January 17, 2004
You get what you pay for...
I don't ever expect to penetrate the walls of ignorance behind the "Macs are too expensive" meme, but this article has some useful figures...
A true story: A neighbor of mine asks me for advice on buying a new computer, his first. He tells me he wants to use it for editing home movies, playing music, surfing the web, email, and he would love to make his own DVD’s. I tell him to look at an iMac or eMac and he says they are way too expensive. He then says he sees TV commercials offering Dell’s for $500, and wants to know why Macs are so much more expensive. I ask him if he really wants to make his own DVD’s and edit home movies and he says ‘yes’. I tell him to call Dell and ask them to configure a PC that can do that. He does, and then comes back over and accuses Dell of ‘bait and switch’. They want $1500!!.....Posted by John Weidner at January 17, 2004 08:30 PM | TrackBack
Ah, but if you just want a computer to do "basic" stuff like write letters, play Solitaire, keep recipes, and occasionally go on the internet (with dial up) to send email from your America Online account, then Macs are definitely too expensive for you. If you want more -- if you want to do graphics editing, go on the internet with cable or dsl, run a home network -- then PCs and Macs pretty much run neck and neck. But I don't really know anyone who denies Mac's superiority in high-end graphic, video, and sound capability. But when you get up to that level of need, then yes, you could say that Macs are "too expensive" -- certainly if you are expecting to pay $500 for one. Not to mention, in order to do dvd and video recording, you also have to buy the devices with which to record the music and the video.
Posted by: Andrea Harris at January 18, 2004 08:28 AMAs I think about it later, I should have added: a Windows computer that can do video editing and so on might be a bit less expensive than a Mac, but on the other hand, since Macs are standard for that sort of thing, and are said by all and sundry to be superior for doing high-end graphics and sound work anyway, I don't see the advantages in saving a few bucks when down the line you'd end up spending more to add -- oh, I don't know, more memory, more hard drive capacity, and whatnot, to an already existing PC, or simply having to deal with headaches I have heard are inherent in Windows video/sound editing programs. But when it comes to a computer for people with simple, household needs, a Mac is probably wasted on people like that, they should really just pick up whatever bargain-basement HP Costco has on sale.
Posted by: Andrea Harris at January 18, 2004 11:48 AMI don't know if this has been (or can be) quantified, but people seem to use macs for a lot longer.
People seem to buy new macs for graphics and video, but keep the old ones around for the low-end chores. There are lots of 6 or 8 year-old macs still being useful for internet or Quicken or kids homework. I don't notice PC people doing that, though maybe I'm not paying attention. But I suspect that that's a part of the price equation that mac users do unconsciously...and which is hard to explain to others.
Posted by: John Weidner at January 18, 2004 12:48 PMActually, I have met people who gave their old pcs to their kids, or kept them for the aforementioned simple chores. I have an ancient laptop (486SX chip, runs DOS and Windows 3.11, has an itty-bitty monochrome screen) that I write on from time to time.
Posted by: Andrea Harris at January 18, 2004 09:57 PMWe are a Mac family, and we still keep a few old PCs around for one reason or another. Of course, it never hurts to have more computers than people, no matter what the platform...
Posted by: B. Durbin at January 20, 2004 04:29 PMYeah, I'm typing this in my daughter's room. By the way, iDisk is totally useful. I just drop current projects into the iDisk (set to sync a local copy on each machine) and can work on them on whatever computer my children leave unoccupied ...
Posted by: John Weidner at January 20, 2004 07:22 PM
