I agree entirely about the major difference in hardware quality and, remember, I just bought a MacBook Pro 13 for $1199 and feel every dollar is well worth it. Again, it's the Ferrari, an Enzo is built by hand with hand tooled parts with tolerances far in excessive of a Miata or other consumer sports car. If you want the best hardware, you pay for it.
I was trying to illustrate that, for task oriented buyers, the Ferarri may be nice but the Ford fits the budget better. On Nov 4, 2009, at 10:14 AM, erik burggraaf wrote: > > 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 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
