Comparing Apples to Apples ... Revisited

"Apples are a lot more expensive."

When I started researching Apples, that's what I heard a lot of people say. That's even what I thought. But it turns out that's not always the truth.

I want to offer some data around the conclusion I arrived at that Apples aren't really that much more expensive.

Off the Apple website, the specs/prices (as of today) are:

13" WHITE MACBOOK
2.1GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
1GB memory
120GB hard drive1
Combo drive
Ships: Within 24 hours
Free Shipping
$1,099.00

13" White Macbook
2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
2GB memory
160GB hard drive1
Double-layer SuperDrive
Ships: Within 24 hours
Free Shipping
$1,299.00

13" Black Macbook
2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
2GB memory
250GB hard drive1
Double-layer SuperDrive
Ships: Within 24 hours
Free Shipping
$1,499.00

As you can see, the only difference between the last two units is the color. Even the salesperson at the Apple store referred to the difference as a "coolness tax" if you want a black laptop (which other computer makers offer as STANDARD ... so Apple loses points here.)

I wanted black, but I'm not willing to pay $100 for the priviledge, so I went with white.

BTW, if you're an educator or student (or, apparently, willing to pretend to be one, as Apple never asked to see a faculty ID or paycheck stub or any other typical form of proof), you can get a educational discount of about $100 from Apple's website. (So change the above prices accordingly)


ENOUGH! ONTO THE COMPARISON!

Sure, you can pop into one of the Big Box stores like Best Buy or Circuit City and get a Windows laptop for under a $1,000 ... but as you get what you pay for, you're going to get a slower computer. All of the computers I looked at these stores had processors with speeds of 1.0 GHZ to 1.6 Ghz, and usually 1 GB of RAM (a few had 512 MB ... didn't even know they used that anymore), and some had smaller hard drives.

If processing speed doesn't matter to you, then go for it! Buy one of these babies. If I was buying one for my kids for school, I would have probably bought one from Best Buy or Circuit City or some such store. (If you can find one with XP ... I wouldn't touch a laptop with Vista, as it seems to suck resources).

However, I'm a knowledge worker, so the computer is my main tool of trade. I love the internet because it can more at the speed of thought ... as long as your computer will support such speeds. Nothing is more frustration for me than waiting around for my computer to catch up to what I'm doing. I multi-task with a vengeance and I want a machine to keep up.

Also, as an entrepreneur like myself, time is money, so I'm willing to pay a bit extra for a machine with faster processing speed ... it saves me money in the long-run.

So ... jump on any of the Window computer makers' sites (HP, Dell, Gateway, etc). You'll see some really sweet prices ... until you begin to upgrade the systems to where it's tolerable.

Some of the other computers I looked at included (after configuring the systems to bring them in line with the Macbook):

A Dell D630, which had great reviews.
14.1" screen.
2 GB RAM
120 GB hardrive
2.2 Core 2 Duo processor
bluetooth
etc.
$1,576.00

A Dell XPS M1330
2.0 Ghz Core 2 Duo Processor
3 GB RAM
120 GB Harddrive
etc.
$1,562.00

A Dell XPS M1530
good reviews.
2.0 Ghz Core 2 Duo
4 GB RAM
120 GB Hard drive
etc
$1,393.00

I really liked the look of the HP tablets, too ... smaller laptops that have a screen you can twist around (!) and fold down with the screen face-up and use it as a writing/drawing tablet. Every HP tablet that I looked at was out of the budget range, though. (Maybe in a few years). Oh, and they all ran Vista, too.

OKAY ALREADY! WHAT'S THE BOTTOM LINE?!?

That's just a sample of the prices I found, but it's pretty representative. Basically, I consistently found that in order to get a laptop computer into the speed/disk space/etc. I needed, I was in the $1300 - $2,000 range (or more. One could easily spend $3,000 on a laptop). As you can see from the price I listed above, the Macbook is price-wise right in the ballpark.

Plus, all the Windows computers ran Vista. (Ugh.) So I would have had to pay extra to downgrade to Windows XP. Apple has a "cool tax" to upgrade to a black Macbook. Windows has a "frustration tax" (and it's more than $100!)to downgrade back to Vista. (Both manufacturers lose points here.)

So ...

Price-wise, the Macbook is actually in the general ballpark when one compares processing speed and hard disk drive space.

The Macbook Pro, however, is a different story.

But that's another blog.