i know this is an old thread, but you forgot to factor in the price of the windows os versus the mac os. i paid 200 dollars for windows 7 (not even the full version) and only 30 dollars for mac's. you also need to factor in the price of anti virus software, anti virus removal. you don't really seem to remember that most people running windows/using a pc aren't "computer-savvy" and don't know **** about their own computer. therefore, for a lot of people, the user-friendly system of a mac and the fact that it's easy to repair is a big factor.
repairing a mac yourself is easy as pie, as are finding the parts online. that is if you aren't that stupid that you don't even know the model of your own mac. if something breaks on your pc, good for you, you may know how to fix it, but everyday people don't. they will pay an arm and a leg to have a virus removed or a broken part replaced. just calling the right people to get that done is a pain in the ass.
price-wise, you're also forgetting to factor in the software that comes installed on a mac vs windows. good luck finding software to rival garageband or any of the other programs that come packaged with ilife, which come free on new macs btw.
there is so much to factor in that you're not getting.
i also agree with the poster claiming you'll never have spec for spec windows vs. mac. os x is faster, completing tasks at nearly twice the speed of a similarly spec'd pc.
apparently we all want links here, so here is an example of two all-in-ones, similarly spec'd (of course not exactly) going head to head.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/gadgets/tests/4258725
of course you can get a pc that is better than a mac. my brother spent 10k on his. how about you? mine was $1200, and we (brother and i) play the same games (me running windows 7 when needed on a second partition). he paid to have his built from the ground up with all the best graphics and hardware and for what? to have a new graphics card come out in 2 months that has twice the capability?
i won't say macs do everything best.
they could definitely stop making programs with "i" in the front of the damn name.
on another note, the only thing i've paid for on my mac since getting it in 08 was a larger hard drive, and upped it from 2gb ram to 4. both for under 100 bucks, because yes, you can find places to get mac stuff cheap too.
in comparison, the other people i know irl with windows laptops bought in the same year i got my mac:
alienware (brother's) fan wacked out, he had a desk fan pointed at it where it sat to keep it from overheating. dog tripped over the cord and pulled the comp down, cracking the screen (needing replacement, a few hundred dollars. (no magsafe adapter? seems important now doesn't it?))
toshiba (best friend's) has had viruses (apparently her brother has used it for who knows what) and she defragments at least once a month to keep it in "top condition". she's running vista so, maybe that explains it. she pays for some 100 some dollar version of norton to keep viruses off of her computer. don't know how norton performs these days, but back when i used windows it would just tell me i had a virus, then fail at removing it.
dell (school buddy) word locks up and refuses to respond when he tries to scroll through a document using the trackpad. is that a fault of windows and word, or something in the trackpad causing it? did someone not produce a crucial driver? does he call dell and hope for a fix, or windows? the two companies just relay him back and forth, refusing to take blame.
falcon northwest custom built gaming pc - only fault? windows. (brother's new desktop that he spent around 10k for) he had to remove a graphics card just so that he could run spore. there is such a thing as "too good." he also had a lot of compatibility issues (it came with vista installed) with a lot of his old games, so he downgraded, yes DOWNGRADED to windows xp. that kind of **** shouldn't be necessary, especially when you shell out that much dough for a computer.
why do i use a mac? because i don't want to spend 50% of my computer time fixing it, or defragmenting it, or preventing viruses, or telling windows that, yes, i do want to click on this link and install this program, and no, it doesn't have a damn virus attached to it stop asking.
i spent my whole life using windows (up til age 18) and never really giving a **** about it. it took me 3 days to learn the ins and outs of the mac.
i do have bad things to say about the mac. their makers are full of themselves. a lot of their users are full of themselves, even when they have no ****ing idea what they're talking about. they're fun to inform when they start spitting out false info acting like they're all special cause they have a mac. (to be fair, there are tons of windows users who act just like this, many of whom i know in person, just spouting ******** when they haven't even touched a mac that hasn't been sitting in a classroom for 15 years).
mac also needs to make a computer that has a tower (upgradeable) that is not as profound (and expensive) as the mac pro. something like the macbook compared to macbook pro.
customization. they need to introduce more of it.
otherwise, my computer is wicked fast, even though it's getting on 5 years old. it runs all the games my buddies run and at the same speed or faster. multitasking on it is heaven, especially when designing web sites. having 2 files of a text editor open for css and html, photoshop in another window, safari to preview, firefox to preview, finder windows open with all the **** i need right there in an instant with expose. when i go to my dreamweaver class at school and have to do the same things on xp (and even on 7 there's no comparison) i suffer trying to find a way to speed up the process of just simply navigating through everything i have open.
also, god damn, fix IE. it's the only one that's still a baby when it comes to codes. have to spell all kinds of **** out for it when other browsers don't have a problem.
