Originally posted by the_dalex
rjstanford, it's pretty obvious that you can judge a company's product quality by what they have consistently put out in the past.
Apple has consistently put out the highest quality products, with the iPod being one of their best.
Two points here. First, there was a period of time when everybody knew and agreed that Hondas were crap compared to Fords. This reversed, in part because Ford was so confident of Honda never improving their quality that they didn't bother to keep up. Second, have you seen all of the complaints about the recent PowerBooks? At least one Apple fan was lamenting the fact that his 5-6 apples had had far more problems than his friends Dells.
Dell is known for using cheap, bulky, heavy form factors. Have you ever held an Inspiron laptop? It feels like a "Fisher Price My First Computer" or something along those lines.
Actually, I use one for work. Its about half-a-pound heavier than the powerbook, takes all kinds of abuse, and just keeps on working (still looks new, too). Lighter and more solid feeling than the iBooks though. I will agree that the Dells of a few years back were crap, though.
Stop trying to ignore the fact that Apple makes better quality products than Dell, especially from a construction standpoint. In this market, Dell is not in direct competition with Apple any more than BMW is in direct competition with Ford. Similar products, but different target markets.
Or any more than Ford was in competition with Honda before. Anyway, with an increasing number of posts like
https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=563263#post563263 and
https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=564866#post564866 showing up, let's hope that Apple gets their quality back on track. Also, any company who's business plan includes other companies not fixing their issues though is potentially in trouble.
Originally posted by hulugu
you do seem to like the Dell system quite a bit, it will be interesting to see what they actually put out.
Don't get me wrong. I like iPods. I have a 40gb iPod. Its very cool, and I never said that it wasn't. That doesn't automatically mean that other products are crap. I'm interested too, which is why I was getting a little annoyed at the "Well, its not Apple so it must be awful," posts, especially those trying to spread FUD about things like pricing ($100 under iPod), battery life (independantly confirmed), and usage as an external drive... this is serious competition.
That, and I like looking out for underdogs. I correct FUD when I see it - on other forums its mostly about Apples. Here, its mostly about Wintel PCs. Either way, its FUD.
-Richard
