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crisss1205

crisss1205

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Oct 7, 2008
959
306
NYC
It seems like Dell just goes and names Apple in their new Ad.

How do they get that estimate in price?
For me I calculated it and it came to about $400 more for the MBP with a second graphics card, better battery, better service, and better construction. Not to mention a free iPod and printer which comes out to $330. That means the Dell is only $70 less! (Not including the stuff above like the battery, construction, DDR3 RAM)
 

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And visits to the Geek Squad that can go for $75 a pop, just for a diagnosis.

Long term costs or more up front. You decide.
 
They say its the same memory too. When the dell models only support DDR2 memory and the macs use DDR3.
 
oh, and it is barrels of fun to call Dell Service and just defaulting to speaking Hindi to save trouble, because you cannot possibly understand 50% of the operator's words anyway. Glad I had learned it when I was there for 3 months.


...OP, where did YOU get that calculation?
 
Cuz beachballs, kernel panics, and random lockups are awesome too.

I love not being able to use spotlight or empty the trash without a restart.

Awesome!!111
 
justaregularjoe said:
oh, and it is barrels of fun to call Dell Service and just defaulting to speaking Hindi to save trouble, because you cannot possibly understand 50% of the operator's words anyway.
Click to expand...

In fairness, the first level of Apple's customer support is also routed to India. We don't go stateside for help unless/until it gets bumped up a level. At least that has been my experience.
 
Sneakz said:
the only reason why Snow Leopard is $29 is because it doesn't bring too much to the table and didn't warrant a $129.99 price tag.
Click to expand...

The only reason Snow Leopard is $29 is because Apple wants every one to buy it. Don't forget Apple is out there to sell the hardware as well, so all the refinements in Snow Leopard will help sell hardware. Microsoft on the other hand is predominantly a software company; since Windows is their core and flagship product, they charge an amount for it that they deem profitable.

Achiever said:
In fairness, the first level of Apple's customer support is also routed to India. We don't go stateside for help unless/until it gets bumped up a level. At least that has been my experience.
Click to expand...

If Apple's call centre is in India, they must be pretty good because they speak like native American English speakers (I'm content as long as they know what I'm talking about and I know what their talking about).
 
alphaod said:
The only reason Snow Leopard is $29 is because Apple wants every one to buy it. Don't forget Apple is out there to sell the hardware as well, so all the refinements in Snow Leopard will help sell hardware. Microsoft on the other hand is predominantly a software company; since Windows is their core and flagship product, they charge an amount for it that they deem profitable.
Click to expand...
I understand what your saying and agree, but my money is on 10.7 not being cheap like 10.6 will be. Probably back to $129.99 or a little less. (maybe $99.99)
 
Sneakz said:
That comment was ignorant. Home Premium is half of that and the only reason why Snow Leopard is $29 is because it doesn't bring too much to the table and didn't warrant a $129.99 price tag.
Click to expand...
Snow Leopard brings a whole slew of improvements. The problem is that most of them are hard to sell to most consumers, since they are behind-the-scenes updates. Leopard as a whole has been well-liked by the public, so there is little incentive for many people to upgrade. I agree with you about the upgrade price; also consider that it was only $50 during the limited-time promotional period, making the upgrade cost virtually the same.

In all fairness, there is no need to try to rationalize the cost difference by talking about Geek Squad visits since the Dell also comes with a warranty, although the basic warranty may not offer the same level of service as the Mac. Also, I configured a Dell Studio 15 (which is a 16:9 screen, a terrible ratio for productivity) and it was not possible to make an apples:apples (no pun intended) comparison. The Dell is available with DDR2 memory which still has a price advantage over DDR3 and of course the vastly cheaper-to-produce plastic body.
 
Nde said:
And you forgot about $300 for every Microsoft OS Upgrade.
Click to expand...

Your Windows pricing info is a bit off, and keep in mind new Windows are out on a 5year basis... Moreover, XP was and is good enough for some people even now, 11 years after it debuted. Kind of hard to beat.
 
Bill Gates said:
Snow Leopard brings a whole slew of improvements. The problem is that most of them are hard to sell to most consumers, since they are behind-the-scenes updates. Leopard as a whole has been well-liked by the public, so there is little incentive for many people to upgrade. I agree with you about the upgrade price; also consider that it was only $50 during the limited-time promotional period, making the upgrade cost virtually the same.

In all fairness, there is no need to try to rationalize the cost difference by talking about Geek Squad visits since the Dell also comes with a warranty, although the basic warranty may not offer the same level of service as the Mac. Also, I configured a Dell Studio 15 (which is a 16:9 screen, a terrible ratio for productivity) and it was not possible to make an apples:apples (no pun intended) comparison. The Dell is available with DDR2 memory which still has a price advantage over DDR3 and of course the vastly cheaper-to-produce plastic body.
Click to expand...

I am not sure about the States, but here in Greece Dell seems to have the best aftersales service with next working day on-site pickup and two years of warranty as standard. Apple's service is pretty damn ridiculous in comparison. People buy applecare not because it's such good service but for their own peace of mind after paying quite some money for a machine.
 
Gabriel GR said:
I am not sure about the States, but here in Greece Dell seems to have the best aftersales service with next working day on-site pickup and two years of warranty as standard. Apple's service is pretty damn ridiculous in comparison. People buy applecare not because it's such good service but for their own peace of mind after paying quite some money for a machine.
Click to expand...
It's possible that Dell's warranty service has improved and that I'm a bit off-base. From my own experience alone, I've had to deal with barely comprehensible service personnel when calling Dell and long hold times. When I've called Apple I've dealt with native English-speakers and short hold times. It has been several years since I've called Dell and it's also possible that my experience does not speak for all, so take it with a grain of salt.
 
Dell has gotten better in the past few years. My roommate had to get a new HDD for his Dell after it failed after only about 8 months (to be honest, he deserved to have it fail. A HDD can only take a magnet to it so many times before the data is ruined) and after about two days (a combined 4 or 5 hours) on the phone, he finally managed to get them to ship him a new HDD while he could hold on to his existing one to try and get data off (he lost it all as he didn't back up, but nothing too important as he kept many things on an external).

With a Mac, he could have just gone to the Apple store where they would have replaced the HDD within an hour, if that.;)
 
geoffreak said:
With a Mac, he could have just gone to the Apple store where they would have replaced the HDD within an hour, if that.;)
Click to expand...
What if one didn't have an Apple Store? Apple would make you ship the entire laptop for a HDD replacment.

Gabriel GR said:
Your Windows pricing info is a bit off, and keep in mind new Windows are out on a 5year basis... Moreover, XP was and is good enough for some people even now, 11 years after it debuted. Kind of hard to beat.
Click to expand...
11? What calendar are you using? It hasn't even been 8 years.
 
Gabriel GR said:
Your Windows pricing info is a bit off, and keep in mind new Windows are out on a 5year basis... Moreover, XP was and is good enough for some people even now, 11 years after it debuted. Kind of hard to beat.
Click to expand...

If Windows maintains a 5 year periodic release then they will end up in serious trouble. To say the XP is good enough is a bit of an overstatement. It does have a large memory footprint. Add virus software like norton, another memory fat ass consumer. What I don't get is what's up with defraging the HD? Why ever create such a time waster for the consumer.

Question....Do you still have to defrag in Vista and going into windows 7? Really...I'm not kidding. I don't know.
 
alphaod said:
If Apple's call centre is in India, they must be pretty good because they speak like native American English speakers (I'm content as long as they know what I'm talking about and I know what their talking about).
Click to expand...

When I changed machines and got an AEBS a couple of years back, I had some issues that required a few calls to Apple's support team. Each call initially was answered by folks using heavily accented English who were clearly troubleshooting off of a computer screen. When the first round of folks couldn't help me, I was always escalated to someone who could. The second level assistance always had unaccented voices and were able to troubleshoot w/o reading off of their computer screens. In essence, people who knew the platform on the stateside and not subcontractors. Perhaps things have changed but I can only speak from my experience and my calls didn't go to US based folks at first.
 
Bill Gates said:
It's possible that Dell's warranty service has improved and that I'm a bit off-base. From my own experience alone, I've had to deal with barely comprehensible service personnel when calling Dell and long hold times. When I've called Apple I've dealt with native English-speakers and short hold times. It has been several years since I've called Dell and it's also possible that my experience does not speak for all, so take it with a grain of salt.
Click to expand...

It could also be that since we don't speak English here, and they don't sell millions either they can't outsource their customer support lines to India etc. But generally, none tops their service. I guess it's the benefit of being in a small country.

Sneakz said:
What if one didn't have an Apple Store? Apple would make you ship the entire laptop for a HDD replacment.


11? What calendar are you using? It hasn't even been 8 years.
Click to expand...


Also at whose expence and how long before you get it back.

For some wierd reason I thought it was 11. Mind plays tricks :)

akutad said:
If Windows maintains a 5 year periodic release then they will end up in serious trouble. To say the XP is good enough is a bit of an overstatement. It does have a large memory footprint. Add virus software like norton, another memory fat ass consumer. What I don't get is what's up with defraging the HD? Why ever create such a time waster for the consumer.

Question....Do you still have to defrag in Vista and going into windows 7? Really...I'm not kidding. I don't know.
Click to expand...

It uses NTFS so it will probably need to be defraged as well. File fragmentation is a problem within the FAT and NTFS filesystems. And I am pretty sure it will continue to exist as I haven't read anything about dropping/updating NTFS. One of the main reasons I converted to OSX actually. Changing the file system would mean that you can't upgrade to 7 without a clean install. And that apparently is a big issue for some people :S
 
alphaod said:
The only reason Snow Leopard is $29 is because Apple wants every one to buy it. Don't forget Apple is out there to sell the hardware as well, so all the refinements in Snow Leopard will help sell hardware. Microsoft on the other hand is predominantly a software company; since Windows is their core and flagship product, they charge an amount for it that they deem profitable.



If Apple's call centre is in India, they must be pretty good because they speak like native American English speakers (I'm content as long as they know what I'm talking about and I know what their talking about).
Click to expand...

Agreed. I have never heard an Indian person with Apple.
 
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