Telling Fact From Fantasy In the World of Apple Rumors 91
Harry writes "In recent years, fact-based reporting about Apple and its products has been almost completely overwhelmed by gossip, predictions, and speculation — an amazing percentage of which is embarrassingly wrong. I've put together a guide to figuring out which scuttlebutt is almost certainly fiction, and which has a shot at jibing with reality."
Re:Fantasy: Apple computers aren't overpriced (Score:1, Informative)
Done, thanks for having me do this again. It's always a good exercise to double check and see if the apple delusion-ists are correct this time. Unfortunately once again apples products came out more expensive for equivalent products.
I spent 10 min comparing apples store on the website using 20 and 24 in imacs and 20 and 24 inch dell xps all in ones. Obviously you cant get them identical but similar machines had the XPS dell's (which are already overpriced) coming in at a few hundred dollars cheaper.
But hey keep posting this garbage and maybe someday you'll be correct. Extra kudos for those who burned karma on delusion.
Re:Fantasy: Apple computers aren't overpriced (Score:4, Informative)
You will find the price of the Mac, will be about the same price as the competitors.
Essentially true for the base model, when they are launched. And then it goes down hill, because the Apple specs are practically obsolete before its updated, and then on top of that, they grossly overcharge for upgrades.
For example, Take a look at the base 24" iMac. It comes with 2GB of RAM... it costs $150 to go to 4GB. You can easily buy 4GB outright for LESS than it costs to get an extra 2GB from Apple.
Another example... Hard drive... it starts with a 320GB HD. They want $300 to upgrade to a 1TB drive. You can get a 1TB for $100-150 outright. With Apple its $300 and that's on top of whatever they valued the 320GB at.
Yet another example... $150 to upgrade to a 8800GS? What the fuck? A 9800GT is $130.00 outright for crying out loud, and is a much stronger card. And they want $150 to UPGRADE to an 8800GS?
Ok... its an all in one... so sure, maybe the video card is a bit trickier... I get why a 9800GT might not be an option. But I shouldn't have to pay $150 to upgrade to an 8800GS. $50 over an HD2600pro, tops.
Apple gouges on upgrades 'nuff said.
So how about an actual product comparison:
Apple 24" 3.06 vs Dell XPS 24"
bluetooth on both
gigabit on both
built in camera - 1.3MP vs 2MP
built in mic - on both
wifi - apple gives you b/g, dell b/g/n
4GB ram on both (apple upgrade / dell default)
750GB drive on both (apple upgrade / dell default)
24" screen - lets assume they are equal - who knows
built in speakers - lets assume they are equal
optical - dvdrw vs bluray
cpu - cor2duo in the apple, dell gives you a quad
video - 8800GS 512MB vs 9600M GT 512MB - i think the dell's is better
os - osx vs vista ultimate
Ok... so the dell all-in-one is equal or better in each spec, how about price:
iMac 2449.00 vs 2199.00 [ dell XPS one 24 (product)red ]
so its $250 less, comes with a quad core, blu ray, wireless n, better video card, and a better camera.
Oh, and the dell has a TV tuner too.
Dell win hands down. Not even a contest. Apple's not in the ballpark.
Worse if we can drop the 'product (red)' thing, which drops the bluray drive, and gives us vista home premium, the dell is $1899, still markedly better than the Apple, and now $550 less.
Maybe not all Apple's are overpriced... but this one, at least IS.
B/G/N (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Sometimes the truth sucks (Score:3, Informative)
Macs are like Harley Davidson, only a fool buys them new. Get them used and save yourself the expense.
As someone else pointed out, second-hand Macs tend to be expensive. I definitely recommend checking out the available options (the Clearance section on the Apple Store web site is great, and PowerMax is a reliable seller of used Apple products) but buying new is often a better option. I'm typing this on an iBook I bought used from a friend who was upgrading to a MBP, but the other three Macs I've owned were all new, and the older used models that were available at the time would not have been good options for me.
We've finally reached the point where Core2Duo-based Macs are fast enough that even the used ones are quite usable, but CPU speed has long been a frustrating problem.
New Macs ship with the latest OS for no extra charge, which often has vast improvements over the previous version, and consumer-grade Macs ship with iLife as well. Upgrading the OS and installing iLife on a used Mac will add $208 to the price tag. If you don't need those features, then going used may be a better option for you. New hardware features can be nice too - I love the new buttonless trackpad on the new Macbooks.
Re:Fantasy: Apple computers aren't overpriced (Score:4, Informative)
Still, I work in research environment and I find it impossible to find an 8-core Xeon on par with the current Mac Pro for less than the Apple price and that thing is almost a year old. Yeah, I can find it in a 4-core or 8-core desktop CPU (ECC is kinda important if you're running large computations over several days) and I can find it in several older CPU's but then they don't support enough PCIe or multiple hard drives. And then there is an extra surcharge for 64-bit Windows.
Re:Fantasy: Apple computers aren't overpriced (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Sometimes the truth sucks (Score:3, Informative)
Yeh, we know mac users prefer style over substance, that is a given.