[+Dark+]

So...

I was really bored tonight, and decided to price a laptop equivalent (as much as I can) to my MacBook (White).

I decided to go to Dell since they have good options when it comes to customization, and because they have a 13" notebook like mine. Here is what I built.

• SYSTEM COLOR: Alpine White
  
• PROCESSOR: Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T7250 (2.0GHz/800Mhz FSB, 2MB Cache)
  
• OPERATING SYSTEM: Genuine Windows Vista® Ultimate Edition
  
• LCD AND CAMERA: Standard Display with 2.0 Megapixel Webcam
  
• MEMORY: 2GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz
  
• HARD DRIVE: Size: 250GB SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM)
  
• INTERNAL OPTICAL DRIVE: CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW Drive)
  
• VIDEO CARD: Intel® Integrated Graphics Media Accelerator X3100
  
• WIRELESS CARDS: Intel Next-Gen Wireless-N Mini-card
  
• BLUETOOTH AND WIRELESS USB: Built-in Bluetooth capability (2.0 EDR)
  
• BATTERY OPTIONS: 85Whr Lithium Ion Battery (9 cell)
  
• SOUND OPTIONS: High Definition Audio 2.0
  
• FINGERPRINT SCANNER: No Fingerprint Reader

Not a bad little system eh? Price? $1,862.
What did my MacBook cost me? $1,349.

This is also amusing because my MacBook came with WAYYYY more software than what this Dell comes with, and it didn't cost me any extra. Dell's extra stuff costs extra money, which is why I didn't add it and took off the "pre-selected" stuff that Dell recommends.

I'm not making this comparison to show Apple is better or anything like that. Not at all. I only posted this because I often read users saying Apple products are "overpriced" compared to their PC counter-parts. I just found out first hand, this is not the case (at least with the MacBook). That's why I posted it. I found it interesting.

[David]

Well yeah, because you configured the Dell with more than what the MacBook comes with O_o

Here's with the same specs:

Quote

Components
PROCESSOR: Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T7250 (2MB cache/2.0GHz/800Mhz FSB), English
OPERATING SYSTEM: Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium Edition, English
SYSTEM COLOUR: Alpine White
LCD AND CAMERA: Standard Display with 2.0 Megapixel Webcam
MEMORY: 1GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz
HARD DRIVE: 120GB SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM)
GRAPHICS CARD: Intel® Integrated Graphics Media Accelerator 3100
OPTICAL DRIVE: 8X CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW Drive)
WIRELESS CARD: Dell Wireless 1505 Wireless-N Mini-card
BLUETOOTH: Built-in Bluetooth capability (2.0 EDR)
BATTERY OPTIONS: 56Whr Lithium Ion Battery (6 cell)
SOUND OPTIONS: High Definition Audio 2.0

Total: $1,189 CAD

Apple makes great systems and I love my MacBook, but I'd be lying if I said they weren't overpriced.

[Ishan]

even though a macbook comes with 1 gb ram i bought more gb for less that $40 so yeah its not badly priced at all.

[Willy]

Dark, don't try to justify your purchase with what you bought. Most apple products are overpriced and that is a fact, it's just the subjective theory of value.

[TheWahbinator]

ok so here's an MBP comparison to the base $2k model

Quote

XPS M1530 troll edition

SYSTEM COLOR Tuxedo Black
PROCESSOR Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T7500 (2.2GHz/800Mhz FSB, 4MB Cache)
OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium Edition
LCD AND CAMERA High Resolution, glossy widescreen 15.4 inch LCD(1440x900) & 2MP Camera
MEMORY 2GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz (2 Dimms)
HARD DRIVE Size: 320GB 5400rpm SATA Hard Drive
INTERNAL OPTICAL DRIVE Slot Load DVD+/-RW (DVD/CD read/write)
VIDEO CARD 256MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 8600M GT
WIRELESS CARDS Intel Next-Gen Wireless-N Mini-card
BLUETOOTH AND WIRELESS USB Dell Wireless 355 Bluetooth Internal (2.0+Enhanced Data Rate)
BATTERY OPTIONS 56 WHr 6-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery
SOUND OPTIONS Integrated Sound Blaster Audigy HD Software Edition

Subtotal $1,654

And if you complain that's with a $500 rebate, look at the hard drive space, more than any Apple notebook will ever have, BOOM.

[Aeden]

Obviously the markup is because of the MagSafe connector. Duh .

[Purple Puppy]

I think that Macbooks, Mac Pros, and iMacs are not overpriced. However, the Macbook Pro is overpriced, and the Mac Mini is underpowered. Hopefully Apple will update the Macbook Pro very soon. I think that the Macbook Air is competitively priced. At this point in time solid state drives etc are still extremely expensive (even the PC ones), so there is nothing wrong with the $999 upgrade to 64GB SSD.

I have a Macbook, and I love its reliability and function. I will soon buy a Mac Pro, because Windows computers with 8 cores are usually 20% more expensive (yes, I did a comparison with BOXX and HP)

I love Apple.

[+Dark+]

David, on Feb 13 2008, 09:04 PM, said:

Well yeah, because you configured the Dell with more than what the MacBook comes with O_o

I configured the Dell to what MY MacBook is and what MINE cost me. I wasn't comparing it to the base model.

And guys. I'm seeing your comparisons with low versions of Vista. You have to use Ultimate for the comparison because Apple is using the OS with all the features, so the Windows OS has to be the one with all the features.

At least thats how I feel.

TheWahbinator, on Feb 13 2008, 09:25 PM, said:

And if you complain that's with a $500 rebate, look at the hard drive space, more than any Apple notebook will ever have, BOOM.

...

You can replace the Apple stock Hard Drive with a 320GB drive, and very easily too. Apple doesn't offer a 320GB as an option(yet), but I personally would rather buy it off newegg anyway. Companies overcharge on things like RAM and hard drives.

[David]

+Dark+, on Feb 14 2008, 12:01 PM, said:

David, on Feb 13 2008, 09:04 PM, said:

Well yeah, because you configured the Dell with more than what the MacBook comes with O_o

I configured the Dell to what MY MacBook is and what MINE cost me. I wasn't comparing it to the base model.

And guys. I'm seeing your comparisons with low versions of Vista. You have to use Ultimate for the comparison because Apple is using the OS with all the features, so the Windows OS has to be the one with all the features.

At least thats how I feel.

I just configured a MacBook with the same specs as the Dell you configured in the first post and it came up to $1928 (That's with an extra battery thrown in because Apple doesn't offer 9-Cell batteries, unfortunately.)

Quote

TheWahbinator, on Feb 13 2008, 09:25 PM, said:

And if you complain that's with a $500 rebate, look at the hard drive space, more than any Apple notebook will ever have, BOOM.

...

You can replace the Apple stock Hard Drive with a 320GB drive, and very easily too. Apple doesn't offer a 320GB as an option(yet), but I personally would rather buy it off newegg anyway. Companies overcharge on things like RAM and hard drives.

Yes, but that argument can't be used here, because we're comparing prices direct from Apple and other PC manufacturers (in this case, Dell.)

[Zeros and Ones]

+Dark+, on Feb 14 2008, 01:54 AM, said:

So...

I was really bored tonight, and decided to price a laptop equivalent (as much as I can) to my MacBook (White).

I decided to go to Dell since they have good options when it comes to customization, and because they have a 13" notebook like mine. Here is what I built.

• SYSTEM COLOR: Alpine White
  
• PROCESSOR: Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T7250 (2.0GHz/800Mhz FSB, 2MB Cache)
  
• OPERATING SYSTEM: Genuine Windows Vista® Ultimate Edition
  
• LCD AND CAMERA: Standard Display with 2.0 Megapixel Webcam
  
• MEMORY: 2GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz
  
• HARD DRIVE: Size: 250GB SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM)
  
• INTERNAL OPTICAL DRIVE: CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW Drive)
  
• VIDEO CARD: Intel® Integrated Graphics Media Accelerator X3100
  
• WIRELESS CARDS: Intel Next-Gen Wireless-N Mini-card
  
• BLUETOOTH AND WIRELESS USB: Built-in Bluetooth capability (2.0 EDR)
  
• BATTERY OPTIONS: 85Whr Lithium Ion Battery (9 cell)
  
• SOUND OPTIONS: High Definition Audio 2.0
  
• FINGERPRINT SCANNER: No Fingerprint Reader

Not a bad little system eh? Price? $1,862.
What did my MacBook cost me? $1,349.

This is also amusing because my MacBook came with WAYYYY more software than what this Dell comes with, and it didn't cost me any extra. Dell's extra stuff costs extra money, which is why I didn't add it and took off the "pre-selected" stuff that Dell recommends.

I'm not making this comparison to show Apple is better or anything like that. Not at all. I only posted this because I often read users saying Apple products are "overpriced" compared to their PC counter-parts. I just found out first hand, this is not the case (at least with the MacBook). That's why I posted it. I found it interesting.

Do not see how you got:
$1,862 for the dell
$1,349 for the mac

when i am getting:
$1,694 for the pc
$1,549 for the mac

Never the less. I would still get a pc. Why? I was a big mac user before. Their notebook and desktops. One theme that was always re-occuring with me is that within a years use, both desktop and laptop would slow down to such a snails space that even re-formatting them wouldn't help. At least from my observation this still holds to be true today. My dad has gone through 2 desktops and my mom is on her fourth mac mini.

I guess other people have had a better experience, but mine was a terrible one and I will not be going back to apple anytime soon.

[laraAJ]

I don't wish to add any excess fuel to the fire, but I own a MacBook (Core2Duo, 2GB, 250GB) and it's absolutely fantastic. I run both Vista and OS X so I get the best of both worlds I've never had any issues with my laptop *touches wood* and it runs as fast as the day I got it.

[+Dark+]

Sean O'Sullivan (laraAJ), on Feb 14 2008, 03:06 PM, said:

I don't wish to add any excess fuel to the fire, but I own a MacBook (Core2Duo, 2GB, 250GB) and it's absolutely fantastic. I run both Vista and OS X so I get the best of both worlds I've never had any issues with my laptop *touches wood* and it runs as fast as the day I got it.

Mine too. I have now had mine for over a year, and it still runs just as fast as the day I opened it.

Zeros and Ones, on Feb 14 2008, 01:20 PM, said:

Never the less. I would still get a pc. Why? I was a big mac user before. Their notebook and desktops. One theme that was always re-occuring with me is that within a years use, both desktop and laptop would slow down to such a snails space that even re-formatting them wouldn't help. At least from my observation this still holds to be true today. My dad has gone through 2 desktops and my mom is on her fourth mac mini.

I guess other people have had a better experience, but mine was a terrible one and I will not be going back to apple anytime soon.

You should try using OnyX on your system. It is a good utility that when used regulary keeps your Mac running smooth. It contains tool and scripts that will clean-up logs, clear caches, clear forms, and lots of other stuff. It will also re-optimize the system. Good stuff. I use mine once ecery 2 weeks.

David, on Feb 14 2008, 12:58 PM, said:

That's with an extra battery thrown in because Apple doesn't offer 9-Cell batteries, unfortunately.

Yeah... I always did wonder why that is though.

[Zeros and Ones]

+Dark+, on Feb 14 2008, 08:37 PM, said:

You should try using OnyX on your system. It is a good utility that when used regulary keeps your Mac running smooth. It contains tool and scripts that will clean-up logs, clear caches, clear forms, and lots of other stuff. It will also re-optimize the system. Good stuff. I use mine once ecery 2 weeks.

I will give that a try on my moms mac mini and see how it goes. Thank you for the heads up on this peice of software

Sean O'Sullivan (laraAJ), on Feb 14 2008, 08:06 PM, said:

I don't wish to add any excess fuel to the fire, but I own a MacBook (Core2Duo, 2GB, 250GB) and it's absolutely fantastic. I run both Vista and OS X so I get the best of both worlds I've never had any issues with my laptop *touches wood* and it runs as fast as the day I got it.

No I do not think you are being rude or adding fuel to the fire. I appreciate your input and your experience that you are having with you mac and i wish you the best with your mac. I am glad to see that some people are having pleasant experiences with Macs. Thank you

[+Dark+]

Zeros and Ones, on Feb 14 2008, 09:52 PM, said:

I will give that a try on my moms mac mini and see how it goes. Thank you for the heads up on this peice of software

Not a problem.

[peacho]

Aeden, on Feb 13 2008, 10:39 PM, said:

Obviously the markup is because of the MagSafe connector. Duh .

Yes, because magnets are so ungodly expensive.

Purple Puppy, on Feb 14 2008, 12:07 AM, said:

I think that Macbooks, Mac Pros, and iMacs are not overpriced. However, the Macbook Pro is overpriced, and the Mac Mini is underpowered. Hopefully Apple will update the Macbook Pro very soon. I think that the Macbook Air is competitively priced. At this point in time solid state drives etc are still extremely expensive (even the PC ones), so there is nothing wrong with the $999 upgrade to 64GB SSD.

I agree, on all counts (for once). Though SSD drives are, I think, the same regardless of platform.

+Dark+, on Feb 14 2008, 12:01 PM, said:

You can replace the Apple stock Hard Drive with a 320GB drive, and very easily too. Apple doesn't offer a 320GB as an option(yet), but I personally would rather buy it off newegg anyway. Companies overcharge on things like RAM and hard drives.

Doesn't that explain the fact that Apple would overcharge? Besides, when you buy a hard drive off NewEgg you install it. How do you think technology companies make money? It's not like the parts are free or anything?