Macs and Their Prices

Note: This isn’t a guide to evangelize and convert people from Windows to Mac OS X. It’s a guide to give people options. If you’re happy with what you’ve got, great! But if you’re interested in alternatives read on.

After my first article on Macs and OS X, there were several readers who just down right bashed Macs for pricing and OS X without solid reasoning or legitimate hand’s on experience of Macs. So this is a follow-up.

Let’s get straight to the point. Tom’s Hardware isn’t about being a "PC fanboy." It’s about finding the best hardware, revealing up and coming tech and debunking predetermined notions. That begs the question, especially here: what’s so special about a Mac anyway?

Here’s the short answer: nothing really, just some very elegant aluminum chassis designs. The key, is the operating system. Even still, let’s settle this issue about price.

In a recent comment, someone came up with an analogy that a Mac isn’t really a BMW, but rather a Hyundai dressed up in a nice exterior. One problem: Hyundai’s don’t have nice European car exteriors. And to generalize it this way shows the lack of willing to understand the core of the Mac: it’s operating system. Because that’s really what it’s about. But for the sake of these first few pages, let’s leave Mac OS X out of the picture for now. Let’s just see where Apple comes in on hardware.

In terms of hardware, there’s nothing really special about a Mac aside from elegant designs, be it a Mac Pro or MacBook Pro, that makes it incredibly more worthwhile than the PC equivalent. And there’s no doubt that you can get an equally equipped PC, or build one yourself, for less money. In fact, I mentioned this in my previous article, although some people seemed to have completely missed the page where I complained about Apple’s outrageous prices altogether. However, building a PC to do the same isn’t the point, because you can always buy a cheaper car to get you from A to B. Instead, let’s see what you can get for $2000, from Apple and from others. For $2000, do you really get much less?

Let’s take a quick look at some of Apple’s competition and their pricing structure compared to Apple’s:

We went to Dell’s website and picked out what Dell indicated was a serious gaming laptop. We also took the XPS model that was priced the same as the baseline MacBook Pro. Let’s take a look at the results.

$1999 MacBook Pro $1999 Dell XPS M1730 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo 2 GB of RAM 2 GB of Shared RAM NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT with 256 MB NVIDIA GeForce 8700M GT with Shared MB 200 GB HDD 200 GB HDD 15.4-inch LED LCD 17-inch LCD 1440x900 1920x1200 Dual-Layer DVD Burner Dual-Layer DVD Burner 802.11n Wi-Fi 802.11g Wi-Fi Bluetooth Built in Webcam Built in Webcam Backlit KB with Ambient Sensor Optical Audio Output/Input SPDIF through Dongle Dual-Link DVI Output Dual-Link DVI Output Remote MagSafe Power Standard female/male Jack 5.4 lbs 10.6 lbs 1 inch thick 2 inch thick

For the most part, the two systems are comparable, indicating that at least for a laptop, Apple’s pricing fits in line with comparable hardware. Certain things like shared memory for graphics leave some performance desires for the XPS, but the XPS has a strong leg up on the MacBook Pro with the larger screen size.

Apple’s MacBook Pro has several small advantages over the XPS, mainly with the MagSafe connector and it’s nearly take-for-granted use. I have seen several incidences where people have tripped over or through someone else’s MacBook Pro power cord and the MagSafe design literally saved the laptops from flying.

The biggest differences are the screen size, weight, thickness, and shared memory. For absolute performance, the screen size won’t matter here, but the slow shared graphics memory on the XPS will. For a laptop that Dell indicates is a gaming machine, shared memory is a disappointment, as graphics is an important area for 3D gaming.

For another comparison, let’s look at the MacBook Air to VoodooPC’s Envy 133:

$1799 MacBook Air $2099 Envy 133 1.6 GHz Core 2 Duo 1.6 GHz Core 2 Duo 2 GB of Shared RAM 2 GB of Shared RAM Intel GMA X3100 Shared RAM Intel GMA X3100 Shared RAM 80 GB ATA HDD 80 GB HDD 13.3-inch LED LCD 13.3-inch LCD 1280x800 1280x800 External eSATA Super Multi Drive 802.11n Wi-Fi 802.11n Wi-Fi Bluetooth Bluetooth Built in Webcam Built in Webcam Backlit KB with Ambient Sensor Backlit KB with Ambient Sensor DVI Output HDMI MagSafe Power Standard female/male Jack 3.0 lbs 3.37 lbs (with SSD) 0.16 to 0.75 inch thick 0.70 inch thick iLife ’08 Suite No software package

At this point, the Envy is $300 more expensive than the MacBook Air. Although the Envy 133 does include an external optical drive, tacking on Apple’s quite expensive $99 MacBook Air SuperDrive to the purchase of the MacBook Air still leaves a $200 gap.

Bottom line: Macs aren’t "way more" expensive than PCs. So where do things get really hairy with Apple? Upgrades. Apple really stabs you in the face when you’re upgrading your Mac. All goes well when you want to buy a base system, but as soon as you want to add options, be prepared to be murdered. I’ll talk about this later.

Let’s take a look at desktops.