Common Sense screams upon! Help me Silence it.

[TerrorOFdeath]

Greetings,

As many of you know, there is allways the question about Price/Performance when an PC User considers to buy an Apple Product.

This Time it has affected myself.
The Mainreason why I consider an Apple Product is because, I am working 8.5h on an WindowsVista PC and when I come home, I am really not in the mood to see the same thing again. I tried Linux, but its more work than just enjoying. So that was a no-go for me

I neither have an NB nor an PC at the moment.
I had an Acer 8930G Notebook which was really great. Intel Core2Duo, intigreated 5.1 Surround Sound, 1920.1080 display resolution, 9700GTS, 18.4 inch and 2x360 HDD. Even a BD rom was intigrated.
It was quiet and didnt get very hot, even under constant use for 12h with everest and futuremark, it didnt went over 41C. And the greatest thing was the Esata interface which i used for my external HDD 1TB.

And then there was Windows...
I mean ok. It has become really better the XP. I used Windows7. But like I said - Aaaalways the same.. day after day.
Also i had some Problems with Esata, but that was most likely because the Beta.

I mostly watch Videos and Surf. For Gaming I have an Ps3 and thats more than enough.
To watch Videos it was a real Pleasure. The Sound and the Image was allways great. OK, its not an real 5.1 expirience and the bass also wasnt this great, but it was ok.

The Notebook was for me an Desktop replacement. I never took it off from my desk.

Thats the reason why the iMac24 turned me on ;-)
I hate Cables so the NB was great with just the PowerCable. And the Imac has also just one.
I have an 2.1 Surround System that would be ok. An 5.1 would be great but I dont intend to, because of the Cable mess.

I would also wait because in September they wil Ship the Macs with SnowLeopard and I hope that the rumor off iMac updates to become true.

My Problem is, for the price (I estimate about 3000$) the iMac costs i could get an really nice NB with great hardware extras. Pretty much the same as the last NB I had. Difference is an QuadCore, which I dont belive will be in the iMacs, if they update them, which is sad.

So my question to you. How do you get allong with that fact?
I mean ok, the OS is great and I worked with it before. But the Price/Performance ist the question.

Hope someone can help me on that one.

Tod

 

[rye9]

I'm not entirely sure what you are asking, however keep in mind that the price of Macs are slightly higher for the most part than their PC counterparts, however in my opinion the Mac OS is much better than Windows.

And as for the Snow Leopard comment, you can get a Mac now and upgrade for only $9.95... it's a great deal so you don't sit around waiting until the holiday season for a Mac shipping with 10.6.

Just go ahead and buy the iMac... if you've already tried other OS's and are tired with Windows you won't regret it.

 

[AMessy]

To me the operating system always made up the cost difference between Macs and PC's. The problem is now i'm so used to the Mac OS, when buying a new comp I don't even look at PC's.

Your comment about the iMac lacking a quad core doesn't seem like it would be a big deal. The current iMac should be able to handle all the web surfing and movie watching you want. I can see your point about the Mac costing more but not having some hardware features such as BR that the PC's have but again you just have to weigh the cost of the hardware and software combined. For me that means Mac, for you maybe not.

 

[techound1]

Your comment about the iMac lacking a quad core doesn't seem like it would be a big deal. The current iMac should be able to handle all the web surfing and movie watching you want.

And snow leopard is going to be even more efficient resource-wise, so it should zip along nicely for you.

 

[SnowLeopard2008]

Before we get into the specifics, why do you need to benchmark constantly for 12 hours? Everest and futuremark are both benchmarking programs from I can tell.

Now, unless the applications you run are very CPU intensive, a quad core does next to nothing for you. Video encoding, photoshop, video render, etc. Unless you actually use the performance that Acer notebook offered, it's a moot point.

I never think of price/performance but price/quality. Sure a Logitech 5.1 surround sound speaker system has better 'performance' supposedly, with 5 satellites and 1 subwoofer, but at the same price I can get a 2 speaker Bose system. I choose Bose because I like quality not quantity.

 

[Furi Kuri]

If you're estimating about $3000, why not get a mac pro?

 

[TerrorOFdeath]

Thanks for the answers.

@snowleopard2008: Yes there are stress test programs. This was just an test i ran to see how loud and hot the acer NB went. And i was pleased with the results. So it wouldnt be this bad if I would choose againe an normal NB. The MacbookPros can become very loud and veery hot. So that option ist a nogo for me.

Your example with the Soundsystem is nice. Thank you for that.

@furi kuri: I dont want to have any cable salad. Thats the reason. And besides, I have an PC at work, so i dont something thats similar but just with an different OS.

Nevertheless, the new Post on Macrumors just shows me, that its much better to wait 1month and to train myself in patience ;-)

Tod