While I agree with you that there's no way the average user can consume the kind of processer power built into even the meaneest cheep laptop, I have to point out the flaw in your comparison, which is this. a $500 dell vostro does not compare to a $1300 macbook standard in turms of the quality of the hardware. The construction of the vostro is cheep plastic. The board in those models is going to be built with non-resyclable plastic conponants. Cheeper capasaters, cheeper heat dicipation, cheeper cabling and soddring inside. They may have the same ram capasity and processer speed. The $500 vostro may be a little lower not so as you'd notice, but the componants and construction of a macbook standard are miles ahead of the vostro. In the long term you could reasonably go out and buy a macbook standard with apple care for about $1600 and have it last for at least 3 years. Or, you could buy a $500 Dell vostro a year for $500 per year, and pay $1500. Would that give you the quality of service, support, uptime, convenience, and so on that $1600 on a mac standard would? I don't know. Many people say Yes it would. I lean towards no it wouldn't, and I've worked on a fare few computers from a lot of different companies in the last 7 or 8 years or so.
Perhapse a better comparison would be a macbook pro or standard to a dell studio spx 1640. This model is priced about half way in between the macbook pro and macbook standard. It is an elegantly constructed machine with all metal and aluminum componants. It possibly has a bit more under the hood than the mac hardware, including a blue ray drive which comes standard. You can tell just by looking at it and using it that the quality is a cut above. Superb sound, high comfort keybordd, great quality jacks and sockets, nice heat dicipation, great feature set... You could seriously buy one of these and be proud to own it and show it off. Don't even get me started on the $2500 hp 8710 's that one company was selling last year, or the $1800 toshiba fisher price toy I'm training on now that has noting under the hood and is built like an enourmous plastic paving stone left out in the sun. At least the hp ones came with a $400 on site service contract, and we could prove directly to a person that they were a piece of crap. When comparing high end notebooks to eachother, Macbooks more than hold their own on price, quality and service. Best, Best, erik burggraaf A+ certified technician and user support consultant. Phone: 888-255-5194 Email: e...@erik-burggraaf.com On 2009-11-04, at 9:28 AM, Chris Hofstader wrote: > > Hi, > > When looking at compute power, one needs to consider what the users > need at home, school and work. The fact of the matter is that a brand > new laptop from Apple, Dell, HP, etc. probably have an incredibly > overpowered CPU for the requirements of the typical user. > > The Core 2 in my new MacBook Pro is a dual core, 64 bit, absolutely > screaming fast processor. How do I use it? Well, I do a lot of > email, use TextEdit and, on occasion, iWork to write articles, > proposals and the like, I look at web sites for fun and research, I > use Skype, I do the odd bit of budgetting kind of work in a > spreadsheet program and I write and compile computer programs with the > Apple development environment. Thus, almost all I do is either type, > listen or talk - none of which require a whole lot of compute power > and I probably leave the overwhelmingly large number of cycles > unused. Just three years ago, this laptop would have been used by > people who do serious number crunching, genetic research, deep data > mining, astronomy, etc. Now, they can get the Mac Pro with something > like 8 cores for about $7000 and have the equivalent of a 10 year old > multi-million dollar super computer. > > So, the consumer market has created a commodity pricing infrastructure > because their current computer probably does everything they want > reasonably well. Macintosh is, in many people's eyes, a luxury item. > It's the Ferarri of personal computers - fast, sleek, pretty and a joy > to drive; on the other hand, one pays a serious premium for the Apple > products but, in my opinion at least, it's quite worthwhile. Others, > though, may use the same sort of programs I use and not find any need > to upgrade as no one can type so fast that they can exceed current low > end processor capacity, let alone the high end stuff. > > People with vision impairment are a special case as Windows systems > require adding third party access technology which changes the pricing > model as suddenly the $600 Dell laptop costs $1700 to use with JAWS > while a MacBook 13 plastic costs $999 and includes an excellent screen > reader. In my mind, Macintosh, for the vast majority of users with > vision impairment provides the best price/performance in the biz today > but adoption, for a number of very sensible fiscal reasons, will be > slow among institutional buyers. > > Happy Hacking, > cdh > On Nov 4, 2009, at 8:27 AM, erik burggraaf wrote: > >> >> Hi anouk, >> >> We have some of these similar problems here with our equipment >> funding. Unfortunately the nature of the computer market is this. >> The average consumer wants to spend as little as possible on a >> computer, even if that means they will be buying a new computer >> once a >> year. Consumers who want a high end computer that will last them 3 >> years are a niche market. This is especially when you consider that >> businesses who buy in bulk take the mass market approach. Those guys >> are even worse. Sure, They may buy 1000 computers every year or two, >> But they want to get a $600 computer for $400, and they still want >> fat >> warrantees on them. When you build things cheep to undercut the >> other >> guys so you can sell more units and kater to the market, you get >> oodles of breakdowns and have to spend a bundle on service if you >> cant >> convince the buyer to just go out and get a new one. >> >> People like us who want well built systems to last us absorb the cost >> of servicing the cheep laptops. This is much the same principal as >> voiceover. Every one who buys a mac contributes to the development >> of >> voiceover, even though %95 of mac users have no infernal use for it >> what-so-ever. >> >> There is not a company here in north america who has a standard >> laptop >> warrantee longer than one year, for all the reasons stated above. >> Even Asus, which puts 3 years standard on it's desktop componants and >> builds superb quality laptops here, only provides one year on their >> laptop systems. So our funding has to last for 5 years. The best >> warrantee we can do is 3 years. And we will be lucky if we still >> have >> a nice computer at the end of the day because they are just built >> cheep. It's a real tough situation for resellers and funding >> authorizers, and it's terribly frustrating for clients. >> >> Here in North America, Apple is pretty competative with products lit >> dell studio and some of the mid range asus stuff. The real money >> saver of an apple is the bsiness of not having to provide a screen >> reader. Unfortunately we're duel booting windows on these products >> and providing jaws or window-eyes any way because many of our people >> already have so much money invested that they don't want to just >> ditch >> their abominably high priced windows kit. So that kind'a defeats the >> purpose a bit but it will get there. >> >> Best, >> erik burggraaf >> A+ certified technician and user support consultant. >> Phone: 888-255-5194 >> Email: e...@erik-burggraaf.com >> >> On 2009-11-04, at 3:49 AM, anouk radix wrote: >> >>> >>> Hello, I know that there are some unattached braille display >>> developers around, meaning that their braille displays are not >>> linked >>> to screenreader software to windows. Lately I have been thinking >>> about >>> how cool it would beif they could do a package deal on their braille >>> display and a mac laptop. In the netherlands if you are a >>> schoolgoing >>> child or a student you get both a laptop, a screenreader and a >>> braille >>> display from the state (actually the uwv, a company run by the >>> state) >>> if you are a working person then your employer can ask the uwv for a >>> screenreader and a braille display and if you need stuff for home >>> use >>> you need to ask your insurance company. So it owuld be really >>> beneficial for the uwv to have an option like the mac that would >>> be a >>> lot cheaper then the options by optelec (bc640+hal) or freedom >>> scientific (i think their braille display is called focus and they >>> of >>> course develop jaws) plus probbably a toshiba laptop. At least the >>> free developers could spread the know how about the mac system and >>> maybe translate stuff provide dutch support etc. I was planning to >>> write some people about this when I suddenly realized something. 1. >>> apple seems to be the sole distributor of macbooks etc and most >>> importantly 2. the very meager standard warranty and very high price >>> to buy more. If you get a laptop as a blind student in nl then you >>> have to use it for at least 3 years before you ask for a new one, >>> after 3 years you can ask for a new laptop and sometimes even a new >>> braille display although that term used to be 5 ears. So it is >>> common >>> practice for companies to deliver the laptop with 3 years of >>> warranty >>> so that has to be included in the total price. >>> I really hope that in the future apple iwll include more then 1 year >>> of warranty because on a lot of proiducts in europe you have AT >>> LEAST >>> 2 years warranty as standard and at no extra cost. >>> Greetings, Anouk >>> >>>> >> >> >>> > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
