Apple takes a few shots at Windows during WWDC09

[Dark Nova Gamer]

I just compared the MacBook Pro 15" to a Dell Studio 15". I could find almost no Hardware specs on Apple's website, but compared what I could. Overall, the Dell is about $1000 for about the same Hardware.

~Lordbob

I was just comparing the MacBook Air (1.86GHz) Model with a Dell XPS 1330 and found that the MacBook Air is extremely overpriced compared to the Dell XPS 1330.

I mean I was able to get

Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.4GHz
6GB RAM
320GB HDD
128MB Graphics (not great but better then 64mb)

all for about $1.3k-ish

The MacBook Air has about

Intel Core 2 Duo @ 1.8Ghz
2GB RAM
120GB HDD
512? 256? 128mb? No clue but its a NVIDIA GeForce 9400M

for about $1.5k

=============================

Apple is just charging more for their name and because they make their products look pretty. They need to find a balance between pretty, good performance and cheap.

 

[jw12345]

I just compared the MacBook Pro 15" to a Dell Studio 15". I could find almost no Hardware specs on Apple's website, but compared what I could. Overall, the Dell is about $1000 for about the same Hardware.

~Lordbob

Did you click the tech specs link at the top? It gives you pretty much any info you could possibly want.

Although the Studio 15 is nice, it still can't compare to the MBP in battery life, thinness, and weight. Just the battery itself is amazing. You should check out the Anandtech reviews of the MBP. (OS X BTW gets ~25% more battery life than windows 7 on identical batteries and hardware) A lot of things are harder to measure, like screen quality and multitouch trackpads. I don't have the time to do a comparison of the two models right now, but when you adjust for all these things Apple excels at, the price difference is almost always 15-20%, and you get the Apple design. MS would like for us to believe Apple cost twice as much, but they never take into account features that Apple has that aren't purely speed related. Chassis construction, weight, screen, and battery life are arguably more important than CPU and graphics, and Apple tends to pour more money into the former than PC OEMs, but these sort of comparisons always neglect that. You get what you pay for usually.

On the other hand, Apple can be accused of not offering much variety.

 

[jw12345]

I was just comparing the MacBook Air (1.86GHz) Model with a Dell XPS 1330 and found that the MacBook Air is extremely overpriced compared to the Dell XPS 1330.

I mean I was able to get

Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.4GHz
6GB RAM
320GB HDD
128MB Graphics (not great but better then 64mb)

all for about $1.3k-ish

The MacBook Air has about

Intel Core 2 Duo @ 1.8Ghz
2GB RAM
120GB HDD
512? 256? 128mb? No clue but its a NVIDIA GeForce 9400M

for about $1.5k

=============================

Apple is just charging more for their name and because they make their products look pretty. They need to find a balance between pretty, good performance and cheap.

DId you seriously just compare an XPS 13 to the MBA? Those aren't even in the same category of notebooks. One is a general purpose laptop, the other is an ultraportable. If you shop around for ultraportables, the Air is surprisingly pretty competitive and often good bit cheaper.) Dell's MBA equivalent is their Adamo, which is significantly heavier and more expensive than the Air. Lenovo has the X300 series, which is more expensive than the Air per the specs.

A better comparison would be the MB or maybe the 13" MBP, though having used both, I'd say the 13" MBP is a grade above. See my above post also about Apple tending to push dollars into components that aren't strictly CPU/GPU/Memory.

 

[Dark Nova Gamer]

Did you click the tech specs link at the top? It gives you pretty much any info you could possibly want.

Although the Studio 15 is nice, it still can't compare to the MBP in battery life, thinness, and weight. Just the battery itself is amazing. You should check out the Anandtech reviews of the MBP. (OS X BTW gets ~25% more battery life than windows 7 on identical batteries and hardware) A lot of things are harder to measure, like screen quality and multitouch trackpads. I don't have the time to do a comparison of the two models right now, but when you adjust for all these things Apple excels at, the price difference is almost always 15-20%, and you get the Apple design. MS would like for us to believe Apple cost twice as much, but they never take into account features that Apple has that aren't purely speed related. Chassis construction, weight, screen, and battery life are arguably more important than CPU and graphics, and Apple tends to pour more money into the former than PC OEMs, but these sort of comparisons always neglect that. You get what you pay for usually.

On the other hand, Apple can be accused of not offering much variety.

O.O Completely missed the 'tech specs' link, rarely on Apples site. =P

I admit that Mac's are well built but I'd rather have a PC with better performance and a little worse quality then a computer with bad performance (1.8Ghz for 1.5k is not worth it) and well built.

DId you seriously just compare an XPS 13 to the MBA? Those aren't even in the same category of notebooks. One is a general purpose laptop, the other is an ultraportable. If you shop around for ultraportables, the Air is surprisingly pretty competitive and often good bit cheaper.) Dell's MBA equivalent is their Adamo, which is significantly heavier and more expensive than the Air. Lenovo has the X300 series, which is more expensive than the Air per the specs.

A better comparison would be the MB or maybe the 13" MBP, though having used both, I'd say the 13" MBP is a grade above. See my above post also about Apple tending to push dollars into components that aren't strictly CPU/GPU/Memory.

Sorry but I consider a laptop a laptop, not something like ultra-portable or gaming designed. All I do is compare, I don't catagorize things. =P

 

[jw12345]

O.O Completely missed the 'tech specs' link, rarely on Apples site. =P

I admit that Mac's are well built but I'd rather have a PC with better performance and a little worse quality then a computer with bad performance (1.8Ghz for 1.5k is not worth it) and well built.

I'm assuming you're referring to the Air with the 1.8Ghz? The lowest Macbook Pro 15 is a 2.53Ghz model. It's all a personal choice how you want to distribute dollars for CPU/GPU vs display/battery/weight, but Apple prices are nowhere nearly as bad as they are made out to be. Seriously, the 13" MBP for $1200 is one of the best laptops I have ever used in my life.

That's not a fair comparison between the Air and the XPS 13. Getting a laptop that small cost a crapload of money to do. Those CULV processors are very expensive. You could easily pit the $2k MBP against the Adamo and make the opposite comparison. Apple's CPU is over twice as fast as the Adamo for the same price.

You can't just grab different classes of computers to compare.

 

[Dark Nova Gamer]

I'm assuming you're referring to the Air with the 1.8Ghz? The lowest Macbook Pro 15 is a 2.53Ghz model. It's all a personal choice how you want to distribute dollars for CPU/GPU vs display/battery/weight, but Apple prices are nowhere nearly as bad as they are made out to be. Seriously, the 13" MBP for $1200 is one of the best laptops I have ever used in my life.

I suppose we all have different priorities when it comes to computers. Some want it to be built rock-solid, some just want performance, etc.

Anyways my point was that for 1.4k I could get a much better laptop (or desktop) for the same, if not cheaper price of a MacBook Air.

 

[jw12345]

Anyways my point was that for 1.4k I could get a much better laptop (or desktop) for the same, if not cheaper price of a MacBook Air.

Well, duh. But that has nothing to do with Apple at all. Ultraportables cost a huge amount of money per Ghz/GB/whatever compared to a desktop or a heavy notebook. What does this have to do with Apple pricing? They make more computers than the Air.

 

[PhreePhly]

Did you click the tech specs link at the top? It gives you pretty much any info you could possibly want.

Although the Studio 15 is nice, it still can't compare to the MBP in battery life, thinness, and weight. Just the battery itself is amazing. You should check out the Anandtech reviews of the MBP. (OS X BTW gets ~25% more battery life than windows 7 on identical batteries and hardware) A lot of things are harder to measure, like screen quality and multitouch trackpads. I don't have the time to do a comparison of the two models right now, but when you adjust for all these things Apple excels at, the price difference is almost always 15-20%, and you get the Apple design. MS would like for us to believe Apple cost twice as much, but they never take into account features that Apple has that aren't purely speed related. Chassis construction, weight, screen, and battery life are arguably more important than CPU and graphics, and Apple tends to pour more money into the former than PC OEMs, but these sort of comparisons always neglect that. You get what you pay for usually.

On the other hand, Apple can be accused of not offering much variety.

You and I have discussed this before, and where you want to use battery-life , weight and chassis, I want to use CPU, graphics and on-board connectors for my comparison. The Dell is 30% cheaper, has eSATA, an ExpressCard, and a better monitor.

As far as battery life goes, anecedotal, I know, but my buddy with the Mac Air had to send it in after 8 months, because the non-replacable battery wouldn't hold charge. Luckily he's not far from an Apple Store and could drop it off and get it replaced (still in warranty). But that was 4+ hours wasted. As far as the battery comparisons go, they are not fair. In order to compare Win 7 to OSX, you have to use the boot camp drivers that Apple supplies. These drivers are not power friendly.

I will be interesting if Sony uses the same system on one of their line. Win 7 has very good S2/S3 power specs.

And while the milled aluminium is pretty, the MPC's we use at work have lived up to some pretty hard beatings, and they're not even a top tier supplier. My wife's Dell, a 5-year old Inspiron 17" has been dropped, has had drinks spilled on it and been frozen in a freezer overnight. Other than missing a TAB button and having the battery replaced after 4 years, it runs just fine. It cost less than half what Apple had available when we bought it.

PhreePhly

 

[PhreePhly]

Sorry but I consider a laptop a laptop, not something like ultra-portable or gaming designed. All I do is compare, I don't catagorize things. =P

Sorry, gotta go with jw12345, that's not a fair comparison at all. The Macbook Pro 13" and the XPS 13 are fair comparisons, the Air is in it's own class. The closest Dell has is the Adamo, which is Waaaayyy overpriced. I personnally don't see any use in the Air format, but that is easily remedied by me not buying one. I wouldn't buy the Adamo either, using the same arguments. I also won't pay for the Alienware stuff. The difference is that with the PC, I have that choice, with Apple I don't.

PhreePhly

 

[jw12345]

I'm not disagreeing that you can get faster PCs for cheaper. Everybody knows that. I'm arguing against the idea that Apple is ridiculously overpriced for what they give you. That's simply not true. They may not give you many options, but what you get isn't marked up that much.

I think too many people are comparing apples and oranges and focusing just on specs. When you hollistically compare the two, they come out about equal. I think it's ridiculous that DarkNovaGundam is trying to pit a MBA against a standard laptop, when the MBA is a bargain for an ultraportable.

But on the battery life issue: Anandtech is still trying to figure out what exactly is going on, and supposedly other OEMs have noticed this also. I had a hackintosh laptop that showed the same phenomenon, so at least in my case, drivers weren't the issue. Apple is doing something very right, but nobody really knows what it is.

On the whole though, I completely agree with you. It's just that we value different things in notebooks.

Bottom-line: Apple isn't expensive, they just don't let you choose to go cheap on anything.

 

[Dark Nova Gamer]

I think it's ridiculous that DarkNovaGundam is trying to pit a MBA against a standard laptop, when the MBA is a bargain for an ultraportable.

Sorry that I chose the wrong MacBook to compare with? Geez.

 

[jw12345]

Sorry that I chose the wrong MacBook to compare with? Geez.

It's a facetious argument. Let's compare the Mac Pro against the Adamo and talk about how overpriced PCs are. That's basically what you're doing.

 

[Dark Nova Gamer]

It's a facetious argument. Let's compare the Mac Pro against the Adamo and talk about how overpriced PCs are. That's basically what you're doing.

Okay Calm yourself, I'll make sure I choose wisely next time I compare something since apperently its a sin to put the wrong combination of Laptops against each other.

 

[jw12345]

Okay Calm yourself, I'll make sure I choose wisely next time I compare something since apperently its a sin to put the wrong combination of Laptops against each other.

Hah, sorry if I've come off rudely. It's just that this is a thread about Apple exaggerating in ads.

 

[Dark Nova Gamer]

Hah, sorry if I've come off rudely. It's just that this is a thread about Apple exaggerating in ads.

I think we both can agree that Apple AND Microsoft exaggerate a bit.

But my point in my other posts was that Apple MacBooks do not give you the best bang for your buck. Thats all =P

 

[Klaw117]

Now that I think about it, Macs aren't TOO overpriced, since they can't mass produce their own hardware as efficiently/quickly as Dell or other companies. Also, they put more beauty and quality into it. Still, when you look at it, you get the feeling it's too expensive, but it can't be helped.

 

[Lordbob75]

I'm going to jump back in here before this gets too out of hand. This thread is about their COMMERCIALS, so let's please move back to that. If you guys want to argue specs, make a new thread. I will say this first: I have not had a Mac, but for their price over a PC, they had better be that much better quality hardware in that machine. In my opinion, a lot of PCs are made pretty cheap.

~Lordbob

 

[Dark Nova Gamer]

I'm going to jump back in here before this gets too out of hand. This thread is about their COMMERCIALS, so let's please move back to that. If you guys want to argue specs, make a new thread. I will say this first: I have not had a Mac, but for their price over a PC, they had better be that much better quality hardware in that machine. In my opinion, a lot of PCs are made pretty cheap.

~Lordbob

In response to the back on track part, SIR YES SIR!

In response to the 'a lot of PCs are made pretty cheap'... Yeah, Agreed. Within 1 week of owning my BRAND NEW HP Dv5-1235dx, both keys for the track pad (right/left click) were broken. it was light use.

Anyways i've said all I wanted to say here. Back to stalking my friend =P

 

[7Dreams]

I own a Mac but I use windows 7 as its primary OS

The computer is know known as PC

 

[PhreePhly]

I'm going to jump back in here before this gets too out of hand. This thread is about their COMMERCIALS, so let's please move back to that. If you guys want to argue specs, make a new thread. I will say this first: I have not had a Mac, but for their price over a PC, they had better be that much better quality hardware in that machine. In my opinion, a lot of PCs are made pretty cheap.

~Lordbob

Here's my interpretation. The MS commercials don't exaggerate the same way the Apple commercials do. First of all MS isn't selling hardware. The laptop "hunters' are looking for a particular mix of capabilities. MS is pointing out that in the PC, there are many choices. With the Mac, you have a very limited choice. It may be more than a user needs. As an example, one of our clients has very strict video requirements on their sites. We must check in our phones with cameras and laptops with built-in video are banned. We must order laptops without a camera. With Apple, that would be impossible. So, while that Macbook may a higher spec, because it includes a camera, it's more than the user needs and wasted money.

On the other hand, the Apple commercials, while not actually lying (that would be illegal), infer far greater issues with PC's than actually exist. It makes sense from a marketing stand point, but it really is annoying to techheads that actually know the truth.

PhreePhly