Thread

I’ll jump in on the pragmatic end. I’ve been configuring Macs and PCs for nonprofits, educational institutions, and government organizations and I can state with confidence the only way you can get a $1000 price difference between a Mac and PC is if you are comparing lowend PC with a highend Mac. The price differentials, haven’t been that much for years. Literally, more than 6 years. Maybe if you go for high end, when prices from both vendors are over $3,500. But I’m going to assume your nonprofit isn’t going for that.

An Inspiron class Dell is NOT comparable to a iMac, the Vostra class is barely comparable. The Optiplex class is what you’d want for real comparisons, instead of paper fallacies. That said, to make its somewhat comparable, if you take your lowest model at Dell, the INSPIRON 530 starting at ~$300. To make it comparable to the lowest model iMac, you will need to: Upgrade processor to the Intel Core Duo, so add ~$200; you can keep Vista or pay an extra $150 for the more familiar and reliable XP; modify 1 year limited warranty to at least 3yrs add ~$200 (the hardware’s crap and prone to breakdowns, you want the extra warranty, force it to 4yrs if possible; a basic 20” monitor, add $200. Depending on if you went for Vista or XP your cost is between $900-$1100 (estimation for tax, etc.) versus $1,199 for no modification on the iMac.

If you go with the educational class Dell’s the Optiplex line (much better hardware and support options), the differences aren’t even noticeable. The iMac coming out ahead in a number of categories, versus $50 or $100 wins by Dell in some of the prime standard configurations.  And that’s all assuming, the web master wouldn’t have been fine on a Mac mini and a cheap but adequate monitor. Even the business class Vostro’s configure in at around $1,140 and with minor upgrades, free add ons, etc, that Macs them comparable to the 20” iMac at either $1,199 or $1,499.

Also a thing to note, is across almost every client type we’ve worked with, when comparing a Mac to a PC the tendency is to compare base costs. This PC will cost me $279 or $400 as opposed to the end receipt. The $279 base becomes a $900 machine and the owner still says they got it for $279. But unless they are going into a store and picking a machine up off the shelf, very few people buy the machine as is. At the very least, they acknowledge that they need a better warranty.

But really then cost of downtime and support need to be added at some point. Clients never do, but since half of our income comes from PC support, I can tell you its significant. Also the type of support is different as well. With PCs we support the machines, and somewhat the people. Our goals, rapidly become about keeping the client operating today. With Mac clients, we support the people, and the client’s mission/vision. Our goals become helping them envision where they want to be 3, 5, or 10 years from now and creative ways for them to get there.

Well said.

I’ve been using PCs since the CP/M days and the Osborne 1. I’ve had every flavor of Mac from the original 128k in 1984 and every tasty version of PC in between. These days, generally speaking, a Mac costs more up front than a PC—until you bring the PC up to Mac hardware specs. Then there isn’t much difference. There is, however, a big difference in overall “total cost of ownership” and that often makes the Mac a bargain. That doesn’t mean that you won’t find a perfectly decent PC that lasts seven years without so much of a hiccup, or a brand new Mac out of the box that has everything go wrong in the first month. But over many machines and many years, when it comes to my money and my productivity, the Mac far outpaces the typical Windows PC of the day.

And that’s just the overall experience of Mac vs. PC hardware. There are multiple, major aspects of using a computer in the 21st century. Hardware. OS. Software.

Operating systems? Puhleeze. It’s not much of a contest. Mac OS X Leopard, compared to any version of Windows, is stable, secure, and, as Macs always have, the OS gets out of the way making for a more pleasant experience. The other major component is software. The myth that the Mac doesn’t have much software still persists. What are there now? 20,000 apps for OS X (there’s about 18,000 for the iPhone, 17,800 of which are not worth the price). I’m a pretty decent power user and my Mac runs about 120 or so additional non-Apple apps and utilities, and there are fewer Windows-only apps these days (except games).

Apple and the Mac are doing quite well, thank you, and a far cry better than when Steve Jobs became Apple’s iCEO in the summer of 1997.

I only use my PC for gaming, all the rest gets done on my Macs (24” iMac and a Macbook Pro).

It’s funny really.  Die hard PC guys often dismiss Macs as being “toys”.  Yet it is my PC I play games on, and it’s my Mac I get my real work done with.

Jamie

@Alohashirt, I was going to email you privately, but this note may be interesting to other users on the forum. I don’t know where you are, but in Vancouver is a computer-recycling service called FreeGeek which sells rebuilt computers and peripherals to non-profits. I noticed there is also a FreeGeek in Oregon, so services like this must exist elsewhere in the world.

If your client just needs a basic computer that can run DW, Flash, and a browser, they could easily sell you someone’s late model technology at a non-profit budget price.

Also, I saw some last generation MacBook Pros for less than $1000 at the local Apple retailer. Demo model or no, they’re still good computers.

(* disclaimer: I am a die-hard PC user who is looking to switch this year, after seeing Windows run so much more smoothly on a mac *)

I am a die-hard PC user who is looking to switch this year, after seeing Windows run so much more smoothly on a mac *)

Amazing. Macs easily run more software than any mainstream computer platform (Mac OS X, Windows, Linux). Some say it even runs Windows better than PCs. Amazing.

I’m a PC guy myself, although I do think the Mac looks sweet.

Guess I’m a geek cause I actually like to spec and build my own computer. And what the Mac is running today (CPU, graphics-card, etc.) is what we used to spec our PC’s with years ago. Newer models, yes of course, but it’s still something to think about, I guess Apple finally understood “PC hardware” was the way to go 😉

Ok, no intention to start a flamewar here, so I’ll end it with—yes the Mac looks sweet, and I absolutely love that it has *nix underneath all that sweetness (I’m stuck with cygwin here), and after bying my iPhone, and it being my #1 tech buy ever, I’m actually starting to like Steve 😉

- bjorn

Ah, the age old debate. Glad to see it’s not a victim of Godwin’s Law.

I’ve been a mac man since before I can remember. My mum had a Classic when I was born, and I’ve been using them ever since. However, I now work on a Windows box at work, which is a top of the range custom built quad-core (more powerful than my iMac at home). It’s fast, editing 600dpi tiff’s is no longer a problem, and I can batch process stuff in half the time I can on my iMac. Fair enough, if I had a Mac Pro at home, it would probably outpace my machine at work, but I don’t have a spare £3000 lying around. :(

Since I do most of my web development stuff at work, I’ve managed to condition myself to be more productive when using windows. When I do use my Mac, it’s doing manual things like saving/opening files or tinkering with Apache that frustrates me, I just seem to be much quicker on windows. It’s interesting that I still prefer OSX for doing things like making music or browsing - stuff I don’t normally do at work.

Every time I hear that Windows Startup sound. I can see Steve Balmer cackling at a crystal ball with a clouded picture of me sitting at my desk. Man. That guy’s such a Nazi.

Ah, the age old debate. Glad to see it’s not a victim of Godwin’s Law.
(..)
Every time I hear that Windows Startup sound. I can see Steve Balmer cackling at a crystal ball with a clouded picture of me sitting at my desk. Man. That guy’s such a Nazi.

lol .. I see what you did there.

- bjorn