Apple are cagey out.
They know that MAC users think that they are superior to PC users and will pay a premium to distinguish themselves from scum like us.
What pisses me off is that Microshit seem to have all the laptop producers pre-installing Vista on their machines.
In my case, it is virtually impossible to "downgrade" to XP. Drivers not available etc.
So i'll have to wait for Windows 7 - and pay for same, I suppose.
God damn it.
Same is happening with netbooks, they used to all come with some version of Linux pre-installed, now they're all XPed up.
I don't think Apple stuff is that bad, sure I've had some unreliable hardware from them, but some of the crud others produce is equally bad. Dell, I'm looking at you. It's just that nowadays, there's no difference in the components. A couple of years back, this was reflected in the prices, the specs and price of a Mac were broadly similar to that of a Wintel machine. Maybe a bit of a price premium, £100 or something, but not *that* much. Did a huge amount of research on it at the time, when buying my Mac.
But now, they're taking the piss. Here's what I mean:
Apple MacBook White, MC240B/A, 2.13GHz SuperDrive with 13.3 Inch Display
£749.95
8x SuperDrive (DVD+R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
Graphics card: Nvidia 9400
RAM: 2GB
Processor: Intel Core Duo
Screen Resolution: 1280 x 800
Hard Drive: 160GB
Weight: 2.27kg
Samsung Laptop, R405, 2GHz with 14.1 Inch Display
£549.95
DVD Super-Multi Dual Layer
Graphics card: ATI Radeon HD3200
RAM: 3GB
Processor: AMD Athlon X2 Dual Core
Screen Resolution: 1280 x 800
Hard Drive: 250GB
Weight 2.4kg
HP Pavilion Laptop, DV3-2050EA, 2GHz with 13.4 Inch Display
£699.95
DVD±R/±RW (dual layer)
Graphics card: NVIDIA GeForce G 105M
RAM:4 GB
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo T4200
Screen Resolution: 1280 x 800
Hard Drive: 320gb
Weight 2.24kg
Sony Vaio Laptop, VGN-CS21S/P, 2GHz with 14.1 Inch Display
£749.95
DVD±R/RW DL/RAM
Graphics card: nVidia GeForce 9300M GS GPU
RAM:4 GB
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo T6400
Screen Resolution: 1280 x 800
Hard Drive: 320gb
Weight 2.88kg
The aluminium macbook, at £850 with a slower processor looks to be terrible value for money in comparison.
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Apple like to keep 'the same' hardware, so they don't end up supporting an entire spectrum, like most others.
They're probably trying to ride the success of other products. Plus all the other marketing. And most users, don't know or care to know about CPU speeds, RAM speeds, graphics ability, etc.
If that wasn't true, people would seek out the best hardware, and install OSX on to it.
It's more about the chassis than the innards to these yokels. Vanity, like, and fitting in, is what it's all about, yo.
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Same is happening with netbooks, they used to all come with some version of Linux pre-installed, now they're all XPed up.
I don't think Apple stuff is that bad, sure I've had some unreliable hardware from them, but some of the crud others produce is equally bad. Dell, I'm looking at you. It's just that nowadays, there's no difference in the components. A couple of years back, this was reflected in the prices, the specs and price of a Mac were broadly similar to that of a Wintel machine. Maybe a bit of a price premium, £100 or something, but not *that* much. Did a huge amount of research on it at the time, when buying my Mac.
But now, they're taking the piss. Here's what I mean:
Apple MacBook White, MC240B/A, 2.13GHz SuperDrive with 13.3 Inch Display
£749.95
8x SuperDrive (DVD+R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
Graphics card: Nvidia 9400
RAM: 2GB
Processor: Intel Core Duo
Screen Resolution: 1280 x 800
Hard Drive: 160GB
Weight: 2.27kg
Samsung Laptop, R405, 2GHz with 14.1 Inch Display
£549.95
DVD Super-Multi Dual Layer
Graphics card: ATI Radeon HD3200
RAM: 3GB
Processor: AMD Athlon X2 Dual Core
Screen Resolution: 1280 x 800
Hard Drive: 250GB
Weight 2.4kg
HP Pavilion Laptop, DV3-2050EA, 2GHz with 13.4 Inch Display
£699.95
DVD±R/±RW (dual layer)
Graphics card: NVIDIA GeForce G 105M
RAM:4 GB
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo T4200
Screen Resolution: 1280 x 800
Hard Drive: 320gb
Weight 2.24kg
Sony Vaio Laptop, VGN-CS21S/P, 2GHz with 14.1 Inch Display
£749.95
DVD±R/RW DL/RAM
Graphics card: nVidia GeForce 9300M GS GPU
RAM:4 GB
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo T6400
Screen Resolution: 1280 x 800
Hard Drive: 320gb
Weight 2.88kg
The aluminium macbook, at £850 with a slower processor looks to be terrible value for money in comparison.
I bought a mini laptop a few weeks ago for a nigga of mine.
12" screen and weighs nothing. XP.
There is no cost for upgrades/service packs to windows operating systems.
Buying a different windows operating system is indeed very expensive, however I have not paid Microsoft a penny in 6 years with my XP machine.
On the other hand, over the same time, if I wanted to keep my Apple up to date, I would have had to shell out $129 for Panther in October 2003, $129 for Tiger in 2005 and $129 for Leopard in 2007. So that argument doesn't wash.
Anyhow, I don't really want to get into a discussion about the merits of the OS, cause it's the price of the hardware that's the problem, the price of which has plummetted over the years, without a corresponding response by Apple.
There is no cost for Mac Service Packs either. Just when they bring out a new operating system. Albeit they do upgrade the OS more frequently (Usually every year or so) people usually don't mind upgrading for extra features. Completely agree with you on the hardware issue though. It is a lot more expensive for the same components. Why I'm not sure but people don't seem to mind. They are selling by the bucket load.
There is no cost for Mac Service Packs either. Just when they bring out a new operating system. Albeit they do upgrade the OS more frequently (Usually every year or so) people usually don't mind upgrading for extra features. Completely agree with you on the hardware issue though. It is a lot more expensive for the same components. Why I'm not sure but people don't seem to mind. They are selling by the bucket load.
In fairness, there's no way you could have called Leopard a new operating system, it was barely a service pack. Dunno the others as I'm not as well versed in the ins and outs of Apple's OS.
I wonder though, will they still sell by the bucketload? As far as I can tell, they don't tend to drop the price for at least 4-6 months, in the meantime, the rest of the industry is cutting prices like it's going out of fashion.
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In fairness, there's no way you could have called Leopard a new operating system, it was barely a service pack. Dunno the others as I'm not as well versed in the ins and outs of Apple's OS.
I wonder though, will they still sell by the bucketload? As far as I can tell, they don't tend to drop the price for at least 4-6 months, in the meantime, the rest of the industry is cutting prices like it's going out of fashion.
Apparently there were over 300 new features between the 2. According to Apples Keynote at the WWDC the prices of their pro notebooks have dropped considerably. 17" Macbook Pro by €700 and the battery's last for up to 7 hours. Their sales are going through the roof and I don't see that changing. People for whatever reason want to buy them and want to have the latest ones. In '02 there were 2 million using an Apple operating system. This went to 25 million by 2007 and it the last 2 years it has tripled to 75 million.
I would have no problem buying a Dell, Sony or whatever laptop if it didn't have Windows.
Although for some strange reason it is still common to see people with 7 or 8 year old Apple laptops still doing day to day tasks. Any pc I had was fucked after 2 years.
On a completely separate issue though I downloaded the new iPhone 3.0 software today. Now that is something I'd defo not call an upgrade and if I was Apple I wouldn't be advertising the fact that their phone can now do simple things that other phones have been doing for years.
Apparently there were over 300 new features between the 2. According to Apples Keynote at the WWDC the prices of their pro notebooks have dropped considerably. 17" Macbook Pro by €700 and the battery's last for up to 7 hours. Their sales are going through the roof and I don't see that changing. People for whatever reason want to buy them and want to have the latest ones. In '02 there were 2 million using an Apple operating system. This went to 25 million by 2007 and it the last 2 years it has tripled to 75 million.
I would have no problem buying a Dell, Sony or whatever laptop if it didn't have Windows.
Although for some strange reason it is still common to see people with 7 or 8 year old Apple laptops still doing day to day tasks. Any pc I had was fucked after 2 years.
On a completely separate issue though I downloaded the new iPhone 3.0 software today. Now that is something I'd defo not call an upgrade and if I was Apple I wouldn't be advertising the fact that their phone can now do simple things that other phones have been doing for years.
I'm currently working on a 7 year old Dell with XP, which is working just fine.
Some of those 300 "features" were ridiculous, like support for Russian and a slightly better iChat. It came out a few months after I got my Mac and I quickly decided I wasn't going to bother with it. Problem is that apps only tend to be developed for the latest versions, so you pretty much have to upgrade eventually. I wonder, if you buy Snow Leopard and skip Leopard, do you get the upgraded features you would have gotten, had you purchased Leopard or is it some sort of mutant version?
A quick Google says no, you have to buy a Mac Box Set. Suppose you get iLife and iWork for that too, so it's not so bad.
So it's roughly even. Didn't think it would be, thought Leopard would be way out in front.
Anyway, this is about the hardware, not the software.
excuse moi!! it is even, but i think some features the OS X supports are a bit more important, e.g.
Windows in 64-bit may require different drivers to function properly, many of which haven't yet been ported; Leopard supports 64-bit transparently with no differences in drivers or software .... but saying that, the article was written 2 years ago so it probably has changed and I don't have vista and I am by no means an OS expert.
Considering the hardware side of things, I think I remember someone on here, .....Joey Beltram?? , saying they had a mac book pro and a pretty sweet desktop and vista was smoother and crashed less on the mac.
btw I have a mac, but Im not trying to be buyest. I genuinely love it, but I can appreciate why someone likes vista, xp, etc. All this shite comes down to two mega companies battling it out, and their propaganda-esque marketing techniques has clearly split peoples opinions.
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remember a few years ago, i mean a few hours ago
excuse moi!! it is even, but i think some features the OS X supports are a bit more important, e.g.
Windows in 64-bit may require different drivers to function properly, many of which haven't yet been ported; Leopard supports 64-bit transparently with no differences in drivers or software .... but saying that, the article was written 2 years ago so it probably has changed and I don't have vista and I am by no means an OS expert.
Considering the hardware side of things, I think I remember someone on here, .....Joey Beltram?? , saying they had a mac book pro and a pretty sweet desktop and vista was smoother and crashed less on the mac.
btw I have a mac, but Im not trying to be buyest. I genuinely love it, but I can appreciate why someone likes vista, xp, etc. All this shite comes down to two mega companies battling it out, and their propaganda-esque marketing techniques has clearly split peoples opinions.
Exactly.
I'm not a fan of Windows either, TBH. I've got an internet tablet that runs Linux and it's a bit of a faff (Why do I need to install python mokoui before I run gpodder and where the hell do I find a Maemo version? Couldn't you just have put that in the installation package??).
The evangelists on both sides drive me nuts, I kept hearing how OSX doesn't crash. Well, it did for me when I had it. Everyone knows Windows is a bit crap at times, but it's not crap all the time, sometimes, it's quite good. However, having had a (work) Dell laptop that's required a new bluetooth module, new motherboard and new hard drive, I'm not exactly going to be leaping to their defence.
On the other side, my girlfriend's 10 year old laptop is still perfectly servicable and we use it every once in a while and my 7 year old laptop, which I bought second hand for £300 back in 2003, is still what I use every single day for all the work I do. Never had to do a reinstall and after cleaning the fluff out of it's fan (which was causing overheating problems, it runs pretty well too.
I've had far worse luck with my Apple hardware than my personal windows hardware, having had an iPod that died on me and a Macbook that gobbled up a CD and refused to spit it back out, ending up with 6 weeks in the repair shop.
So really, I don't see why there's *that* much of a premium on Apple stuff. Yes, it looks nice and runs well, however it's a long way from perfect. The Windows stuff isn't completely rubbish either and the laptops have gotten far better asthetically over the past few years.
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