I was really bored yesterday, so I made a cost comparisation between a Mac and a PC. So I took an iMac, and a PC with the exact same specs as the iMac. After doing the comparisation, I found out that a PC with MS Windows, MS Office and the usual anti-virus software to be 38% more expensive than the Mac. When only using the hardware and OS, the Mac only costs $16 more than the PC. When you use a PC with only open-source software, then the PC is the obvious winner. But because most people use Windows and MS Office, they can't prefer a PC over a Mac just for the price. I worked it all out in a PDF file. Download here I'm not praising a Mac here, but I'm just showing that a Windows PC costs just as much or even much more than a Mac. If you haven't got enough money, then get Linux and OpenOffice
Aren't you padding windows Just a little bit buddy ? I work on both Mac and PC's, and Mac's are 4 times higher than any PC ....
What makes you think that a Mac costs 4 times as much as a PC? I paid €2000 for my Mac Pro and it's much faster than a PC of that price. Also remember that a Mac (except the pro) uses a mobile version of the Core 2 Duo, and got a 2.5" harddisk. And because these are more expensive than the desktop version, might give the illusion that a PC is cheaper.
Ok, I was wrong it's not 4 times higher but three... I just looked up a Imac 24' inch with 3.06 ghz with 2 gig ram and a 500 gb hgard drive. Price is $2,200 with no modem and without any memory upgrade and without Iwork installed, with all these installed is $2,527.. Now a Gamer PC, running at: 3.0 ghz Daul core AMD 64x2 ,3gig ram ,500 gb hard drive with DVD-RW and with Vista home installed is $628.00, Plus a 20'inch LCD monitor is $200.00 bucks.. so that would be about $828.00 , no three times that is $2,484.... Plus , If you ever have to FIX a Mac, The parts are way more than PC parts are..
You're comparing a 24" iMac, so you need an 24" screen An iMac uses the mobile version of the Core 2 Duo (T series) An iMac has a 2,5" HD, and these are more expensive than a 3,5" HD Mac OS X has all features that Apple offers, without limits. But Vista Home Premium is limited to features that ARE available in Vista Business and Ultimate. So you need Vista Ultimate for the comparisation. So the screen is more expensive, the CPU is more expensive, the HD is more expensive and the OS is more expensive. Now you're right about the part that the Mac is more expensive than the PC in this example. But the differences are really small
Just read your document, and it's very impressive! It's well written and thought out. Just a few points: 1. It seems to go into a different language for a bit towards the end? 2. You don't cite the sources of where you found the prices. It would have been nice to know where you found the prices. 3. An average price of 3 places would have been better for working out costs, to make sure you are not using somewhere unusually cheap / expensive. These are only small things, and I wouldn't recommend doing them unless you have loads of spare time, or you are handing it in as a report for something (or school coursework). Apart from these, it was really good!
ok RH, not bad, but you seem to have neglected to include a firewall & you have chosen to use NAV[ot]now wash you mouth out & use a scouring pad[/ot]why not use Avast & Zonealarm (is Zonealarm still free?)
Yes I believe that ZoneAlarm is still free, although I find it to be as frustrating as Norton AntiVirus. ZoneAlarm slows down an Athlon X2 6400 by 40 seconds when booting up! Then it nags every 5 seconds about permissions for a program (a bit like Vista). I've given in with AntiVirus and Software firewalls. I don't go on any dodgy websites (such as porn, illegal software, limewire, bittorrent) so I can't see any problems with Viruses. I have a hardware firewall, which blocks inbound attacks. Outbound ones are executed by viruses, so in theory if I had antivirus I wouldn't need a software firewall. If I do get a virus, it takes about 2 hours to re-install everything and have it just like I like it!
The original document was written in Dutch, and I've started translating it into English, and just overwriting the existing text. I'll look into it I'm going to add these sources to the document. I took the average price of 5 stores. Thanks Anti-virus software is really neccesary for a Windows OS only. A firewall is actually neccesary on all OSes. And because most people use paid anti-virus software (like Norton, PC-Cillin and McAfee), I had to include these prices. So Mac users might pay a little more for the hardware, but Windows users need to pay that extra money for security software. But this comparisation is just a theory, by comparing the price of a Mac with the price of the same components. In real life you would rather choose a desktop version of the Core 2 Duo because it's cheaper and faster than the mobile version, and also choose a 3.5" harddisk instead of a 2.5" one. So with this comparisation I've actually calculated the additional price that you pay because the Apple logo is printed on it: $16. And I found out even something terrifying: In a Windows environment, the software costs almost as much as the PC it's running on. So when you use free solutions like Linux, OpenOffice and other open-source software, you're almost cutting the price in half
I agree in concept. Most people will pay less when buying a PC up front, I don't think that's really debatable. However, the cost of running Windows in the long run costs the average person thousands more than they realize. How many people do you know who routinely spend a few hundred bucks a go to get their computer "reformatted"? How much to the AV subscriptions cost? Good anti-spyware? How many people buy a computer with Vista already on it, which is already included in the cost of the PC, then buy XP, and pay to have it installed? Vista is broken, so instead of simply not buying it, they end up paying MS twice! As for me, I prefer PC hardware since I can pick and choose what I think is best for my purposes, but I run Linux for the OS, which is totally free. Best bang-for-buck I think, and the most freedom all around. Freedom to choose the hardware I like, freedom to run the OS I want, freedom from DRM, etc. That said, when I run across people who are not competent enough to run *nix in a straightforward way, I do recommend they buy an Apple!
I'd try the Mac OS X, but I'd have to do some more research as to exactly what it would run on. I'm probably better off to start with since I have Intel chipset/CPU combo's, but I'd have to look at a few other things. For the most part, I'm fine with XP, but OS X would be nice to play with if it wasn't so limited on the hardware it could accomodate. I do think OS X could be much bigger if Apple would offer more hardware support, but that's probably just a thought given the company's history.
I think it's possible to try OS X on a normal PC. There's a project called OSX86 which makes it possible. There is a chip in Apple hardware which OS X looks for before it will run. Apart from that, the hardware is identical.
Really? I don't know a single person who does that, actually. I think that's quite rare. "thousands more than they realize" for the average person is a bit overstating it, I think. I haven't actually met anyone who does those things either... Buying a computer with Vista then buying XP, then paying to have it installed?? That's pretty ridiculous; I doubt there are more than maybe a couple weirdos in the world who would actually do that lol. ** I still associate a windows PC with cheaper price than a Mac because, why would you want to use a mobile version of a processor? And a 2.5" HD instead of 3.5? What's the point of that? Well, I get it, the Mac takes up less space on a desk as a result, but that seems like unnecessary luxury to me. That's like buying a luxury car instead of a car that just does the job. The bottom line is comparing the specs and price like Ghostman_1 did. Only your point #1 is truly valid, I'd say.
No, no. No. I would say that in this country and most likely in Britain also, "most people" means just that. I believe younger folks are more likely to DIY, but even a lot of friends my own age don't know the difference between a floppy disk and a floppy... appendage. Got a huge virus? They call Geek Squad. Need a new PC "cause the old one is too slow" (e.g. overrun with malware)? Go to Best Buy and pick up a new one, which ships with Vista. Don't like Vista? Take it back to Best Buy, purchase a retail copy of XP, and have them install it for you... all for only $300 for XP Pro, and another $129.99 - $229.99 to get it installed. Want an anti-virus installed while they're at it? Don't worry, it's only an extra $159.99. How about wireless? Oh, that'll be another $169.99. Talk to Fred about that, he works for Geek Squad. They have a line of customers that stretches out the door at just about any given time of the day. Do you think those companies can make billions of dollars doing what they do because there's "maybe a couple weirdos in the world who would actually do that lol"? Dude, no offence, but wake up. :doh: I build all my own hardware because I can get more for less that way, and I can build to my own specs instead of Apple's. Their hardware is well-designed and well thought out though, which is a lot more than I can say for Dell, HP Sony, Acer, or any other big OEM. Keep in mind I'm not even an Apple fan. I don't own a single Mac, iPod, or otherwise. In fact, there are 3 servers, 2 desktops and a laptop in the room with me, and all 6 machines run some distribution of Linux. I spend a lot less time and a lot less money then both Windows and Mac folks do. But that doesn't mean RHochstenbach is wrong; he's absolutely right. Macs are cheaper in the long run then Windows PCs for almost everybody. I have been in IT for about 10 years or so, and I'd been using various MS products since the age of 6... that's a long time before Windows really caught on in the early 1990's. So, you can trust me when I say that though I dislike Windows, I know a lot about it. Until I switched to Linux several years back, I was a full-time Windows user. Do you know how many hours overall I'd spent Working on my own PCs in those last few years alone? Defragmenting, scanning for viruses, sweeping for spyware, fixing registry problems, trying to recover files when the system was shutdown uncleanly, disabling internal spyware-like services builtin to Windows, tuning memory management in order to get a few more FPS in games, loading and updating drivers in a very specific order to help avoid massive system instabilities, trying to get a large amount of audio and video codecs to play nicely together without breaking something... etc, ad infinitum. I never even thought about these things until I moved to Linux, and discovered that once it's setup, it just works... and works well. Maybe I wasn't paying somebody else to do it for me, but I was wasting a metric ass-ton of my own time fixing my own OS. My time is worth too much to run Windows. How much is your time worth? My workstation is usually up for months without a reboot, and that's fully-patched and up to date, mind you. I never have crashes, never lose data, never worry about malware of any kind. I don't need to defrag, and don't need to juggle DLL's to get every codec in the known universe working together. I can play several dozen videos at the same time if I want, several 3D games without any hiccups, I can compile 2-dozen different kernels at the same time and still watch movies, listen to music and play games at the same time. And all on an OS that is [legally] free, a lot faster than Windows, and a lot more reliable. In other words, you never realize exactly how bad Windows sucks until you're out of it. Macs may be pricey up front, and they may not be quite as good as Linux is, but they are a lot more stable and reliable than Windows PCs. And for people who aren't technically inclined enough for Linux, a Mac is well worth it. And a post script... you can run Mac OS on PC hardware if it's similar enough to Mac hardware. It runs quite well. Attached is a screenshot of OS X Leopard running on my $500 Vaio with 100% Intel chipset. (I only ran it for a day and then put Debian Sid on it, but I'm just making a point here).
