How much is Mac worth to you?

[sikkinixx]

I've been having a conversation a lot since a un-switched back to the Windows world after 4 years as a Mac-only guy. Which is how much is Mac, hardware & software, worth to you? I know especially with the iMac and Macbook, Macs are pretty comparable to average PC prices mind you.

For my girlfriend, who uses her Macbook for the web, Peggle, facebook and MSN, it was worth hundreds more than using a PC. I told her a $600 Dell would do everything she wanted for half the price of a Macbook but after using my MB/MBP she said she would pay the extra just for Mac OS X (namely expose)

Same deal with my parents, a cheaper PC would have been totally sufficient for their needs and they already know Windows so no learning curve but they liked Mac styling and iPhoto so they again shelled out hundreds more on an iMac when a Dell or HP or whatever would have been perfect for them.

A few of my mac-hardcore friends were surprised I went back to PC because I converted several of them to Macs but for me, the sexy hardware and great UI wasn't enough for me to pay more for less hardware wise. I'm quite the game junkie and I know Macs aren't meant for gaming but the new iMacs do a nice job at it. But... when I learned I could get (and now own) a PC that is more beefy in everyway than even the top-tier iMac, for significantly less money... I jumped and haven't regretted it (Crysis on High is stunning).

I miss expose.... a lot and XP isn't nearly as purdy as Leopard but I'm still happy.

I'm not trying to slag Mac or anything, I still use my girlfriend's Macbook on the couch (just don't tell her that ) but I just wonder how much Mac hardware and software is worth to people.

 

[bjett92]

Well... i saved money for almost two years to buy my MB and i could have bought a windows laptop in less than a year of saving. It was worth it.

 

[tefleming]

$820

 

[Wild-Bill]

$590 - monetary value

Priceless - intrinsic value

 

[d_and_n5000]

enough that i would work rather a lot harder for the Mac.

They just seem to...i don't know, agree with me more? I just like them, and they don't usually give me too much grief. I like the software more, like the hardware more, and when you tally it all up, it usually winds up being roughly comparable pricewise. And whatever premium the Mac has I can usually live with.

 

[eric55lv]

$180

 

[Abstract]

I really doubt I could get a much better computer for less money. Spec-wise, the MacBook is fantastic for everything people normally use a MacBook for. If you find a computer that has slightly better specs, then what about size and build quality? Some of these "better" laptops are 15" laptops, and heavier. Does size not count as a spec? I wanted a 13" laptop, and that's E XACTLY what I got. I always stated this on this message board, when I was a 12" PowerBook user. This was before the MacBook was released. I never wanted a large laptop, and the 12" screen was too small for a widescreen (I saw a 12" widescreen Dell before the MacBook was released).

I don't know. I'm looking at my MacBook right now, and the only thing I want in my laptop is the newer integrated graphics chipset (GMA X3100), and more RAM. The RAM is my responsibility, so in essence, I almost have my perfect laptop.

Ok, so I've determined that my laptop is worth its price relative to Windows laptops if you only look at specs. What about OS X? To me, a computer is an OS + applications + ports. All laptops have ports, so that's not an issue (except the MacBook has a FW400 port, which is nice to have). So if the OS and applications are most important to me, then having them makes a Mac worth its value.

I wouldn't buy a Vista laptop because I know that using Windows for 2 or 3 years would be a pain in the ass, and not worth saving an extra $0 to $300. In the real world, that's peanuts if you spread out the savings over 3 years.

 

[RacerX]

Well, lets take Mac hardware out of this... PC laptops are inexpensive, and used ones are even less expensive than new ones.

I own a PC laptop... an IBM ThinkPad 760ED. I could easily replace it with a newer, faster model, but I didn't buy it for the speed of the system. I bought it because I knew that it could run Rhapsody 5.1, which was the operating system I wanted to work in. Rhapsody was only supported on a small subset of PC hardware, so any hardware outside of that subset would be of no more value to me than a paper weight.

And I've been offered a number of PC laptops since I first got my ThinkPad (1999), and after finding out that they don't fall within the supported subset of hardware for either Rhapsody or OPENSTEP, I turned them down.

In the end, hardware makes little difference to me if I can't work in the environments that I am most productive in.

I could get a cheep PC to run Linux... but I don't really care much for Linux, I like IRIX much better, so I use SGI hardware. In the end, I could have also gotten a cheep PC to run Rhapsody, but their are far more applications for the PowerPC version so running it on a 10 year old Mac is still much better.

If your operating environment means nothing to you, then sure, hardware cost and performance should be your deciding factors. For me, the operating environment is the most important factor and all other considerations come in a distant second.

But when all things are equal... as it was back in 1999 for me, yes, hardware price and performance becomes a factor.

Back then I could have paid $1100 for a PowerBook 3400c or $550 for a IBM ThinkPad 760ED. Both would have run Rhapsody 5.1 perfectly, but while the PowerBook would have been faster, the ThinkPad had a much better display (the ThinkPad has a 1024x768 display while the PowerBook only has a 800x600 display)... which is a major factor in Rhapsody. So I got the ThinkPad.

Am I the only person to have made a similar choice back then? No.

In 1997-98, shortly after returning to Apple, Steve Jobs used an IBM ThinkPad (and later a Toshiba Tecra) for running OPENSTEP and Rhapsody. So why was the iCEO of Apple using non-Apple hardware? Because before the introduction of the PowerBook G3 Wallstreet the best PowerBook displays could only go as high as 800x600. So even after Rhapsody was running on PowerBooks, Jobs continued to use PC laptops until the Wallstreet was released.

But he wasn't using those systems to run Windows or DOS... the whole reason for him using those systems was to run OPENSTEP and Rhapsody. He was using the best hardware for his preferred environment.

 

[pianoman]

it's worth whatever the price difference is at any given time between the Mac i want/own and a similarly- or equally-spec'd non-Mac OS X-based computer.

 

[themadchemist]

I figure, to the extent that I use (and abuse) my computers, most could not handle me. Even my PowerBook can't really handle me, but thank goodness Apple's customer service is so freaking awesome. I got four years of life out of my Mac and I have a hunch I wouldn't have been able to get even two years out of a PC, at my level use with the kind of warranties they generally have.

So, unless the PC was half the price of the Mac, it wouldn't be of equal value. And even then, I would have to endure Windows, so really, the Mac is still the better choice for me.

 

[Iscariot]

How much more are you willing to pay for luxury items? I'm willing to pay more for an Apple in the same way I'm willing to pay more for a supportive pair of shoes, or a quality bottle of gin, or any other item where I expect to receive something "extra" for my purchase. I don't know if I could put a flat dollar value on it, but I am certainly willing to pay extra for the convenience factor of OSX.