Microsoft Releases Second 'Laptop Hunters' Commercial

[RebootD]

Thank you for proving my point that you will use any tools necessary to prove your Mac Pro love. I took a stock Dell and a Stock Apple (the Dell had less up front but for $900 cheaper base). Then I did what any non-idiot would do and buy 3rd party Ram/HD's etc for BOTH SYSTEMS!!

Yes if you upgarde from Dell and pay their ludicrious prices for HD's and Ram you deserve to go broke but same goes for Apple.

I stand by my post (except for the 320GB hard drive mess up) and if you take the base Quad from each manufactuer, add 3rd party Ram etc the Dell is still a lot cheaper.

Your comparison is bad. Especially considering the Mac Pro doesn't have a 320 GB option.

My System Details
Dell Precision T3500, CMT, 85 Percent Efficient Power Supply
Genuine Windows Vista® Ultimate Bonus 64 -Windows XP Professional downgrade
Energy Star 5.0
Quad Core Intel® Xeon® W3520 2.66GHz, 8M L3, 4.8GT/s
Mini-Tower Chassis Configuration
3GB, 1066MHz,DDR3 SDRAM, ECC (3 DIMMS)
3 Year Basic Limited Warranty and 3 Year NBD On-Site Service
512MB NVIDIA® Quadro® FX 580, DUAL MON, 2 DP & 1 DVI
C1 All SATA drives, No RAID for 1 Hard Drive
Integrated Intel chipset SATA 3.0Gb/s controller
750GB SATA 3Gb/s with NCQ and 16MB DataBurst Cache™
16X DVD+/-RW w/ Cyberlink PowerDVD™ and Roxio Creator™ Dell Ed

2088$

Vs the Mac Pro :

# One 2.66GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
# 3GB (3x1GB)
# None
# 640GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
# None
# None
# None
# NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 512MB
# One 18x SuperDrive
# None
# None
# Apple Mighty Mouse
# Apple Keyboard with Numeric Keypad (English) and User's Guide

2499$

Every external devices you cited is going to be the same price between the 2 (how the hell did you get that 5$ extra for a Mac external HD ?).

Where's your 927$ now ? Oh yeah, it's not there anymore, because I'm not trolling and actually configuring the systems the same.

You are incorrect. Let's do an apples-to-apples pricing (no pun intended) and outfit the Precision with a Nehalem Xeon and ECC RAM (same as the Mac Pro, neither of which you did), and the numbers come out quite different. I have upgraded both machines to 1TB hard drives since 640MB was not available through Dell and I wanted to get them as similar as possible.

- Dell Precision T3500

Dell Precision T3500, CMT, Standard Power Supply
Genuine Windows Vista® Business 64
Quad Core Intel® Xeon® X5550 2.66GHz, 8M L3, 6.4GT/s Turbo
Mini-Tower Chassis Configuration
3GB, 1066MHz,DDR3 SDRAM, ECC (3 DIMMS)
3 Year Basic Limited Warranty and 3 Year NBD On-Site Service
256MB NVIDIA® Quadro® NVS 295, DUAL MON, 2 DP
1 DisplayPort to DVI (Single Link) Adapter
1TB SATA 3.0Gb/s with NCQ and 8MB DataBurst Cache™
16X DVD-ROM with Cyberlink Power DVD™

$3255

Mac Pro Quad Core

One 2.66GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
3GB (3x1GB)
1TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 512MB
One 18x SuperDrive
AppleCare Protection Plan for Mac Pro (w/or w/o Display) - Auto-enroll

$2848

Even an upgrade in RAM with both cases doesn't close up the price gap that Dell has with their i7 Xeons, both through Newegg or direct from the manufacturers.

Just for fun, here are some eight core Nehalem configurations:

- Dell Precision T5500

Dual Quad Core Intel™ Xeon® Processors X5550 2.66GHz,8M L3,6.4GT/s,turbo
Mini-Tower Chassis Configuration
4GB, DDR3 Memory,1333MHz, ECC (4 DIMMS)
3 Year Basic Limited Warranty and 3 Year NBD On-Site Service
256MB NVIDIA® Quadro® NVS 295, DUAL MON, 2 DP
1 DisplayPort to DVI (Single Link) Adapter
1TB SATA 3.0Gb/s,7200 RPM Hard Drive with 16MB DataBurst Cache™
16X DVD-ROM with Cyberlink Power DVD™

$5936

- Mac Pro Octo Core

Two 2.26GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
6GB (6x1GB)
1TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 512MB
One 18x SuperDrive
AppleCare Protection Plan for Mac Pro (w/or w/o Display) - Auto-enroll

$3648


Mac Pros were cheaper than Dell Precisions before the leap to Nehalem processors (and WAY cheaper than comparable HPs), and it continues to be the case today. Price compared to other manufactuers varies with Apple's lineup, going from awful (the Mac Mini) to great (24" iMac compared to Dell and HP's all-in-ones) to the best value in its class (the Mac Pro). The only thing I can truly knock Apple for is not having a Core 2 Duo machine with PCI-E expansion, IMO it is the one massive hole in their desktop lineup.

Either way, you are completely wrong in your price comparison with their i7 Xeon desktops.

 

[habros]

Apple will respond IF they start loosing ground on market share (which I doubt).

"Windows laptops excluding netbooks increased 16 percent, including their netbooks grew 36 percent. Macbook laptops just weren’t able to live up to their usual sales numbers, with their laptop sales declining by 7 percent, reports NPD"

 

[philips]

Macs are more expensive than PCs, people. We all know it.

Stop sprouting the common sense here.

Do NOT spoil the senseless flame war between people who speak literally different languages.

It's so much fun to read the dick size competition, where dick size today is equal to length of spec list of your PC.

 

[Trajectory]

Ok lets throw this one up in the air and see who can hit it, if you are not a creative professional why do you need a Mac? You can surf the web and check email on just about anything these days. Photoshop will run on either platform and there seems to be a Windows equivalent for just about every Mac program out today.

So without rambling on, there is only one thing you cant do on a Windows box and that is FCP. I really dont understand this long standing feud between Mac and Windows owners since both boxes do the same thing.

No I am not trolling I have spent tons of my hard earn money on both platforms and have no problems at all using both.

Because it's easier to do on a Mac?

All Apple needs to do is release a "budget" laptop and desktop, and suddenly these ads become moot and ineffective. That's because the price point is the ONLY thing MS and HP have going for them.

 

[3282868]

Testy aren't we? You do make me laugh =)

The whole point was take stock Dell and take stock Apple (and yes I made a mistake with the HD that comes with it sue me) and the Dell is still cheaper. Plus YOU chose the downgrade XP version rather than the x64 model so good job there as well.

But fine I will give back the $5 dollars to the Apple since it is a huge contention and add a 640GB 3rd party drive for a whopping $64. So now it is only $858 cheaper.

and processor and... you're missing a lot.

 

[DocNYz]

Because it's easier to do on a Mac?

All Apple needs to do is release a "budget" laptop and desktop, and suddenly these ads become moot and ineffective. That's because the price point is the ONLY thing MS and HP have going for them.

I agree price is the ONLY thing going for PCs (did anyone notice how chunky and cheaply made the PC "G" chose was at the end), but the whole point of Apple's business model is to NOT compromise performance for affordability, they could make a TON more money by producing a budge laptop or iMac, but they don't care about that part of the market because they know those people don't care about computing and that compromising speed/hardware is not worth making more money and then losing the reputation of seamless integration with their apps and other devices.

The reason creative professionals and academia (the REAL departments within it, that is) use Macs is because they're reliable and always have the most up-to-date technology and have always been better for graphics/design/ease of operation. If you only use it for email/reading stocks (as they plummit) then sure PCs are fine if you're a corporation because you save several hundred bucks per unit times 30,000 units for example. There have been many studies, some even posted on macrumors, that the interface in mac is magnitudes more efficient for data entry and efficiency, but if you want to chose to take more time to be less efficient and "customize" your individual PC because you're emotionally and illogically "picky" then go ahead, but don't be surprised when your corporation fires you for not meeting deadlines on time because your computer crashes/erases/doesn't connect to the server or you simply can't switch between applications fast enough and that compounds month after month into absurd amounts of lost time.

 

[DELLsFan]

Looking at both these ads, they only ever consider HPs ... strikes me as kinda odd.

Me too. I think it's because one can easily locate an HP model via retail store ... as opposed to custom ordering a DELL via mail order.

 

[DELLsFan]

I thought it looked like it had a number pad in the ad, and I was right. Wow, he wanted portability and went for a 16" laptop? Interesting.

But really, that looks like great value for money. It's $1099, which is $100 cheaper than a regular MacBook. It comes with vastly superior graphics (which match the second level MacBook Pro ), faster processor, double the RAM, 3x the hard drive space, larger, higher resolution display...

And it has FIREWIRE, unlike the MacBook. This dude got a good deal.

Sure he did ... until he realizes Vista 64-bit will plague him the rest of the life of the laptop.

What opportunity cost would you think this dude will pay to make sure he's got all the right drivers and to be sure he's got the software that will run with the 64-bit version of Vista? They didn't include that cost in the commercial.

 

[KnightWRX]

Thank you for proving my point that you will use any tools necessary to prove your Mac Pro love. I took a stock Dell and a Stock Apple (the Dell had less up front but for $900 cheaper base). Then I did what any non-idiot would do and buy 3rd party Ram/HD's etc for BOTH SYSTEMS!!

The only point we proved is that you have no clue about the Precision's market. Those guys don't "shop" around newegg for parts. They're not consumer PCs that are going to be sitting in someone's basement. They're professional workstations that are going to be used in a professional environment where the IT personnel have better things to do than try out 50 different RAM configurations to get something repaired under the service contract.

Basically your post is : "If you build a PC from parts yourself, it's cheaper than a manufacturer's system!". The Dell barebones is a lot cheaper because it comes with almost nothing (1 GB non ECC ram, cheap Hard drive, etc..), of course it's going to have an advantage if you build it up.

No one is denying that building your own is cheaper. It's cheaper than Dells, HPs and Apples. Thank you for telling us what everyone already knows.

 

[Goona]

are you serious? i supposed your going to say there's nothing wrong with paying $180 for a 6ft HDMI cable from monster cable right?

just google it...

Of course there is nothing wrongn with it. Why the heck does it bother people like you what people spend their money, so what if you can find cheaper alternatives. I can also find cheaper alternatives to a thousand dollar gucci bag at walmar for 20 dollars, does it mean I shouldn't be saving up for it. And there is nothing wrong with Bose, people buy them because they look good, reliable, and produce good sound, if you have a problem with companies like Bose providing a solution that makes people happy, go cry a bloody river.

 

[Aniki]

Not trying to start a "MAC VS PC LOL" debt,, bur you so have to admit you get more options with a PC than a Mac.

 

[habros]

And Vista did suck, go and check the reviews and satisfaction rates, no wonder. Microsoft is ashamed to mention an ounce of that dreadful word in this campaign.

Let me guess, you voted for Bush twice.

 

[Eidorian]

Sure he did ... until he realizes Vista 64-bit will plague him the rest of the life of the laptop. ;p

When did my 32-bit applications stop working on Vista 64-bit?

What opportunity cost would you think this dude will pay to make sure he's got all the right drivers and to be sure he's got the software that will run with the 64-bit version of Vista? They didn't include that cost in the commercial.

When has a Windows OEM machine not shipped with the proper drivers and the ability to restore them?

Of course there is nothing wrongn with it. Why the heck does it bother people like you what people spend their money, so what if you can find cheaper alternatives. I can also find cheaper alternatives to a thousand dollar gucci bag at walmar for 20 dollars, does it mean I shouldn't be saving up for it. And there is nothing wrong with Bose, people buy them because they look good, reliable, and produce good sound, if you have a problem with companies like Bose providing a solution that makes people happy, go cry a bloody river.

Does it bother you that people buy Windows and OEM machines with it preinstalled?

 

[KnightWRX]

It's pretty simple to prove. Put in the original RAM and if everything works then you know it is the RAM. RMA the RAM and use the computer with the original RAM so you don't have to ship the computer off to Apple needlessly.

That's easy to do for a consumer (actually, no it's not, but let's just say it is so your argument doesn't fall apart right away) but in a business, "keeping" the original RAM around will require it be put in some inventory. This inventory of "original" parts will require some kind of management. This means human ressources, inventory systems, storage, etc..

Now, on top of that, if you have a problem, you have to dedicate personnel from IT to go through the inventory, locate the proper "original" RAM, install it in the machine, try to reproduce the problem. This is time. This time costs something, this guy isn't doing it for free.

Now you might think you saved 100$ on your RAM upgrade, but what's 100$ in the face of IT personnel, inventory personnel, acquisitions getting more complicated, etc..

This is what businesses do. In the end, for a business, it's cheaper to just pay Dell's or HP's or Apple's inflated price for convenience. They will save on costs in the long run.

 

[3282868]

Let me guess, you voted for Bush twice.

I'm sorry, what does politics have to do with this discussion? Are you attempting to state that Microsoft users are Democrats and Mac OS X owners are Republicans?

 

[RebootD]

The only point we proved is that you have no clue about the Precision's market. Those guys don't "shop" around newegg for parts.

So if I am one of those people I just disproved your statement? Cool
Even when I worked at a corporation my IT department would buy a Dell/HP and then buy Ram/HD etc from other vendors. Hey it feels good to be right!

Basically your post is : "If you build a PC from parts yourself, it's cheaper than a manufacturer's system!". The Dell barebones is a lot cheaper because it comes with almost nothing (1 GB non ECC ram, cheap Hard drive, etc..), of course it's going to have an advantage if you build it up.

If you both start at different price points from a base model, then build it up similarity to they end up the same but one is still cheaper how is that a bad thing? That doesn't make any sense.

No one is denying that building your own is cheaper. It's cheaper than Dells, HPs and Apples. Thank you for telling us what everyone already knows.

Hey no problem.

 

[Goona]

You do realize that majority of the "bashers" are mac users. So by stating that they own "lower-class product" you imply that... ahh, you figure it out.

Who told you they are mac users, for all we know they could be window users, the iPod and iPhone have brought a lot of windows users to this forum.

 

[KnightWRX]

Of course there is nothing wrongn with it. Why the heck does it bother people like you what people spend their money, so what if you can find cheaper alternatives. I can also find cheaper alternatives to a thousand dollar gucci bag at walmar for 20 dollars, does it mean I shouldn't be saving up for it. And there is nothing wrong with Bose, people buy them because they look good, reliable, and produce good sound, if you have a problem with companies like Bose providing a solution that makes people happy, go cry a bloody river.

Look, I'm going to agree with you on Bose, being that they usually use higher end components and as far as head phones and speakers go, those will make a difference in the end result you get.

However, a Monster HDMI cable vs a generic Monoprice HDMI cable, your end result will be the same. There will be 0 different. None. Nada. Nothing. His analogy was a trap. Speakers/headphones are in the end, an analog media and are directly affected by the quality and craftsmanship of the part, but digital signal over a cable either makes it to the other end or doesn't. 180$ is not getting your signal there any better.

 

[Goona]

So Windows and HP aren't brands??

I'll bet the jeans and shirt he's wearing are made by Gap - another brand.

Dude what do you expect this is coming from Microsoft, a company headed by Steve Ballmer.

 

[DELLsFan]

When did my 32-bit applications stop working on Vista 64-bit? ...

... When has a Windows OEM machine not shipped with the proper drivers and the ability to restore them?

OEM software and OEM hardware included with the machine should be just fine. Start adding external hardware or other software ... and 64-bit could be quite problematic for some folks. It's been a while since I played with 64-bit Vista, so maybe it's improved, but I doubt it.

 

[brop52]

That's easy to do for a consumer (actually, no it's not, but let's just say it is so your argument doesn't fall apart right away) but in a business, "keeping" the original RAM around will require it be put in some inventory. This inventory of "original" parts will require some kind of management. This means human ressources, inventory systems, storage, etc..

Now, on top of that, if you have a problem, you have to dedicate personnel from IT to go through the inventory, locate the proper "original" RAM, install it in the machine, try to reproduce the problem. This is time. This time costs something, this guy isn't doing it for free.

Now you might think you saved 100$ on your RAM upgrade, but what's 100$ in the face of IT personnel, inventory personnel, acquisitions getting more complicated, etc..

This is what businesses do. In the end, for a business, it's cheaper to just pay Dell's or HP's or Apple's inflated price for convenience. They will save on costs in the long run.

Since when were we talking about large businesses? I was talking about a "professional" with a desktop (or two if one is a notebook) and that individual being their own IT department. Of course if they have only one computer and that one isn't functioning then it becomes a problem when you have to send it off for repair if you don't know what is wrong with it. Having the original RAM around saves having to wait for Apple to repair it or diagnose the problem.

These are two separate situations. A larger business is not going to upgrade 200 computers with third party RAM. They work with the manufacturer to see if they can get some kind of discount and BTO to their specs they want or order a vanilla computer if they find that the original RAM is enough for the needs of the business.

 

[Eidorian]

OEM software and OEM hardware included with the machine should be just fine. Start adding external hardware or other software ... and 64-bit could be quite problematic for some folks. It's been a while since I played with 64-bit Vista, so maybe it's improved, but I doubt it.

I'll admit there are a few programs that I can't remember right now that needed obscure DLLs that don't work under Vista 64-bit.

Otherwise I'm still running Age of Empires, Steam, Homeworld, folding@home, and Microsoft Office 2003 just fine.

The Safari 4 Beta and folding@home have been my most crash prone applications otherwise. Not that it matters to me.

 

[KnightWRX]

If you both start at different price points from a base model, then build it up similarity to they end up the same but one is still cheaper how is that a bad thing? That doesn't make any sense.

Think about it. You said it yourself that Dell, HP and Apple charge a premium for hardware. If your Apple has a better base than the Dell base, then you're paying that premium on the included HD, RAM and other components. The Dell however, you're saving the premium by using off the shelf parts (even though you're destroying your service contract).

BTW, I worked in a small IT company that did what you say yours did before I got there. My first week, I had to build a Intel kit 1U rack server we bought off a big distributor. Everytime something broke with that system, we had to go out, bring parts, diagnose the problem, send the parts back to the manufacturer, wait on RMA, etc..

Sure the system was 500$ cheaper than something from HP or Dell. I took my boss on the side and said to him : "Look, I'm not going to stick around if we do it this way". I presented to him a case for just getting a partnership with Dell. Systems were shipped ready to configure, no assembly required. We had on-site service, support, etc..

It really opened his eyes. He was stuck in the 90s, where building your own was basically about the only option. At the end of the day, our guys were able to get a new client up and running way faster and thus could do more. This actually helped company growth. All the time we were wasting being a smallish PC builder's shop was killing the growth in the end.

I eventually left after setting up a remote monitoring system based on Cisco PIX for site-to-site VPNs with every customers. The company was in a whole other league and was getting bigger and bigger contracts than when I joined them 2 years earlier. Last time I checked up on them, they had acquired a data center and ISP and we're offering remote hosting for big customers.

That's pretty far from the PC builder shops that serviced very small 4 employee businesses.

 

[habros]

LOL, Vista's problems didn't exist, go and tell that to the numerous reviews and unsatisfied consumers. Apple was just repeating what the press was saying.

Or was the "press" and you repeating what Apple was saying?

 

[Goona]

"Windows laptops excluding netbooks increased 16 percent, including their netbooks grew 36 percent. Macbook laptops just weren’t able to live up to their usual sales numbers, with their laptop sales declining by 7 percent, reports NPD"

Let's wait till Apple reports their numbers on the 22nd, we've been hearing of declining Mac sales since 2007 but yet Apple keeps reporting record sales and profits each quarter and adding to their billions in the bank.