I had a couple freinds hissy fitting over mac vs pc coolness. I pointed out to them and I will point out to all of you.

The only way any of you will ever be cool is if you get stuck in a freezer.

I use both and I still despise Mac OS. Different strokes.

Love my iPhone, though. It's the only reason I suffer owning a Mac.

PBIL: Office, QuickBooks and web browsing. Plus a lot of photos.
Me: No problem. And you can install Windows just in case you ever need to run it for some bizarre reason.
PBIL: What about price? Aren't they a lot more expensive?
Me: Not so much anymore. Besides, you can use [my sister-in-law]'s education discount.

If he just gets a PC he would have been able to do all those things for the price of the machine. If he buys a Mac then he would also need to purchase a retail copy of Windows if he wants to run QuickBooks legally. That pushes up the price of Mac solution substantially because buying Windows "off the shelf" is rather expensive.

Macs are a little more expensive. Spread that out over the life of the machine though, the price differenced over time is pretty darn small. The hardware is quality, looks damn good, has a good resale value, and does allow you to run OSX and Windows.

We're looking at getting one of the partners here at work an new notebook and it looks like he's going Mac. A Dell costs 2100 and the Mac costs 2400.

If I had $1k to lay down on a notebook, it would be spent on the base model Macbook. Especially now that it has a 9400m in it.

Apple has 3-4 models of notebooks and every one is sweet. Dell and HP each have 15-20 and they have a hard time getting just one right.

Anymore?!? Oh ho ho!

Reply: FAILURE.

Ok, Jason, I've been enjoying your blogs for a couple months now, but this one just screams blind zealotness.

IRQ issues? What is this 1994? Seriously, plug and play eliminated that in Windows 98SE. Wow!

So the guy needs photos, web, office and financial software and you suggest a Mac? Well isn't that unnecessary.

My fiance just bought her first Mac (since she's in a collegiate research lab that is exclusively mac). I really enjoy the UI and the look and feel of the computer, but I do not subscribe to any sort of superiority of Macs over PCs, they're just different.

Me: Well, do you like your iPhone.

PBIL: Yeah, it's great. Except for the hideous quality control issues. [He's on his third 3G, yikes.]

Me: Well, your iPhone runs a version of the Mac's operating system, so you'll feel right at home. What programs do you need to run?

Hilarious. You weren't being serious were you?

Bought a Dell laptop with C2D 2GHz/3GB/250GB/Blu-Ray and an 15" 1440x900 LED display, for less than half of what I'd get any MacBook for at the time. The GPU was probably inferior, but it can play L4D relatively well, and that's more than enough for mobile gaming for me.. :-)

Granted, Dell's quality control aswell as the overall quality is probably worse though. I had to send it in for repair when the monitor started flickering slightly, but they have excellent customer care, so everything went smooth, only was without it for a weekend. But is it half the quality of an Apple? Nuh-huh.

And the keyboard of this thing is a gazillion times nicer than that abomination that is the Apple keyboard. :-)

The real cool kids run Linux, but then everyone already knew that.

Don't misunderstand me; I love my Mac. But not a disturbingly inappropriate amount.

Dude, you have a blog series about it. If that isn't a disturbingly inappropriate amount, I don't know what is. You also lied to your brother-in-law about prices, but I guess he's rich, so he doesn't care.

Hmm, 300 million iphones sold . . . does that include all of the replacements? Two of my friends, the two with iphones, have had theirs replaced every three to six months since purchase.

Truthfully, I don't see the appeal of the iphone for me/my lifestyle. It's no where near powerful enough for me to do actual work (see the OQO for $2'500), and it's far too over-powered for me to use as a telephone. I don't need a $300 4" level when I can get a $50 2 metre level.

That's similar to my opinions of mac machines in general. I have nothing against the decent mac computers. They certainly do what they do very well. But that's not what a computer is meant to be.

The benefits of a computer surround flexibility. It's a "general purpose computer" remember. The reason I focus on the PC/Windows world for my home/work desktops/laptops is because I know that any hardware, any software, any peripheral will be supported, both now and for a long time. Operating systems that work for well over a decade, compatibility in both directions for another decade, and limitless options/suppliers.

Certainly, if I wanted a machine for web browsing, e-mail, and document writing, a mac would be good -- and I'm sure their fair share of sometimes better. But that's not what I want in a computer.

I want the "anything is possible" factor. I want to be able program, watch, plug in, surf, browse, play, upgrade, downgrade, connect my 5.25" disk drive in the closet, any peripheral I ever find, any game, any brand, et cetera. I don't want to have to look for that little "works with mac" sticker. And I really don't want to pay 50% more for that mac version of the Hauppage USB tuner.

Specialized equipment is not my desire.

PBIL: What about price? Aren't they a lot more expensive?

Yes, yes they are. Very much so.

I like Macs and really it is the steep price keeping myself and many others away.

Office, QuickBooks and web browsing. Plus a lot of photos.

Price out a PC vs Mac that can do these things.....

Mac sucks - that is all

Hmm, didn't the last poll show that ~75% of TR readers don't own an iPhone, a don't want one?

Whoops, I was beaten to it. Anyway, Macs aren't for me.

The whole discussion about the upgrade was hardly a selling point for the Mac; the guy didn't see the difference between either platform.

17 Inch Mac Book Pro is 2499
17 Inch Dell Studio 17 specd as close to the macbook as I can costs 1650.

I will take the dell over the Mac Book every time for that price difference. On top that you can add another 100+ to the cost of the mac for a copy of windows so you can actually run the software that I have to have.

Some people actually prefer windows, like me. There's no benefit for macs to me, and a lot of hassle, such as lack of modern games and blu-ray support. For someone like me who is all into blu-rays and games, macs suck. And you pay more for less. So no I do not consider owning a mac to be cool, I consider it like a face tattoo, someone who needs attention to get by and goes through pains for no actual gain. And buying a much more expensive mac (since I need a powerful desktop - does apple even sell core i7s btw?) to run windows on just seems daft. What the hell would I be rebooting for, for those times when I want to copy-n-paste a few files with the OS, so I can get blown away by apple's blue icons and water colored progress bar? Man that's just too stupid, imo. Windows works fine at the things macs do, but the reverse is not true.
And you bring up IRQ conflicts, are you for real? What about those buggy extensions in Mac and bomb screens? I mean leave ancient history in the damn history books or where-ever. Vista x64 has been rock solid for me for over 2 years, just saying your OS is cool is the lamest OS argument I've ever seen, I want a real benefit or at least lower costs, before I switch, neither of which are to be found in mac land.

You were a bit misleading about price. There are three Macs that are reasonably priced. The Mini, the MacBook, and the 13" MacBook Pro. Those units are decently priced for what you get hardware wise and the quality of the chassis, size, and battery life. The 15" and 17" MacBook Pro's are way expensive and the iMac's are cringe worthy pricey as well.

I'm a recent convert. Purchased my first Mac an iMac a month ago. It is a wonderful machine. I loved it so much for what I do that I gave away my high end PC that I built myself (I have been building computer for myself since the 386 days). I thought I would never give it up. But over many years you get tired of tinker here and tinker there. You just want to get things done and not worry about "Do I have the fastest machine?" or having to replace a part because it went bad and absorb the cost of the part or shipping it back. I just got my 13" MacBook Pro this last weekend. I have to say that I have never felt or seen a notebook with better designed and quality. By comparison my Dell laptop is a turd floating in the toilet. Of course I gave the turd to my sister-in-law. Just thought I would share my recent experience.

Macbook - $999
# 2.13GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
# 2GB 800MHz DDR2 SDRAM
# 160GB 5400rpm hard drive

Dell - $599
# 2.1GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
# 3GB 800MHz DDR2 SDRAM
# 250GB 7200rpm hard drive

http://www.techbargains.com/news_displayItem.cfm/168392

Again Macs are nice, but you will have a hard time convincing anyone it's worth $400 more.

PBIL: What about price? Aren't they a lot more expensive?
Me: Not so much anymore. Besides, you can use [my sister-in-law]'s education discount.

And that's where you derailed, in my opinion.

I'm a Mac owner (Mini, Mac Pro, Macbook, iMac) and I do find the subject price comparison pretty laughable.

Not everyone cares about the laptop being thin, light, build with a single frame, etc. Few give two pieces of elephant dung about it. Most people care about the size of the screen, period! Best Buy may be the only real metric of this, but their lineup of sub $700 laptops with 2-4GB of ram, 15.2" LCD screen is a CLEAR indication of what the market wants!

Apple could easily buy the same speed Intel chip (yes, slower than what they are shipping now), put in 15.2" screens, 2GB of ram and some lower sized HDD for $699/799. Will it EAT into their margins?

As much as letting Oprah loose at an all you can eat buffet!

The price comparison favors them "better" with the AIO and Mac Pro, but they EPIC FAIL on laptops. With the sheer number of "netbooks" being shipped today, you can bet Apple is looking at making their own spin on them to help further bring down the cost of owning a Mac.

EDIT: cars = cares

Recommending a Mac because someone likes their iPhone isn't a particularly strong reason for replacing a PC, in my opinion. But at least he didn't stop and argue.

Jason, I suffer through your Mac zealotry with a heavy heart but infinite patience. You are but a lost soul, scooped up in the whirlwind cult of Apple. Soon, you will escape your captors and be truly free.

In the meantime, I put up with the subtle jabs at PCs. I tolerate the snide looks, snickering, the disdainful sniff of the nose. I even put up with the constant refrain of "Gee, I haven't had a BSOD in so long..."

But toilet paper going under? Good god man! What are you, a savage? :-p

IMHO, Mac desktops are still pushing the price if you buy in maryland (no tax) and use an education discount.

Mac laptops, on the other hand, are completely worth it for that price. No other company can offer that battery life.

Based on a recent poll, from somewhere... 71% of users don't care for the iPhone. ;)

Over except if have a cat or young kids or a baseboard heater

PBIL: What about price? Aren't they a lot more expensive?

Me: Not so much anymore. Besides, you can use [my sister-in-law]'s education discount.

Even with the education discount (which is $100 here in Canada, don't know about you Yankees), I'd say they do still qualify as "a lot more expensive" in a major way.

The sad thing is you never asked why he's switching. Is it something real about the Mac that attracts him, or does he just want to be "cool"?

don't gloat too much.
I would never own a Mac. or an Iphone.

then again I like getting work done.
and I like my phone to be a phone.