Why? Why does a MAC cost more than a PC?

Why does a prius cost more than a ford focus?

Quality, cutting edge technology (usually) and superior design. There is also a certain "perception premium" or "monopoly markup" ... with that bieng said, it has been demonstrated many times that the cost of ownership (including purchase, support, upgrades, etc) is actually significantly lower for a mac, especially in a corporate environment.

My desk has a two-year old G5 powermac, and a Brand new $2000 dell dimension with vista, and lotsa bells and wistles. I consider myself a dual platform guy, but still end up doing 90% of my work on the mac. It's a more elegant (efficient) interface, and I spend a LOT less time troubleshooting the mac.

just my 2¢

 

Thanks for the info all, that's exactly what I was curious about. As you can probably tell, I havn't had much to do with Macs, and havn't touched one since about OS-7 or 8. It's good to hear that they are getting more open in their processes.

 

I love quality, have a definite cheap side, and hate malware and privacy invasion.

So in my home OS X and GNU-Ubuntu coexist, and I am delighted with both, albeit for different reasons.

 

OK, had a little time today do do a bit of research. First, several of you mentiond that you felt Macs were built better. Well Apple does not have a chip foundry, or a disk drive factory, or their own LCD panel fabrication facilities, etc. As I mentioned earlier, they (now) buy their processors from Intel, Hard drives from Western Digital, Seagate, Maxtor, or whomever, and so on and so forth, the same as anyone making PC's, although there are consumer grade and professional grade PC's. The consumer grade are usually made with the cheapest components and cutting corners all around. These are your E-Machines, low end Dell (dismension series), low end HP/Compaq, etc. Then there are the PC's that are made for the serious user, the type that stay powered up 24/7 and last for many years, these would be like the Dell GX series, professional HP's etc. So assuming the Macs are all built to a professional/industrial standard, I decided to try for a true comparison, no fair compairing a Mac Pro to an E-Machine after all. I wanted to pick 2 machines with specs as close as possible, for the Mac, I chose a Mac Pro. The Mac Pro comes with 2 dual core Xeon 2.66GHz processors, 1G or RAM and a 250GB SATA hard drive, specs here. This has a base price of $2,499.00. Next for a comparable PC, the task at hand is finding a PC with 2 dual core Xeon processors, well I found one here, but it's still not a completely valid comparison. The reason being is the difference in specs, the Mac 2 2.66GHz Xeons, the PC 2 3.00GHz Xeons, Mac 1G RAM, PC 2G, Mac 1 250GB hard drive, PC 3 250GB hard drives, Mac no RAID, PC has RAID, still the PC sells for $1,649.99, $849.01 LESS than the Mac. But let's be completely fair and up the Mac to the same specs as the PC to see the cost difference, from the Apple store in the link above, here are the upgrades. 3.0GHz Xeons + $799, increase to 2G of RAM + $299, RAID controller + $999, hard drives are a little trickier because Apple's upgraded drives are 500GB, but looking at $129 to upgrade the base drive to 500GB, I came up with a figure of $200 per drive or $400 for 2 additional 250GB drives ($329 for additional 500GB drive - $129 difference on base drive upgrade), this brings the Mac to a cost of $4,996 vs $1,649.99 for the PC!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(tleonhar @ Aug 25 2007, 03:13 PM) [snapback]502090[/snapback]</div>

This is a cheap nice person no name PC brand. It does have short term positive reviews but look at this one:

"REVIEW BY: RMC Reviewed May 20, 2007
The motherboard has a lot of incompatibility issues. When the raid controller is turned on, Vista and Linux can not be installed. If you decide to return the server back, you have to pay for the shipping back. Buyers be aware of it."

For a fair comparison you would have to find a comparable Dell or HP. And this may be just me but did you actually see that monstruosity? I like its floppy drive....

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(tleonhar @ Aug 25 2007, 03:13 PM) [snapback]502090[/snapback]</div>

Why don't you add in all of the software that's useable and ready to go, not the stripped down, demo or missing stuff you have to add on to get a comparison.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Godiva @ Aug 25 2007, 02:50 PM) [snapback]502115[/snapback]</div>

He can add PC junk till the cows come home and it still won't work as well as a Mac.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(tleonhar @ Aug 25 2007, 04:13 PM) [snapback]502090[/snapback]</div>

And the PC is still crap on a stick! Again, I had more the two PC'S (high end) crap out completely on me in less time then any PC should. My iMac is running fine, my MacBook fine, and my Mini Macs, fine. I had two XP equipped Laptops burn out and done also in record time. PC'S are just not the same in quality, or in OS.

You may like your PC, but to me, if I did not have to have my SONY VAIL LAPTOP with Vista, I would not. And in less then ten days, I have to purchase security for it; never have to with Apple.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(wiiprii @ Aug 22 2007, 10:47 AM) [snapback]500422[/snapback]</div>

Well said. People buy Macs to make a statement about themselves. It's no accident that Mac buyers also tend to buy Priuses, VW bugs, mini coopers, ipods, etc. I'd expect someone who buys a Bang & Olufson stereo to buy a mac; someone buying a plain old Pioneer would more likely buy a pc. These are cool things that make the buyer feel cool and look cool. There is a lot to be said for the notion that anything worth doing, is worth doing in style.

The part I don't get is how Mac people think they are nice. Try re-reading the post quoted above. Try taking a closer look at the actual message in each of the mac anti-vista ads. Just because you have funny people saying mean things doesn't make it funny to say mean things.

I've tried macs a few times over the decades, after learning to program on the apple II. What sold me on dos in 1982 was that it was open. I thought that, with OS X finally basically giving up on the proprietary-OS thing and co-opting a ported copy of Linux, maybe Apple might open up a little and - good heavens - loosen up some with all this holier-than-though fake pity for the unwashed masses. Maybe even - gasp - license the OS for other hardware again.

But there is an excellent reason why no one else makes macs: it destroys the mystique, and in the process, the reason for the purchase. Apple licensed clone makers a few years back and they failed - not because their product or pricing was out of line, but because it didn't allow the buyer to make the same self-statement that buying a genuine mac - at any price - could make.

The funny thing here: I buy Priuses to make a self-statement. The economics is a handy justification, and I do enjoy helping fund and further the technology advances. But I sell new-high-tech to high-tech companies, and I want to show my customers that new technology is good. The Prius makes the self-statement to further that agenda, same as the Chevy Volt would or the EV-1 would have.

Then again, I use Vista for the same reason. And if all you've learned about Vista comes from those funny apple guys with their mean little messages, I can see why you'd shower me with fake pity.

I especially like the premise of the poster who baits spammers from his mac, implying that he's untouchable because, well, the mac community is nice and no one will ever attack them.

 

Well this has turned into another one of those Mac vs PC nonsense threads but I I'll have a go at it.

I really don't think it's a quality issue why the Mac is more expensive, because as someone else mentioned above, they basically all use parts from the major manufacturers for hard drives, display cards, memory chips, and all use inexpensive Taiwanese/Chinese parts for most of the other stuff like motherboards, etc. No rocket science here with the hardware stuff. All computers are essentially the same when it comes to the hardware. As long as you stay with the good parts you are mostly going to be OK. And the software is the same as the PC in monetary terms. It takes about the same amount of R&D, advertising dollars, packaging, etc for any software product, no matter if it's for the PC or Mac.

The Mac is more expensive because Mac has positioned itself as a special product and will stay that way as long as they don't go back to allowing clones, thereby holding on to the mystique that is Mac. They have a die-hard following that loves their OS, the look and feel of the product and the way it interacts with the user. It just seems a bit more thought out at times and user friendly. Not always mind you, but it's a nice marketing thing to say it's "always" better and easier to use. They are smart enough to try to make strides to satisfy their legions of fans every year (a good thing). Plus they are cute, inovative with their designs, smart with their marketing, and will always stay ahead of the "special" computer feel race. All of that goes into the way they decide what the market will bear for their products. It's all simple business.

So you pay a bit more for being in the "club". Now there's nothing wrong with that. If you like the look, feel and general good vibe you get by using a Mac you will willingly pay the few hundred more. No big deal.

The good thing is that nowadays Mac has been much better with their pricing and I think the only real obvious overpricing is when you get to the Mac Pro's. Those are many hundreds overpriced, simply based on the cost of goods sold.

Oh BTW, I have worked with both PCs and Macs for decades and I always build my own PCs with the good parts, and the computers I use every day 24/7 rarely break down or need rebooting. They are as reliable as the most reliable machines out there. My Asus PC laptops I take on the road to Europe and the UK 3 times a year, year after year, are reliable as well (BTW I thought everyone knew not to buy Sony laptops - didn't anyone tell you that?). And believe me I have plenty of friends with current Macs and they break down or crash as often as any other decent machine out there. It's electronics - some are crap, some work great, none are perfect all the time.

 

It's supply and demand.
Everyone makes PCs
only Apple make Macs
A lot of computer geek types prefer Mac
A lot of geek types hate Microsoft

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(sotagear @ Aug 26 2007, 04:16 AM) [snapback]502283[/snapback]</div>

This is exactly my point, the Mac lovers somehow feel they are getting some sort of hand crafted machine that dedicated craftspeople spent weeks and months carving out by hand untill it's just right like Stradavari (sp?) building a violin. That just ain't the case!

I think a better comparison is that the Mac people tend to buy the all-in-one console entertainment center. They get fairly nice stuff, but they're stuck with what's in the box. PC people are like those who buy component systems so they can customize to get exactly what they want.

Sorry to hear of the problems you had with your PC's, but I can honestly say this is not the general case. I took the time to look up our trouble call numbers for the past month. We have an install base of 17,648 PC's ranging from Dell GX745 (newest) to a couple of 1994 vintage HP Vectras loaded with 75MHz Pentium 1's on our global WAN, and 20 Macs (G5's mostly). For the PC's we had 173 trouble calls or about 1%, of these calls about half were non PC related, network cable unplugged, operator error, etc. On the Macs however, we had 4 trouble calls or 20%, on these again 3 were non computer related.

I find the base application software that comes with a Windows box just as useable as the base Apple software, which is not very. If you need Photoshop, add $600 to the PC or add $600 to the Mac, openoffice.org, free for the Mac, free for the PC. The junkware does not come if you custom build that PC, on a prebuilt machine, it's there but not installed, to dump it you highlight and press the delete key, how is it on a Mac again, oh yea, press and hold key with strange wiggly marking, click and drag with mouse to trashcan icon, oh yes, much easier than pressing the delete key

Again, as I said before IT'S PERSONAL PREFERANCE!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(tleonhar @ Aug 26 2007, 01:36 PM) [snapback]502393[/snapback]</div>

You forgot a step in MS land: Read the dialog box that warns you that deleting the s/w may make your entire system unstable

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What you gonna do ?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(EricGo @ Aug 26 2007, 03:41 PM) [snapback]502455[/snapback]</div>

That's only if the software has been installed, then you use the uninstaller, 2 more clicks.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(hycamguy07 @ Aug 22 2007, 08:57 AM) [snapback]500300[/snapback]</div>

Apple's gross margin is somewhere in the 35% range, while Dell's is down at about 17%. Its hard to find the percentage on Apple's individual products, but the iPhone is estimated to be at 50%+, while the Mac Mini is estimated lower.

Dell was also very aggressive with pricing in Q2, and in their investor conference call, they admit that they were a little too aggressive. They haven't reported all their warranty claims reserves as of May of this year, but they usually run about 3.5 - 4% of sales in warranty claims.

Apple, on the other hand, always runs under 2%, and the most recent chart I've seen is that Apple is at about 1% right now:

<div align="center"></div>

I've always been a PC guy, but Apple does have a story to tell, and you can validate it independently through examining the 10Q's of any public computer company. Apple is, statistically, a better computer.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(hycamguy07 @ Aug 27 2007, 12:02 PM) [snapback]502761[/snapback]</div>

The Core 2 Duo is whole generation ahead of the TK-53. Its like comparing a P3 to a P4, with better battery life to boot. Add firewire, much better (and I mean much) better screen, better system, better optical drive and much better video card.

There is your difference.

 

Here's one true "Apples to Apples" (pun intended) comparison (as close as humanly possible, that is):

Dell Precision Workstation 490:
2x Dual Core Intel® Xeon® Processor 5150 (2.66GHz, 4MB L2,1333)
1GB, DDR2 SDRAM FBD Memory, 667MHz, ECC (2 DIMMS)
256MB PCIe x16 ATI FireGL V7200, Dual DVI or Dual VGA or DVI + VGA
250GB SATA 3.0Gb/s,7200 RPM NCQ Hard Drive with 8MB DataBurst Cacheâ„¢
16X DVD+/-RW w/ Cyberlink PowerDVDâ„¢ and Roxio Creatorâ„¢ Dell Ed

Total price: $3417

Apple Mac Pro:
Two 2.66GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon
1GB (2 x 512MB)
ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB (2 x dual-link DVI)
250GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
One 16x SuperDrive

Total Price: $2,748.00

Oh heck, why not throw in some extras on the Mac:
upgrade to 2GB (4 x 512MB)
Add one 500GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s (in addition to the 250giger above)

Total Price: $3,376.00

Interesting what happens when you stop trying to compare Mac's to low end non-name brand PC's.

Give it a few months for apple to release the new OS, and we'll start seeing true performance comparisons with Vista - exact same hardware running both OS's doing a number of tasks... i think you PC lover's are gonna be a bit disappointed at the results...

 

Aside from OSX and every printer driver you'd probably need.

iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, iWeb, Garageband.

Our school Macs come with Appleworks which gives you a word processor, spreadsheet, database and presentation.

Out of the box I'm on the internet, printing and doing movies and webpages.

Out of the box my Dad's new PC as waiting several weeks for a printer driver, and hours and several phone calls away from the internet.

 

I'm going through this now... We just had $11,000 in stuff stolen from our house on 8/23/2007 including 2 laptops that have to be replaced quickly.

My wife is not a techie. She uses her PC for her freelance writing and editing. She thinks a Windows machine is fine because she has to use Word. We got her a $900 HP laptop. I had to remove tons of trial software, install Windows, HP and Norton updates then fight to get the wireless to work. I'll have to spend much more time messing with virus scanning, defragging... you know lots of time.

I'm a software developer and I write code. My last work PC was a MacBook Pro and I LOVED that machine. It was fast, it worked well and I could find tons of open source / free software for it. It is also a Unix machine underneath the covers and that was very useful when working on multiple flavors of *nix servers. The only support I performed for that machine was 1 minute to setup the wireless.

Why are they expensive? Only one manufacturer and lots of pre-installed installed software that works well. You also pay up front for not having to service it continuously.

That said, I'm having a hard time justifying the $2k price for a Mac even if it saves me time by not having to manage the thing on a weekly basis. I would pay $1500 for a MacBook Pro with 2GB RAM and a 160GB+ HDD in a heartbeat.

I want to run OSX on any Intel laptop!!!.

Bill S.
Columbus, OH