Posted on 11/21/2003 10:13:15 AM PST by Old Professer
Read the message again, dufus. Is there anywhere in there I praised Microsoft? Why would I even be considering an Apple if I thought MS was great? I don't, and was and am looking for an alternative. And Apple ain't it.
Well, that's what my son told me. I unloaded the thing on him when he went to college. He spent hours with their tech support just to get them to send him a replacement HD and RAM. I know we got took but neither of us could stand to deal any more with Dell tech support. Life's just too short.
This afternoon when I was using an Ipod. It's still slow as hell. It boots about 5 times slower than my Thinkpad. These are supposedly fast G4 chips.
If you are talking about the TiBook running Virtual PC, well a program running under Windows running under emulation under Mac OSX clearly isn't going to be as fast as the same software on a Windows machine.
Not only is it not as fast, it isn't even close. But even that's not what I am referring to. How long does it take your machine to boot?
I've only noticed one file sharing issue
The file sharing issues may not be as big a problem now as they used to be. Apple used to run ads saying something like, "you can run your PC files on the Mac." Well, that assumed you had the exact same Mac software as Windows. I never could open Lotus 123, WordPerfect, or any presentation software files written on the PC on a Mac. Granted, we are talking a while ago, but my point was the advertising was terribly misleading.
They iBooks are incredibly good values and Apple has upgraded the processor to a G4 and put in 32mb graphics cards.
They hadn't done that when I was looking. And I spent a few minutes playing around with an iBook. I decided the Tibook was too slow, so there was no reason to get a slower chip.
10.2 and 10.3 are highly usable and greatly improve the operation speed of the computer.
Whatever the version on the CompUSA machines I looked at today (and I think, but am not sure, that these were G5s) are still not as fast as the machines I'm used to. This business about being a "supercomputer" is just stupid. There are speed advantages of the G(x) in certain programs (either vector or raster, I don't remember which), and that's great if that's what you work in all day. But today alone, I've been in Word, Corel Draw, Fireworks, Dreamweaver, Outlook, Notepad, Tetris, and my Legal Accounting/Timekeeping stuff, and obviously IE. I don't think any of these programs natively written for the G(x) or OSX 10.x would show any performance enhancements for the Mac over the 2.4 Pentium IV I built. But the G(x) sure would have cost a lot more.
Take a look at the price of the current 12" iBook. Or the 14" iBook or 12" or 15" PowerBook, for that matter. I've been looking for a PC laptop on and off for about a year and I've yet to see anything from Dell, Gateway, Toshiba, Fujitsu, or IBM that is as good of a quality and value proposition as an iBook.
I paid $1800 for my TP. It is a 2.0/512/40 with a 15 inch screen. That included the price for the 3 year at home (don't remember specific cost of that offhand). As of today, the 14" ibook 933 similarly configured (with 640 Ram) but with only 2 years of send in is $1700. I wouldn't consider that machine the quality of mine.
Should I judge the quality of Windows based on Windows 98 or ME?
Read above. I don't think I EVER looked at 10.0. It was at least 10.1. And besides, Mac users have always thought everyone in the Windows world still runs 95, or the earliest version of 98. Every comparison I saw regarding the Mac OS compared it to earlier versions of Windows on issues of speed and stability. When I told them that there was no way the Mac OS was anything close to Windows NT stability wise, they always responded, "well, I was talking about 95." I used 95 for maybe 4 months and have used NT, 2000, and XP exclusively since then.
I've always said, let your scoreboard do the talking, but I've always been very distressed at the outright dishonestly by Mac trolls. I guarantee you there are a lot of folks out there who get turned off by that and refuse to buy Apple products.
You can get an eMac from MacMall (a special) for under $800 with 17" flat panel displays, a huge selection of I/O ports, and a DVD-CDRW drive.
It comes with 128 meg of RAM (though free RAM is available with an installation cost of $40 for a total of 384), and this is a single unit that can't be upgraded. I can pull the Pentium chip out of my 1.7 desktop and replace it with a 2.4 easily. You can't do that with a Mac, and that's really what I was referring to. Besides, you can get all this from Dell for at least $150 cheaper, and it will be faster and they will have better service.
iBooks start at under $1,100 and really can get 4-6 hours out of their battery on one charge, also with a DVD-CDRW drive.
Dell notebooks start at $799, so by the time you get $300 more, you have a pretty nice notebook. I will admit IBM is a little higher, but they will negotiate. I called them and talked them down between $250-400 or so. Will Apple negotiate?
What claims are those?
See above.
If you are going to judge Apple for all eternity based on a laptop that is no longer being made
First, they still make the laptop I looked at. They've put a higher megahertz chip in there, but its still the same. Second, I have been buying Apple products since I was 16 years old. This latest issue is only one in a string of issues I've had with them.
and a first version of a new OS that was admittedly not ready for prime time, why can't we keep bashing Windows for the flaws of Windows 95, 98, and ME?
First, you made the erroneous assumption I was looking at an early version of OSX, and second, I bash Microsoft repeatedly. I'd love to get rid of MS stuff completely. I hate that company. Why in the hell do you think I was looking at Apple in the first place? Office XP didn't fix the Word bugs that have been present since prior to 97, and Office 97, IMO, is just as good workability wise with fewer annoying features as XP.
You want me to bash Microsoft? Dude, sit back and grab a cup of coffee and listen to me unleash. This is the perfect example of why I don't think Apple is that great of a company and why I detest Mac true believers: you always think that even if an Apple product is bad, as long as someone else's is worse, then you've vindicated yourself in telling others they are idiots for not buying Apple products. All of Microsofts failings don't mean that Apple products are any good.
we get sick of hearing Windows victims complaining about how awful their experience is.
This is the problem: buy my product because the other product sucks. Never mind that mine might suck as well, just in different ways or not as bad.
Apparently you've missed Xserve and the Xserve RAID array. They are essentially FreeBSD servers plus.
First, you're talking servers, not desktop where the vast majority of the real work gets done. Second, I haven't missed anything. If I wanted Unix based equipment, I could have started using Linux (seems like) decades ago. Third, except for music and artistic professions, the Mac is not marketed toward the professional, but the popular culture nut. This is why Apple works so hard to get their machines on movies and TV shows. Real computer gurus aren't going to buy a product because they saw it used on "24."
It is silly to buy a machine only because of marketing.
It's even stupider to buy a machine because it looks "beautiful." Yet if you read some promos on Apple's and other websites that discuss the Mac, you can't miss something like this.
It is also silly to not buy a machine only because of marketing. At least pick a good reason not to buy a Mac -- like Al Gore's presence on the Board of Directors.
Marketing has nothing to do with why I didn't buy the machine. I'll probably purchase an Ipod before the end of the year because I think that's a pretty decent product. Overpriced, but decent. The marketing style issues I've brought up speak only to why I always hesitate to do business with Apple.
I've bought some pretty sh*tty Apple products over the years from a Newton to a Performa. At least I suckered someone into paying me $75 for the Newton. I had a hell of a time just giving away the Performa. Yet I sold two other used laptaps that, like the Performa, had serious upgrade limitations and got some money out of them.
Actually, I believe you need to hold down the SHIFT key and then right click to get the 'Open With' options. It'll list several programs to choose from, choose the one you want and make sure you check the box that says to use this program for all files of this type.
At least, as far as Win95, Win98, and WinME are concerned. Haven't played with XP enough to know whether or not they do it differently.
Bump for later read on my 6 year old, somewhat slow, but never a problem, Dell.
I rarely reboot my iBook (or my Windows PC at work for that matter) and almost never rebooted my Linux server when I was running one. I tend to only reboot my iBook or work PC when an update tells to reboot or when I travel with the iBook (and even then, I often just close the lid and let it sleep). So I honestly can't say that boot speed is a big issue for me.
Yes, Windows boots faster because Bill Gates made boot speed a major issue. But I also know that after my Windows 2000 machine "boots" at work, it is often effectively unusable for at least a few minutes afterward because even though I've got a window I can move a mouse around in, it is still really booting up processes. My iBook, on the other hand, tends to perform pretty well as soon as the user interface comes up.
Not only is it not as fast, it isn't even close. But even that's not what I am referring to. How long does it take your machine to boot?
Maybe a minute now under 10.3. I don't reboot enough to know exactly but I do know that it's been noticeably faster since I upgraded to 10.3. I'll time it for you at some point if you really want to know exactly. OSX 10.3 boots quite a bit faster than OSX 10.2 or 10.1, both of which are pretty darned slow, I must admit. One thing I do know is that I often just close the lid on my iBook to put it to sleep when I travel and go. Since I really can get 4 or 5 hours of life out of the battery using my iBook and can leave it asleep for more than a day with very little battery usage, like I said, rebooting isn't a big issue for me.
The file sharing issues may not be as big a problem now as they used to be. Apple used to run ads saying something like, "you can run your PC files on the Mac." Well, that assumed you had the exact same Mac software as Windows. I never could open Lotus 123, WordPerfect, or any presentation software files written on the PC on a Mac.
While the presentation files may have been a problem, MacLink Plus was available for a long time and would do a passable job of converting all sorts of format into AppleWorks format.
Granted, we are talking a while ago, but my point was the advertising was terribly misleading.
I'll admit that Apple, at the very least, does "spin" some of its claims.
They hadn't done that when I was looking. And I spent a few minutes playing around with an iBook. I decided the Tibook was too slow, so there was no reason to get a slower chip.
The G4 chips in the current iBooks are faster than the G4 chips in the original TiBooks.
Whatever the version on the CompUSA machines I looked at today (and I think, but am not sure, that these were G5s) are still not as fast as the machines I'm used to.
None of the laptops are G5s yet. Are you talking about booting speed or certain programs?
This business about being a "supercomputer" is just stupid. There are speed advantages of the G(x) in certain programs (either vector or raster, I don't remember which), and that's great if that's what you work in all day. But today alone, I've been in Word, Corel Draw, Fireworks, Dreamweaver, Outlook, Notepad, Tetris, and my Legal Accounting/Timekeeping stuff, and obviously IE. I don't think any of these programs natively written for the G(x) or OSX 10.x would show any performance enhancements for the Mac over the 2.4 Pentium IV I built. But the G(x) sure would have cost a lot more.
You don't need a 2.4Ghz Pentium IV to run run Word, Outlook, Notepad, or Tetris, even in the Windows world. Heck, they should all run at an acceptable speed on my old 266Mhz iMac. There are probably watches that can play Tetris. As for the other software, there may not be any advantage to a G4 or G5. If you are a power user and every last millisecond matters to you, by all means use the machine that feels fastest to you. But for the average home user that wants to browse the web, do email, and do some light word processing, the eMac and iBook are plenty fast enough.
I paid $1800 for my TP. It is a 2.0/512/40 with a 15 inch screen. That included the price for the 3 year at home (don't remember specific cost of that offhand). As of today, the 14" ibook 933 similarly configured (with 640 Ram) but with only 2 years of send in is $1700. I wouldn't consider that machine the quality of mine.
Would you carry your ThinkPad around in an unpadded canvas bag (say, during an airline flight) without worrying about damaging it? Does your battery last for 4-5 hours? Do you have a Firewire port? Does it have a DVD-CDRW drive? Does it have a built-in wireless networking antenna?
Read above. I don't think I EVER looked at 10.0. It was at least 10.1. And besides, Mac users have always thought everyone in the Windows world still runs 95, or the earliest version of 98. Every comparison I saw regarding the Mac OS compared it to earlier versions of Windows on issues of speed and stability. When I told them that there was no way the Mac OS was anything close to Windows NT stability wise, they always responded, "well, I was talking about 95." I used 95 for maybe 4 months and have used NT, 2000, and XP exclusively since then.
I used NT extensively at work and it still had substantial stability and usability problems in my experience. 2000 and XP are substantial improvements but there are still configuration quirks (such as problems changing networking settings on the fly) in 2000 and XP that carry over and that Macs don't have. I still have to reboot far more often on a PC than I do on a Mac which may be why you are so concerned about how fast the machine boots.
I've always said, let your scoreboard do the talking, but I've always been very distressed at the outright dishonestly by Mac trolls. I guarantee you there are a lot of folks out there who get turned off by that and refuse to buy Apple products.
You get dishonesty whenever you get a person who insists that one type of computer is always the best choice for a person no matter what their needs are. You get the same thing with Windows and Linux advocates. But the claim, often repeated here by Windows defenders, that Macs are "twice as expensive" as a comparable PC have not been true for several years and people still keep making that claim.
It comes with 128 meg of RAM (though free RAM is available with an installation cost of $40 for a total of 384), and this is a single unit that can't be upgraded.
My iBook has 384 Mb of RAM. Unless you are a power user, that's quite adequate. I have less trouble with the 384 Mb in my iBook at home than I do with 512 Mb in my Windows 2000 machine at work. Just as I often don't reboot, I also often don't exit programs that I use frequently ("Gee, you sure have a lot of stuff running..." is what most of my co-workers say when they look at my Windows machine at work).
I can pull the Pentium chip out of my 1.7 desktop and replace it with a 2.4 easily. You can't do that with a Mac, and that's really what I was referring to.
At some point, either Intel will change the Pentium socket or your bus speed will not be compatible with the latest processors so there is a limit to how much you can upgrade. FYI, you can upgrade the processors on some of the towers and a company called Sonnet produces processor upgrade cards for older Macs. Of course this is largely a non-issue for laptops.
Besides, you can get all this from Dell for at least $150 cheaper, and it will be faster and they will have better service.
All "what" and cheaper than what? As for better service, there seem to be a lot of people in this thread who think that "better service" is arguable. But in all honestly, I've never had to use Apple's customer service for any of my Macs so I suppose Apple's service could be awful but I tend to think that not having to use service in the first place is the best scenario, is it not?
Dell notebooks start at $799, so by the time you get $300 more, you have a pretty nice notebook. I will admit IBM is a little higher, but they will negotiate. I called them and talked them down between $250-400 or so. Will Apple negotiate?
I've priced Dell laptops and by the time I add in sufficient memory to support XP, upgrade to XP Pro, etc. I'm usually at around $1,500 to $2,000 before I get a laptop that I'd want to buy. The $799 Dell laptop will likely get 2-3 hours of battery life, have no Firewire (very useful with the iPod), a Celeron Processor, and have a far flimsier case (judging by the higher-end Dell laptop that we have at work) than an iBook.
As for Apple negotiating, no, it won't. Some of its retail vendors might negotiate on extras. Of course I also think it is pretty silly to have to haggle to get the lowest price.
First, they still make the laptop I looked at. They've put a higher megahertz chip in there, but its still the same. Second, I have been buying Apple products since I was 16 years old. This latest issue is only one in a string of issues I've had with them.
The 15" Titanium PowerBook (the "TiBook") is no longer being made. Apple replaced it with an all new 15" aluminum cased PowerBook that fits between the 12" and 17" PowerBooks released a while ago. There may still be some in the retail channel but you will not find them for sale at Apple. I don't think the TiBook was a good deal. The 12" and new 15" PowerBooks, on the other hand, are.
First, you made the erroneous assumption I was looking at an early version of OSX, and second, I bash Microsoft repeatedly. I'd love to get rid of MS stuff completely. I hate that company. Why in the hell do you think I was looking at Apple in the first place? Office XP didn't fix the Word bugs that have been present since prior to 97, and Office 97, IMO, is just as good workability wise with fewer annoying features as XP.
What bugs are those? I'm curious if the Mac version of Office has the same bugs.
You want me to bash Microsoft? Dude, sit back and grab a cup of coffee and listen to me unleash. This is the perfect example of why I don't think Apple is that great of a company and why I detest Mac true believers: you always think that even if an Apple product is bad, as long as someone else's is worse, then you've vindicated yourself in telling others they are idiots for not buying Apple products. All of Microsofts failings don't mean that Apple products are any good.
In my case, not at all. I went back to Macs after using Linux as my primary desktop machine for years. With OSX, I get all the benefits I got from Linux with the ability to run commercial software like MS Office, the best of both worlds. And all during this time I've been using various Windows machines at work and I haven't been impressed enough to be persuaded to switch in that direction. I've entertained the idea of buying a Dell (or other PC) laptop largely to run Linux and to have a Windows machine to play around with but every time I price one out, I can't help but thinking I'd rather spend the money on a PowerBook. Macs do what I need them to do, especially now that they run a form of BSD Unix.
This is the problem: buy my product because the other product sucks. Never mind that mine might suck as well, just in different ways or not as bad.
Oh, there are plenty of positive reasons to buy a Mac. Hardware quality is a big one. The built-in software for email, music, digital images, etc. are another. If you want me to get more technical about the ability to change network settings on the fly or to tinker with Unix-based tools, I can. Indeed, I convinced a Solaris system administrator friend to buy an iBook.
First, you're talking servers, not desktop where the vast majority of the real work gets done. Second, I haven't missed anything. If I wanted Unix based equipment, I could have started using Linux (seems like) decades ago. Third, except for music and artistic professions, the Mac is not marketed toward the professional, but the popular culture nut. This is why Apple works so hard to get their machines on movies and TV shows. Real computer gurus aren't going to buy a product because they saw it used on "24."
"Real computer gurus" buy what they know because they are out of a job if they buy something they don't know. Don't get me started on the awful disconnect between what "real computer gurus" recommend and the best tool for the job.
It's even stupider to buy a machine because it looks "beautiful." Yet if you read some promos on Apple's and other websites that discuss the Mac, you can't miss something like this.
For a home machine, that can be a legitimate issue but I agree that it is a silly reason to buy a computer. I would say, however, that an attractive user interface can be a usability issue.
Marketing has nothing to do with why I didn't buy the machine. I'll probably purchase an Ipod before the end of the year because I think that's a pretty decent product. Overpriced, but decent. The marketing style issues I've brought up speak only to why I always hesitate to do business with Apple.
Apple's marketing is sometimes incredibly awful. That has no bearing on the quality or usability of Macs. Similarly, some Macs have been awful (the 25 Mhz PowerPC Performa that I bought that made me, at the time, think that I'd never buy another Apple computer, for example) and some have been mediocre (I'd put the TiBook in this category). Apple is not perfect but some of their current machines are quite impressive in my opinion.
I've bought some pretty sh*tty Apple products over the years from a Newton to a Performa. At least I suckered someone into paying me $75 for the Newton. I had a hell of a time just giving away the Performa. Yet I sold two other used laptops that, like the Performa, had serious upgrade limitations and got some money out of them.
Yes, Apple has produced some pretty awful products. The Performa that I have is one of the worse computers I have ever owned but it still boot and I was able to lend it to my Aunt to use as a word processor. But starting with the iMacs and iBooks, Apple started to get low-cost computers right and their laptops are good enough to put them in the Top 5 despite having a fairly small share of the overall OS market.
As I've said, Macs aren't for everyone. But for home users looking for a no-nonsense machine that's pretty easy to use, they are an option that should be looked at. Similarly, for Unix or Linux system administrators looking for a laptop that integrates well with a Unix network, iBooks and PowerBooks should be considered. I've read reports of large numbers of iBooks appearing at Linux conferences. If you want a game machine, need to run Windows-only software, have a specific performance need that a Wintel machine fits better, or really like Windows then, well, buy a Windows machine. I'm not trying to force people to use a computer they won't like. The last thing Macs need is unhappy users. But I similarly don't think people should feel forced to use Windows machines, especially if they are having a bad experience with them.
Please show me the price of a Dell with comparable features that costs half as much as an $800 eMac or an $1,100 iBook.
According to the Apple store, an 933mhz iBook with 14" screen, 40 gig HD and CDRW drive costs $1,299.
A comparable Dell laptop costs $803, comparably equipped. Not quite half, but if you peruse the bargain hunter web sites, you can often find this laptop under $700.
The $799 eMac -- comparable Dell desktop is $449.
A comparable Dell laptop costs $803, comparably equipped.
What do you consider comparable? Does the Dell laptop have a Firewire port? Can it play DVDs as well as read and write CDs? Can you get 4-6 hours of use out of the battery? Does it have a built-in Wireless networking antenna? ATI Mobility Radeon graphics? Is the case as solid as the iBook (my experience with Dell laptops suggests that the answer is "no")? And try pricing it at an Apple retailer, that usually throws in some freebies such as memory. Price a Dell laptop with the Firewire, 4-6 hours of battery life, a built-in wireless antenna, and a better graphics card and tell me what price you come up with. Better yet, price me a Dell laptop with a 12" display and compare with the 12" iBook.
Not quite half, but if you peruse the bargain hunter web sites, you can often find this laptop under $700.
New?
The $799 eMac -- comparable Dell desktop is $449.
Does that Dell destop have a 17" 1280X960 display, 5 USB and 2 Firewire ports, Wireless networking antenna, a DVD-CDRW drive, or an ATI Radeon video card?
"Comparable" does not mean price comparing the cheapest PC with the cheapest Mac. Can you buy a cheaper PC cheaper than the cheapest Mac? Sure. And I can buy a Hyundai for $9,999 while I can't get a Ford for less than about $13,000. Does that mean that Fords are overpriced? Would you personally buy a $9,999 Hyundai?
A comparable Dell laptop costs $803, comparably equipped.
What do you consider comparable? Does the Dell laptop have a Firewire port?
No, but it has High Speed USB2 ports. There are several times more USB devices than firewire.
Can it play DVDs as well as read and write CDs?
YES
Can you get 4-6 hours of use out of the battery?
Does it have a built-in Wireless networking antenna?
Add $49, if you need it
ATI Mobility Radeon graphics?
It has the integrated Intel 845G graphics processor
Is the case as solid as the iBook (my experience with Dell laptops suggests that the answer is "no")?
My parents just bought one, replacing a 4 yr old high end Compaq notebook. That one feels just as "solid" as any I've used. Dell always receives accolades on its notebook lines, this one is no exception:
From Zdnet.com:Dell's mainstream Inspiron 1100 is the cheapest notebook in the newly redesigned Inspiron family, but it's by no means the runt. In CNET Labs' tests, the system displayed the fastest performance and the longest battery life among its Celeron-based competitors. The sub-$800 price is also impressive. Of course, you can't expect everything from a laptop this cheap. The Inspiron 1100 lacks perks, such as integrated wireless. But all things considered, the Inspiron 1100 is one of the best mainstream notebooks on the market.
And try pricing it at an Apple retailer, that usually throws in some freebies such as memory. Price a Dell laptop with the Firewire, 4-6 hours of battery life, a built-in wireless antenna, and a better graphics card and tell me what price you come up with. Better yet, price me a Dell laptop with a 12" display and compare with the 12" iBook.
Dell's highest performing notebook, the Inspiron 8500, can be had at $1,249. Dell's value notebook - the Inspiron 1100, starts at $699.
I can't understand why one would want to punish oneself with a 12" 1024x768 display. A 14" screen at that resolution is small - with a 15" being best.
Not quite half, but if you peruse the bargain hunter web sites, you can often find this laptop under $700.
New?
YES
The $799 eMac -- comparable Dell desktop is $449.
Does that Dell destop have a 17" 1280X960 display, 5 USB and 2 Firewire ports, Wireless networking antenna, a DVD-CDRW drive, or an ATI Radeon video card?
I'm comparing Apple's low end machine to Dell's low end machine. Dell has 5 desktop models, all of which can be configured to meet your needs. All of which will end up being 20-40% lower in price than a identically equipped Apple.
"Comparable" does not mean price comparing the cheapest PC with the cheapest Mac. Can you buy a cheaper PC cheaper than the cheapest Mac? Sure. And I can buy a Hyundai for $9,999 while I can't get a Ford for less than about $13,000. Does that mean that Fords are overpriced? Would you personally buy a $9,999 Hyundai?
Well, given the woes Ford has had with the Focus, I might just consider the Hyundai, which has a higher reliability rating.
Apple computers are good for "creative" professionals. But for the other 95% of us, Windows-based computers are a better choice. Up until the release of WindowsXP, I would have said that an Apple would have been better for someone unfamiliar with computers. Not now though - Windows XP is reliable and easy to use, not to mention cheap.
Another important issue is service. What happens, years down the road, after your warranty has expired, when, say your desktop CD-RW expires? With an Apple, you are bound to their brand (read EXPENSIVE). With a Dell, which uses industry-standard components, you can go to any electronics store and pick up a replacement.
And most important of all is software. Apple has a market share of around 3%. What software maker in their right mind would spend the extra effort to port to Apple? The answer is virtually none.
It depends on what you are looking for. The iBook also has high speed USB2 ports but the Firewire port provides additional options.
I asked, "Can it play DVDs as well as read and write CDs?"
YES
If you buy the base model and don't customize it.
I asked, "Can you get 4-6 hours of use out of the battery?"
YES
That's not what Dell's technical information says. Dell rates their 1100 battery at "up to 3.5 hours". Apple rates the iBook's battery at "up to 6 hours". In use, reviews say that the Dells last about 2.5 hours. In use, my older iBook has lasted about 5.
Does it have a built-in Wireless networking antenna?
Add $49, if you need it
Antenna, not card. The cards have a small antenna with mediocre reception. Having a wireless antenna built in to the laptop helps the range quite a bit. The iBook has one of the best reception ranges of any laptop because of its antenna.
I asked, "ATI Mobility Radeon graphics?"
It has the integrated Intel 845G graphics processor
And the higher-end Dells switch over to either ATI or nVidia chipset for a reason. Let's put it this way, how much dedicated memory does that integrated graphics processor have to work with?
My parents just bought one, replacing a 4 yr old high end Compaq notebook. That one feels just as "solid" as any I've used. Dell always receives accolades on its notebook lines, this one is no exception:
Of course Dell laptops are not junk when compared to other PC laptops. If I ever get around to buying a PC laptop, it will likely be a Dell, Fujitsu, Toshiba, or IBM. But I'm comparing it to the construction of the iBook which has a polycarbonate plastic shell over a magnesium frame. How would you expect your Dell to fare if it dropped 4 feet or so onto the floor? Would you carry it around in a plain canvas bag with no padding? Perhaps you should consider why Apple makes up 3% of computer sales yet 7% of laptop sales in the US.
Dell's highest performing notebook, the Inspiron 8500, can be had at $1,249. Dell's value notebook - the Inspiron 1100, starts at $699.
Yes. And if you are happy for what you'll get for that, then by all means buy one. I'm sure that some of them are very nice laptops.
I can't understand why one would want to punish oneself with a 12" 1024x768 display. A 14" screen at that resolution is small - with a 15" being best.
Do you take airline flights with your laptop? Do you actually carry it around with you a lot? There is a reason why Dell's laptop listed as "Ultra Mobile" has a 12" display.
I'm comparing Apple's low end machine to Dell's low end machine. Dell has 5 desktop models, all of which can be configured to meet your needs. All of which will end up being 20-40% lower in price than a identically equipped Apple.
Comparing Apples low end machine to Dell's low end machine is not comparing comparable machines any more than comparing Volkwagen's low end model and Hyundai's low end model is not comparing comparable cars.
Well, given the woes Ford has had with the Focus, I might just consider the Hyundai, which has a higher reliability rating.
How about a Volkswagen? The cheapest VW is about $15,000. Is it fair to compare a $15,000 Golf with a $9,999 Hyundai?
Apple computers are good for "creative" professionals.
Apple is good for a lot of people. I'm a web developer and a Solaris and Linux system administrator.
But for the other 95% of us, Windows-based computers are a better choice.
That depends on what you value. My wife and I bought her mother a low end HP PC a few years ago so she could get on line. It's dead, Jim. We are thinking about bringing her an iMac that we bought before we bought her the HP because that's still going strong. For people who want to read email and surf the web, they need a reliable computer that won't get hosed by viruses and are easy to use. Macs fit that market very well.
Up until the release of WindowsXP, I would have said that an Apple would have been better for someone unfamiliar with computers. Not now though - Windows XP is reliable and easy to use, not to mention cheap.
If you want XP Pro, which I would want, it adds more to the cost of a PC. And if I bought a PC, I'd also feel obliged to buy anti-virus software and a personal firewall. I run neither on my iBook. As for Windows XP, some people love it and others hate it. I tend to find it more difficult to use than Windows 2000, which is actually pretty good. One other thing to consider is that since Apple controls both the hardware and software, hardware compatibility problems are rare with Macs. I still see them on PCs.
Another important issue is service. What happens, years down the road, after your warranty has expired, when, say your desktop CD-RW expires?
I can't say. I haven't had that problem. The only Apple failure I've ever had to deal with was a power supply on a Mac Plus years ago. Do you often find yourself replacing components on your PCs because they fail?
With an Apple, you are bound to their brand (read EXPENSIVE). With a Dell, which uses industry-standard components, you can go to any electronics store and pick up a replacement.
Not true at all. The new Apples are IDE-based and you can find instructions for putting a Pioneer DVD-CDRW drive into an eMac here, for example. This is how Apple has lowered their costs.
And most important of all is software. Apple has a market share of around 3%. What software maker in their right mind would spend the extra effort to port to Apple? The answer is virtually none.
First, let's define the target audience. The basic home user that uses their computer to surf the web, read mail, and write some letters is not going to have software problems. Apple OSX comes not only with Apple's easy to use Safari browser but also Internet Explorer. It also comes with an easy to use email client and the basic home machines come with AppleWorks which is on par with the other "Works" packages that come with low-end PCs.
Second, quite a few software makers do port to Apple, include Microsoft. I've got Microsoft Office on my iBook. I've got some graphics software (almost all major graphics packages have Mac ports for obvious reasons). What else do I need? Games? OK. You got me there. The Mac isn't a great game machine. Only the biggest game titles (e.g., Sims, Civilization, Warcraft, etc.) generally get ported to the Mac. But you need to realize that Mac users actually buy a much higher percentage of the software produced for the Mac so that Microsoft actually makes quite a big of money selling their Office OSX port because people aren't simply stealing their copies of Office from work to load on their home PCs.
Third, if you really want to talk about software and want to consider power users, lets talk about Unix and open source software. Is an X Windows server included in Windows XP? Can you easily compile and run most of the software written for Linux? Does XP come with a compiler? Can it run PostgreSQL without the Cygwin Unix layer?
Finally, I've seen the mass of software titles available for the PC and the vast majority of them are garbage that I would never purchase or use. Quantity is meaningless if you never use it. Do you really need an office suite other than Microsoft Office? Or if you are happy with a simple works suite, do you really need another one? Do you really need 400 versions of Solitaire or a thousand first-person shoot-em-ups? The best software gets ported to the Mac and Mac users rarely have the experience of wishing that they had Windows to run some piece of Windows only software, with the possible exception of games. And if you do hit such a point, there is always Virtual PC that lets you run XP on your Mac.
On point three, you are probably saying, "I don't need that stuff." Well, I do, yet I don't need to play Counter Strike. So what's the better computer for me?
I'm not saying that Macs are best for everyone. What I am saying is that PCs are not best for everyone, either, and the people that Macs are best for is not limited to graphic artists. If some of the benefits that Macs provide don't mean anything to you, then they aren't worth it. And if you really need to do something that only Windows can do, then buy a Windows machine. But Macs are good for normal home users, especially if they are unhappy with their Windows experience, and they are great for Unix and Linux types as well as graphic artists. Are they for everyone? No. But they aren't just for graphic artists, either.
Finally, my point is that if you compare actual features to features and not just low end to low end, the Macs are comparably priced with quality PCs. Depending on the precise scenario and Dell's discount du jour, the Dell might be 10% or 20% cheaper, or not, but that's hardly "twice the price".
However, I refuse to overspend on machines. Computer technology advances on such a rapid pace, whatever you buy today quickly becomes worthless. I'd rather lose 50% of value on a $800 laptop versus 50% of value on a $1,200 laptop.
I'm also a web developer/software engineer. My company buys new workstations for us every 2 years, and spends well over $5,000 to buy top of the line Dell workstations. My "old" machine, a dual processor P3-1ghz, cost $5000 two years ago. The latest machine I bought, a refurbished Dimension 2400 (Celeron 2.2ghz), which I paid $215 for, plus $30 for a memory upgrade to 512mb, is faster than than my old $5,000 Dell. My new work PC (Dual 2.8 Zeon, 1 gig RAM, 15k rpm SCSI, etc) is pretty darn fast, but not worth the price.
My personal strategy is to upgrade my main PC every year or so. I'll buy a new desktop from Dell, and sell my old one on Ebay. Typically, I'll buy the third-fastest processor available at the time, which seems to be the most cost effective. It ends up costing me no more than $200 per year to keep up to date with new machines. I suggest this strategy to all my friends and relatives. Take this approach with the Dell laptop we've been discussing. Buy a lower end model, with only the features you need at the moment. Pay $800. A year from now, the low end Dell laptop will have stuff like wireless networking as standard equipment, have faster processors, more memory, disk space, etc., and likely will be cheaper. Buy this new one a year from now, faster, lighter and have more equipment, for $750. Sell your old one for $500.
Best approach is to find the real super deals - like the upcoming sales day after Thanksgiving, where Bestbuy is supposed to be selling a 2.4ghz Toshiba Laptop for $599 after rebate. Machines like that will end up costing you ~$100-$150 for a year of use.
Bottom line - due to the incredibly competitive market for Windows PC's, you can get some great deals. That competitive market doesn't exist for Apple - thus you overpay.
Dell Small Business has Dimension 2400 P4-2.53Ghz 128MB/40GB, Free Wireless Keyboard/mouse, Free 48x CDRW, Dell 17" e171fp LCD $899 - $200 rebate = $699 shipped free. Tax is charged.
Click Outrageous Deal in the middle left area, Customize it on left config, Select ISP
You can't touch a configuration like this with Apple for under $1500. Specials like this are weekly occurances. Cripe, just an Apple 17" LCD monitor alone costs $699.
Besides the fact that I'd at last upgrade to XP Pro for $70 and would upgrade the memory (of course I'd do that for a Mac, too), that's certainly a great price. Unfortunately, I really want a laptop and not a desktop. If I get a desktop PC, I'll probably build it like I did my last one.
You can't touch a configuration like this with Apple for under $1500.
I would consider the $799 eMac roughly comparable. Yes, it has a flat CRT and not a true LCD but it has the same resolution and the eMac gives you a DVD drive and more I/O ports in exchange. There is also the video card issue, the wireless antenna issue, etc. Yes, the LCD iMacs are substantially more expensive but this computer would also be more expensive if you added in all the things that the Macs provide. If you really want a 17" LCD desktop though, you are corect that you'll be spending about $1,500 or $1,600 on a Mac, though you can get 15" iMacs for as low as $1,100 right now. Again, I'm not saying that you can't get a cheaper Dell and that's certainly a dirt-cheap price for a server with a 17" LCD display.
But is this Dell half the price of a "comparable" Mac? That's going to depend on whether you consider an iMac with 768Mb RAM, an nVidia GeForce4 MX graphics card with 64Mb dedicated RAM, an 80MB drive, DVD-R/CD-RW drive, 3 USB/2 Firewire ports, and 802.11g wireless antenna is "comparable" to the $699 Dell. If you don't care about the differences, then the Dell is certainly a much better deal. Apple doesn't produce a machine with the same features so it is difficult to know what an Apple that exactly matches the Dell would cost and quality is certainly an intangible factor that we can't easily quantify.
The reason that Apples used to be so much more expensive was very high profit margins and custom or high-end components (Macs used to all be SCSI). Apple has lowered their margins and uses more standard PC components (e.g., IDE drives), thus their prices are not as outrageous, for the features, as they used to be. What people need to realize when they ask, "How can Apple possibly be as cheap as a PC vendor who sells so many more units?" is that Apple and the PC vendor are now often using many of the same commodity components from the same vendors.
Specials like this are weekly occurances.
And I've found that to get the best price for a specific set of features, you need to watch the Dell site like a fisherman watches the tides. I don't necessarily consider that a good thing. How many consumers are going to look on the small business site? And how many want to wait weeks for the "perfect storm" of discounts and rebates before they buy? I came very close to buying a laptop from Dell at one point but then the tide turned against me long enough that I reconsidered the purchase.
Cripe, just an Apple 17" LCD monitor alone costs $699.
I wouldn't buy an Apple LCD. There are cheaper third-party options that would work just fine. The cheapest Apple LCDs are build in to the laptops and the iMacs. Their external LCD is meant to be graphic artist quality and is thus priced up there with high-end monitors from other vendors. If you want a cheap LCD for a G5 Tower, you can certainly find cheaper third-party options.
By the way, I'm not making an issue out of the wireless networking antennas and Firewire for nothing. I use these features in my current iBook.
... better rethink your terminology, don't want to offend anyone, do we?
For a home user, reliability may be more important than the cheapest cost. Others may have the other priority. The average home user is not going to want to swap computers every year.
However, I refuse to overspend on machines. Computer technology advances on such a rapid pace, whatever you buy today quickly becomes worthless. I'd rather lose 50% of value on a $800 laptop versus 50% of value on a $1,200 laptop.
"Overspend" is a pretty subjective term and I don't find my Macs becomming obsolete nearly as quickly as PCs seem to. And since I don't resell my computers, I'm not all that concerned about depreciation. There is also the issue of meeting a minimum level of features and usability before I'm willing to spend $800, let alone $1,200. A PC laptop that I'd want to own would cost in the $1,500 to $2,000 price range. If I settled for less than what I want, I'm looking at about $1,300, minimum. I need wireless. I need XP Pro. I need extra memory. Etc.
I'm also a web developer/software engineer. My company buys new workstations for us every 2 years, and spends well over $5,000 to buy top of the line Dell workstations. My "old" machine, a dual processor P3-1ghz, cost $5000 two years ago. The latest machine I bought, a refurbished Dimension 2400 (Celeron 2.2ghz), which I paid $215 for, plus $30 for a memory upgrade to 512mb, is faster than than my old $5,000 Dell. My new work PC (Dual 2.8 Zeon, 1 gig RAM, 15k rpm SCSI, etc) is pretty darn fast, but not worth the price.
I don't tend to buy top-of-the-line, either. I can't imagine spending more than $2,000 for a desktop computer. Servers belong in a rack with multiple users, not sitting on my desktop.
My personal strategy is to upgrade my main PC every year or so. I'll buy a new desktop from Dell, and sell my old one on Ebay. Typically, I'll buy the third-fastest processor available at the time, which seems to be the most cost effective. It ends up costing me no more than $200 per year to keep up to date with new machines.
How many cycles have you done this? How much of a hassle is it to move and wipe everything?
I suggest this strategy to all my friends and relatives. Take this approach with the Dell laptop we've been discussing. Buy a lower end model, with only the features you need at the moment. Pay $800.
The features I really need at the moment would run me at least $1,300.
A year from now, the low end Dell laptop will have stuff like wireless networking as standard equipment, have faster processors, more memory, disk space, etc., and likely will be cheaper. Buy this new one a year from now, faster, lighter and have more equipment, for $750. Sell your old one for $500.
But I'm using wireless networking now. And have been for over two years. I'm also not sure that an $800 laptop will depreciate to only $500, especially if new and better laptops drop to $750. The depreciation on eBay seems a bit larger than even 50% for some models after about a year.
Best approach is to find the real super deals - like the upcoming sales day after Thanksgiving, where Bestbuy is supposed to be selling a 2.4ghz Toshiba Laptop for $599 after rebate. Machines like that will end up costing you ~$100-$150 for a year of use.
Is this a "while supplies last" sale? Might be worth looking at, though. The problem with Best Buy is that they tend to sell XP Home machines only and I want XP Pro. Adding that later is more expensive.
Bottom line - due to the incredibly competitive market for Windows PC's, you can get some great deals. That competitive market doesn't exist for Apple - thus you overpay.
But you are missing the point that (A) Apple does have to compete to some degree with the Windows PC market in terms of price and (B) all vendors are using a lot of the same components thus Apple benefits just as much as Dell does from the lower cost of a DVD-R/CD-RW drive or a memory chip. Dell's primary advantage is volume but with commodity components, that's only so much of an advantage. And with laptops, there is only so much cutting that can be done, which is why Apple laptops are more competative than their desktops. Apple is the #5 vendor of laptops in the US, behind Dell, HP, Toshiba, and IBM and it's sales figures are not that far off either Toshiba or IBM. But the bottom line is that Apple started paying attention to the cost of components with its Performa line and really took costs seriously by the time they released the iMac, which uses IDE drives and more standard components. The current Macs are not incredibly more expensive because Apple isn't maintaining a huge profit margin and Apple is no longer using very expensive components. The higher cost of Macs is due, in large part, to quality and features at this point.
If you don't care about higher quality and don't need the extra features, then yes the Dell is a better deal. But the key point I'm trying to make is that Macs are not the twice or three times more expensive machines that they once were. You can buy affordable Macs. And if your PC experience is bad and your PC hardware reliability is bad and if that's a problem for you, a Mac might be an improvement. But if you've got other priorities, then buy whatever works best for you.
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