Forums | MacLife

Pariah wrote:

nstehle wrote:

Pariah wrote:

Bah, The only thing that makes Macs compelling is the software. Mac hardware is alot more expencive than comparibly proforming PCs until you get to the very high end.

No, Apple hardware is designed in a way that makes a lot more sense.  Try finding a notebook like the PowerBook in terms of size and power.  Dell's powerful notebooks are 2+ inches thick.  The D810 I'm typing on at the moment is a honkin' brick.

You have got to be kidding.
In particular Apple laptops are getting their butts kicked by the Intel based offerings.

When I said "design," I meant design and not "performance."

That said, it's silly to say performance is strictly a megahertz thing or even a rendering thing.  It does me no good to have this 2GHz Dell running twice as fast as my two year old PowerBook since the Dell requires a restart twice or three times a week during the middle of the day, weighs a lot more, I can't even think about using it on an airplane and it is so bulky some airlines make me check it (no joke!)  For those of us who use our computers mainly for business, design and platform reliability are a hundred thousand times more important than processing a few more requests in a second at the processor level.

Once Apple switches to Intel, this isn't even a point anyway.

Czachorski wrote:

percoplus wrote:

Czachorski sounds somewhat partial toward Macs. I'm not as beholden to them. My experience with Macs has been mediocre at best - because I'm not as familiar. Therefore, I prefer PC's over Macs any day for most everyday applications; but I love Final Cut Pro! You are actually right about the price comparisons with pc's, especially when you consider the price of the dual xeon monsters.

Yes, I am very partial to them.  The entire experience with them just clicked with me.  For me, I wouldn't use the word 'beholden', but more like 'thankful' or 'fortunate'.  'beholden' is a term that reminds me of how I felt towards PCs.

Price is a nebuleous beast.  That was my point.  The actual words that bugged me were:

Apple does need to drive prices down a little, or PC's are going to blow them out of the water eventually.

PCs are blowing Macs out of the water right now when it comes to price.  I am a firm believer that you-get-what-you-pay-for is usually correct.  So I don't think that Apple needs to lower prices.  If PCs continue to suck and worsen the user experience, it might actually be to Apple's advantage to be more expensive.

But price is relative when you consider value.

I use a 5 year old dual 500 G4 for all my work and it still does just fine in PS, AI, ID, FM and all my web design/development.

Do 5 year old PCs retain that level of usability or has the consumer purchased another computer in that amount of time to stay productive? If so then doesn't that make running PCs more expensive because you have to buy a new machine more often?

Pariah wrote:

I guess you shouldent have chosen a badly designed Laptop then. Its not like there arent plenty of choices.
I wasent even talking about Laptops in my earlier comments since I dont use one or want one, my concerns are about desktops.
Apple hasent made a sub $2000 computer I would ever consider buying in years and years now. This conviction on Apple's part that "consumers" only deserve locked box all in ones really rubs me raw.
I am all in favour of well designed products but only when design serves function rather than getting in the way as most of Apple's hardware design choices do.

See, this is what ticks me off about the pundits on Cnet.  They make comments like the ones you just made and have no idea how people use computers for business.

Find me a laptop with the resolution of this WUXGA screen, a 2GHz+ processor, a gig of RAM, a huge HD, and the top of the line video card for dual digital monitor support at the desk for the price of a 1900 dollar PB.  You can't do it.  Dell makes the only notebook (other than Apple) that meets my requirements.

By the way, my Apple PowerBook does the job better than my Dell - and it has a 1GHz processor.  This brand new Dell cost $2600 (not the $1899 that my PB cost me) before Office Pro and a TechNet subscription.

Light Speed wrote:

But price is relative when you consider value.

Amen

vaeaglesfan wrote:

Czachorski wrote:

Kurto2021 wrote:

Performance laptops are a lot bigger I will give you that...however Apple's laptops get a through but whippen by the performance laptops and a moderate but whippen by the others.  A top of the line Pentium M will smoke a 1.67 Powerbook in performance and battery life.

For now.  Apple has an answer.

What is Dell's answer going to be for their poor design?  Do they have a plan?  I doubt it.

Ahh yes, a multi-billion dollar corporation does not have a plan to better their product and compete with their competitors.



The Mac OS is head over heals better than Windows, but you can't fault Dell with that. Only Apple produces their own OS and machines.

For most home users, Macs do not offer "better" software. I think a home user would find that a word processor is a word processor no matter what computer they're on. Also, as an accountant, I can tell you Microsoft and other PC-only software developers blow Apple out of the water when it comes to business software. I find that most posters on this forum don't realize that because most people here are involved in other industries.

My reference to Dell's plans was with respect to design, not the OS.  I don't blame them for the crappy OS they ship, I blame them for their tired, uninspired hardware designs.

I think that you are quite mistaken on the home user tools Apple offers.  For most home users, Macs do indeed offer "better" software.  Sure, word processors are similar.  So what - that is not the main program home-users run.  Apple's consumer-level media software in iLife is unmatched in the PC world for ease of use, quality and price.  The other bundled software on a Mac for consumers like mail, safari, address book, etc, are quite nice, simple and powerful compared to their counterparts on Windows.  Not to mention the overall ease of use, stability, security and UI of the OS.  These are the items that home-users measure their machines by, not word processors.  Heck, just the security, viruses, adware, spyware issues alone, with no other item on the table is enough to say that Macs are offering a better home-user solution.

As far as accounting software, I wholeheartedly understand and agree.  I am an engineer, and there is not AutoCad, ArcView GIS, hydraulic and hydrologic modeling software, etc for the Mac.  Even the accounting software we use for billing will not run on a Mac.  For business and engineering applications, in most cases, a PC is still the best tool for the job.

avkills wrote:

Dell has a widescreen notebook that has a higher res than the 17"PB.  My co-worker (IT man) has one.  Works fine for what he needs it for, looks decent to me other than not running OS X.


Yup just looked, they have one @ 1920x1200 res.

-mark

Does it have a back-lit keyboard, automatic brightness adjustment based on ambient light, a close-the-lid sleep function that actually works, a powercord that gives feedback about the battery status, 1" thick, under 7 lbs, with an amazing aluminum alloy case?

I am sure that the Dell "Works fine for what he needs it for".  My old Dell at work did too.  Such facts do not mean that their designs are not tired and uninspired.

nstehle wrote:

It's more than 2 inches thick, weighs more than 7 lbs., and is made of cheap plastic.

Czachorski wrote:

vaeaglesfan wrote:

Czachorski wrote:

What is Dell's answer going to be for their poor design?  Do they have a plan?  I doubt it.

....Also, as an accountant, I can tell you Microsoft and other PC-only software developers blow Apple out of the water when it comes to business software. I find that most posters on this forum don't realize that because most people here are involved in other industries.

...As far as accounting software, I wholeheartedly understand and agree.  I am an engineer, and there is not AutoCad, ArcView GIS, hydraulic and hydrologic modeling software, etc for the Mac.  Even the accounting software we use for billing will not run on a Mac.  For business and engineering applications, in most cases, a PC is still the best tool for the job.

I agree with both of these posts, up to a point: The Mac had both accounting and CAD software as good as it's PC counterpart until the switchover to OS X. At that time, Apple's marketshare had slipped so badly, that developers for these simply decided to drop support. What's really a shame is that developers like Intuit and IMSI have begun to release Mac OS X versions that are so crippled and/or bug ridden, that there ought to be a law against them. I use a nice little Mac shareware app for my personal bookkeeping that lets me download ofx files for matching - so I can live with that.

What I find interesting, is that non-Microsoft PC software like Quicken and Taxwise give me very few problems, but Microsoft PC apps like Word are a constant source of irritation.

Apple's laptops have always been pretty darn competitive with PCs. Except for recently when the G4s have just fallen behind so badly Apple laptops often came out on top in a price per value comparison to PC laptops.
My issue is the same cannot be said for Apple's desktop choices except at the very high end.
Apple has proven for many years that they can meet or exceed PC laptops on a "bang for your buck" basis and still make a tidy profit but the "Apple tax" on desktop units has done nothing but grow greater over time.
The absolute refusal of Apple to offer a tower configuration at a mid price point is extremely agreivating and something that will have to change once Apple's componants can be compared directly with their PC counter parts. Apple has gotten away with its high priced towers because of a certain degree of mystery factor about the actual cost and comparibility to PC parts but thats coming to an end soon.
Apple is going to have a hard time justifying having a $2000 tower powered by an Intel CPU you can buy everyday of the week from other makers in a $1000 box.

avkills wrote:

I pretty much consider Dells to be tupperware containers modified to hold electronic parts.

I like that analogy.

99% of the time what slows PCs down is either they have malware and virus active, the user has a bum install or they have so much anti-virus running that it robs all the clock cycles from the CPU.

Good installs run quite well. We rent Dells and they all run good.  Our IT staff is good about that type of stuff.

-mark

Win2k Pro is really the best Windows version I've had the experience of using. I've not had an issue with it. OFC I'm also as damn careful as possible when it come to using it. (Keeping off the internet unless necessary and running the occasion spybot/virus scan.) They only drawback is it's slightly counterintuitive to the way I think. I think something should be done one way and it seems to think I should do it the opposite way. Where as Win98SE was significantly more of a pain than Mac OS X, Mac OS 7.5-9.2.2, or Win2k Pro. WinXP was bloated enough presented it own unique set of challenges. (Not a bad foundation but way too top-heavy in terms of overhead.)

I think the only way to prove things one way or the other in terms of hardware would be to make all other things equal and run the tests. The Mactels and the Universal Binaries will help a lot in that respect.

While I agree many of Windows problems are of the PEBKAC variety it doesn't fail to strike me that it seems to have more than it's fair share of those problems too.