Before I specifically respond to some comments, I just want to say that:
i) I own a number of PCs (I know - boo hiss !)
ii) I now own two Macs (soon to be 3), and have bought more for work
iii) This thread is neither intended to Apple bash or Wintel defend, just try and put some things in perspective from someone who uses both
iv) I still hold shares in Apple and Intel
jettredmont
Okay, hold on a minute. Are you talking about upgrading your CPU? I can tell you that in 12 years of owning PCs I've only attempted to upgrade a CPU once (which was a failure), and have never otherwise seen any benefit in doing so.
Sorry this doesn't prove that PC are difficult to upgrade, only that you might not be too hot recognizing one end of a screwdriver from another
jettredmont
I've always found that when I start wanting to upgrade my CPU it is cheaper and easier to just replace the whole box and relegate the old box/CPU to the basement server pasture.
That is not necessarily the case. There are a number of companies out there making a very healthy living from cpu upgrade cards. My 14 year old nephew recently upgraded my 3 year old Dell XPS-T500 (still going strong) from 500MHz to 1.3GHz for ~$120. It arrived, he took out old processor, slotted in upgrade processor card, ran suppled driver disk - the whole process took him less than half an hour, and couldn't have been much easier.
jettredmont
Back to upgrading a CPU. First, "$200" is not the price of your average CPU upgrade. Unless you bought a behind-the-curve CPU to start with, the motherboard you currently own will generally not accept the latest CPU.
WRONG - sorry your PC knowledge appears to be way out of date (read below)
jettredmont
You have to also replace the motherboard.
NOPE
jettredmont
Which often (in my experience, at least, from DIMMs to FPO to EDO to SDRAM to DDR to RAMBUS to DDR 2 ...) means replacing memory, which of course isn't as expensive as it used to be but it still doesn't come free. Nowadays you'll also likely have to add in a new fan/cooling system.
WRONG AGAIN - most upgrade processors come with additional fans/heat sinks built in
jettredmont
Take a new CPU at $200 and a new motherboard at $150 and a new gaggle of memory at $200 and you're quite a bit beyond what Mac users pay when they want to upgrade their CPU (with a daughtercard CPU that works on their existing motherboard). Granted, your $550 gave you the latest motherboard features as well, which is a nice side-effect, but in my experience working with PC upgrades, the $200 CPU upgrade is pure, unadulturated myth.
Boy are you digging a hole for yourself here !
Check out
www.Powerleap.com for info on their latest 1.4GHz upgrade offering @ $160 - enough said !
jettredmont
And don't just take my word for it. Look into it at Tom's Hardware and cNet/ExtremeTech and Ars Technica. It's rare to see someone arguing that a CPU upgrade is financially sound, and then it is with caveats such as "your current MB will accept the latest/greatest" and "you are adding 25%+ of frequency to your CPU".
No I won't take your word for it, because there are numerous articles giving detailed info on PC systems which are worth upgrading. Furthermore Powerleap (an unheard of Scandinavian outfit just a couple of few years ago) has already sold over 500,000 upgrade CPUs on its own, and in their own words have barely scratched the surface !
jettredmont
Hmmm. So I guess Dell is doing something horrendously wrong with its 2% of the PC market?
WRONG - I think someone has already corrected you on Dells current market share
jettredmont
Apple does not need to dominate the PC industry in order to succeed. It is doing quite well currently, reporting ongoing profits quarter after quarter.
Actually, as an Apple shareholder, I was sorry to see that Apple actually made a loss last quarter. So this is certainly no time for Apple (or its users) to become complacent ! Personally I am very excited about the direction that SJ is currently taking the company, so much so that I have increased my AAPL shareholding since MWSF.
Freg3000
I am going to make this very very simple. I don't care how cheap or expensive you can buy a PC for. The fact is, PC's cannot run iTunes, iMovie, iPhoto, and iDVD.
Period.
So that's a no to buying PCs then
Actually you help make a very good point Freg3000, and surely that is that once we get through all the marketing hype and froth computers are just tools - and NOT religious icons ! Although that distinction isn't always easy to see from some comments made by the more extreme pro-Mac and pro-Wintel camps. But at the end of the day it comes down to who provides the best tools for each end users job. And IMHO the answer to this question today is not simply black (Wintel) or white (Apple) !
Currently I believe that Apple provides the better multimedia solutions (even with lower CPU speeds), especially with movie editing and DV burning. That is why I have bought a superdrive iMac for home movies and ordererd eMacs for our hospital.
The recently introduced iLife upgrade looks like it will keep Apple ahead of the pack in this area.
But on the otherhand, for simple word processing, spreadsheets, database development, web browsing etc. I believe it is much harder for Apple to currently compete head to head on price performance with quality 3GHz+ Intel boxes from companies such as Dell.
However Apples's move into the DigitalHub looks very attractive, although there appears to be a lot of work still to be done until the iSync/iCal apps are as polished as iTunes. But I believe that Apple's great track record of innovation (vs Microsoft) could open up a huge market if they can execute fast enough in this area. Unfortunately articles such as PCMagazine recent "First Look: A Mixed Bag of Apples"
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,847259,00.asp are not going to help Apple win over possible switchers. Actually I was very p#ssed off to read this article, as it seemed as biased against Apple as a few folk here are against W#ndows (but who haven't tried using a quality brand PC with the latest version of XP Pro preinstalled).
With the introduction of OS-X's improved connectivity with Jaguar, I believe (and hope) that more and more PC users are going to start buying Macs as PART of their home or office network solution - but will probably never completely "Switch" over to Macs until price/performance reaches near parity with Wintel equivalent. There again if Apple can get their G5 rolled out asap, they may still win the day
Sorry for the long post folks, but it is really a cumulative response to numerous myopic Apple and Wintel bashing threads.
Anyway back to the thread title - GREAT NEWS ON THE DISPLAY PRICES APPLE - now that's how you win over more switchers !!!
P.S. and where is my PB 12" (SD)
Andy
