mac desktop rig, the Mac Pro, to a comparable machine built by Falcon Northwest, which is one of the longest running and best respected builders of hand-built custom gaming PCs. I actually don't know the prices and equipment going into this, but I'll lay good odds the Falcon rig is a better deal.
Let's take a look at the hardware of a Mac Pro, Quad Core:
Wow... that hardware sounds familiar. What do those manufacturers components usually go in? Oh yeah, PCs...
Now a comparably spec'ed PC from Falcon Northwest. I'll build a comparable version of their Talon desktop system:
So, the PC has newer/better hardware, costs $800 less, and is built to allow for more upgradeability into the future, by adding things like SLi.
The only real difference is 1-button mouses, and the OS. But you can't run Mac OS on a PC because... umm... the End User License Agreement says you're only allowed to run it on official Mac Hardware.
Oh, and if you want to get really funny, my gaming rig has hardware comparable to that Macintosh, and cost me a whopping $240 purchased off of Craigslist (from a guy who turned out to be a fellow GRMer).
TJ wrote: If it is soooo much easier why do you have to run multiple OS's?
Baxter is a web developer, so having multiple OSes available for testing is essential to his job. Obviously, it is easier to do this with one computer rather than several :).
For most of us, a mac is easier to use on a daily basis, but we may find it necessary to run windows software at times (such as Autocad, in my case). It's nice to have the capability when we need it, but not have to deal with the headache of maintaining a windows machine for critical everyday use.
What's so hard about a windows machine, really. I set it to maintain itself when I'm not using it, never a problem. Unless there's hardware issues that are a manufacturing issue, but any product can have that issue. Maybe it's just me out here all by my lonesome, with my windows vista that works fine all day everyday. Nothing against MACs but they are like rotaries to me, I just don't get it.
I can't wait till 2010 when Google's Chrome OS comes out and OS nirvana is finally obtained.
As far as reliability, Mac users dog PC reliability based on outdated information. My experience is that Macs have hiccups slightly less than PC's, but every time they do, it's a bigger deal because they refused to accept that anything could go wrong with the system.
It's like a Lexus vs. a Ford. Or maybe a Porsche vs. a Corvette. You're so wowed by the fit and finish of driving a luxury car that is known for it's reliability, that you don't notice that it has just as many problems. Then, when it does you need to take it back to the dealership to have them fix it, whereas the other guy can go down to any parts shop in a fraction of the time.
My dad has more issues with his Macs than I do with any of my rat-rod PCs. He does have a tendency to fiddle too much and, in an attempt to set it up "perfectly" ends up making everything less reliable. Seems that a Mac runs perfectly... or not at all. Whereas a PC will always be able to run ok.
Its reliability, I still have a 7 year old power-book that runs just fine. My new 13' I hope will last as long.
My pro quad tower is 5 years or so old with zero downtime. Solid as a rock, the moniter still running and in spec.
To me the time I have saved not fixing these machine could pay for them 5-6 times over.
The #1 cause of unreliability in a PC is a poor quality power-supply. Budget PCs come packaged with crap PSUs, that can damage every piece of hardware. To be dependable, a PC needs a stable and powerful PSU.
Salanis, what software did your Falcon Northwest PC come with?
Are those full versions or are they crippled OEM versions?
What software does the Mac come with?
Now, I've personally tested a Mac Book Pro and a Dell Workstation Laptop, both spec'd out to the max.
Running Windows Vista, the Mac was faster and running dual-boot operating systems was easier on the Mac than it was on the Dell.
The only thing the Dell had over the Mac was another mouse button.
Josh wrote:TJ wrote: If it is soooo much easier why do you have to run multiple OS's?Baxter is a web developer, so having multiple OSes available for testing is essential to his job. Obviously, it is easier to do this with one computer rather than several :).
Fair point. I don't want complicated when it comes to comnputers, but I also just want to surf the web.
I'll start by saying I'm not all that 'puter literate .... but from hitting the on button to being on-line takes about 30 sec w/ my mini-mac.... (though I seldom turn it off... just put it to sleep) my moms PC takes about 5 min.....
about every 5 - 6 mo. moms PC goes to the shop to be de -" virusesed "..... from what I've read/heard there has only been 1 major virus in the last 15 - 20 years.....
fiat22turbo wrote: Salanis, what software did your Falcon Northwest PC come with? Are those full versions or are they crippled OEM versions? What software does the Mac come with?
Dell =/= Falcon. Dell < Falcon.
The parts used to construct the Dell are Budget crap. Of course the machine with superior hardware will outperform it. The parts used to construct a Mac are top notch... from whenever it was first designed, and they stagnated the prices despite advances in technology. Falcon continues to update their rig offerings with pretty much every new advance in technology.
The Falcon Talon comes with Vista Home Premium. For $86, you can have it come with XP Pro. For $156, it can come with Vista Ultimate.
With $800 savings, you can buy whatever OS you want, and have plenty of money left over.
I can understand people liking Mac OS better than windows. But since the hardware is now the same, why not get as much or more hardware for less money by buying a PC rig, and installing Mac OS?
I run multiple operating systems because I have one piece of business software that is PC only. Everything else is Mac all the way.
And as far as the Mac being easier to operate than a PC being an outdated argument?! I presently run Macs and a PC. I spend easily 100 times more of my time getting and keeping the PC running than getting and keeping my 15 Macs running. By switching to a Mac running windoze I have cut my quality PC time where I and the person needing to do a simple task on the PC just about in half.
My son-in-law is the IT guy for an office of 150 Macs. He is also the photographer and does all the layout work for the company's catalogs. The PC IT guy who only has 30 PCs is a full time IT guy and even then he's always behind.
The piece of equipment you are used to using, is the easier one to use. You're used to Macs, so they're easier for you. I'm used to PCs, so they're easier for me.
Difference is, I can get the same hardware for much less money.
And, again... If the hardware is the same, and they can both run the same OSes, why pay more for a different shell?
To me the whole Mac and PC thing is simple. If Apple has all the Mac programs you could ever want, and you are not a complete control freak or constantly love to tweak stuff, then a Mac is for you. If Mac doesnt have a program that you want/need, get a Mac with dual OSs. If you want every program ever made and you love to tweak and control everything your computer does, hands down PC. I like to get my computer exactly where I want and running smooth. I'm also a low level engineer and AutoCAD is 80% of my work load so it's all PC for me. I've had the same HP best buy special since early 2004 and added memory and a graphics card once, about 3 years ago. After my initial setup, I havent had to tweak anything for the majority of 5 years. I've used Apple IIe and Mac all the way through 4th grade thru H.S. and have had PCs at home from the 386 and 40meg harddrive days. IPods are sexy though.... (That wasnt as simple as I thought...)
LOL dead horse. i'm a PC guy. i like computer gaming, and last time i checked, you can't run 3 video cards togethor on a mac. iracing doesn't work on macs either!
I think italian shoes are definately worth the money, but I'll never own a mac. 
I do like my iPod and I crave an iPhone though, so I guess that makes me conflicted.
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