Why Macs aren’t more expensive than PCs
The Psystar v Apple case has brought into focus again the debate over whether Macs provide value for money. It was inevitable that at some point, a company would try and make Macs appealing to those who seek lower budget PCs as Psystar rather illegally tried to do so.
Firstly, it’s important to point out that as far as portables go, there’s no way that Macs can compete with lower-end PC laptops. There simply aren’t any Apple Macbooks costing in the region of $600 like there are with PC laptops. However, when it comes to the higher end portable computer market and the mid-range standalone machines, Macs actually work out cheaper. The devil as they say, is usually in the detail i.e. the software.
Let’s take a look at the Dell Studio XPS Studio 16 for an original retail price of $1,642 v The Macbook Pro with an original retail price of $1,699.
Both have a 15 inch screen, Intel Core 2 Duo processor and 4GB RAM. The Macbook Pro has only a 250 GB Hard Drive compared to 500 GB in the Dell. The MBP has an NVIDIA GeForce 9400m graphics card while the Dell has an ATI Mobility RADEON HD 3670 Graphics Card. The MBR has a 7 hour battery while the Dell has a “6 cell” battery.
For an extra $150, we can add an extra 250GB to the MBP to bring it’s specifications to exactly that of the Dell (although you can buy external 250GB external hard drives for just $60). However, for arguments sake, lets pay Apple’s rather pricey $150 online purchase upgrade so the total price comparison is MBP $1,849 v Dell XPS Studio 16 for $1,699. Total price difference means the Dell is $150 cheaper - so far.
Let’s also take a look at a standalone like the Mac Mini for an original price of $599. The closest Dell equivalent is their own mini the Inspiron Zino HD for an original price of $442. The Mac Mini has a 2.26GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor compared to the Zino AMD Athlon 2850e (512K, L2, 1.8GHz). The Mac Mini has 2GB of memory compared to the Zino’s 3GB. The Mac Mini has 160GB of hard drive space compared to the Zino’s 320GB. Both have an 8x CD/DVD ROM drive and the Mini has an NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics card compared to an Integrated ATI Radeon HD3200 Graphics card. Total price difference means the Zino is $157 cheaper than the Mini.
Now let’s get onto the subject of software. Windows 7 basic is provided free with both Dells and Snow Leopard is included
for free with the Macs. However, if you factor in additional software costs to the Dell such as Vista Ultimate, it adds another $130 more to the cost of a Dell and the Windows 7 Home Ultimate upgrade adds another $122 more to that. If you were to treat yourself to a copy of Adobe Photoshop Elements & Premiere Elements (broadly similar to elements of iLife) on top, that would be another $99.
This would add another $351 to the cost of the Dell XPS Studio and Dell Zino taking their total costs to $2,050 and $793. That would make the Dell XPS Studio $201 more expensive than the MacBook Pro and the Zino $194 more expensive than the Mac Mini.
In addition, Macs also come bundled with iLife which normally sells separately for a very modest $79 and includes iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, iWeb and Garageband. In my opinion, this collection of apps are worth considerably more too. You don’t get anything like iLife bundled with a new PC. You do get some basic household management software in the form of Microsoft Works, but it’s of pretty poor quality - and much less exciting. If we subtract this $79 from the value of the Mac, it makes the Dell $280 more expensive than the MacBook Pro and the Zino $224 more expensive than the Mac Mini.
However there is one big caveat to all this. Dell regularly run price offers on their products whereas Apple usually don’t. For example, at the time of writing, Dell are offering a generous $323 off the price of the XPS Studio 16 and $93 off the Zino. This still makes the MacBook Pro only marginally more expensive than the XPS Studio and the Mini remains cheaper than the Zino.
Of course, this is a very crude price comparison. There are some things that simply won’t show-up in such an exercise and that’s time efficiency and usability. Time is money as they say and over the lifespan of both my Mac and PC, the Mac’s superior stability and efficiency has been priceless.
Posted at 12:51 am on Nov 26th
Yeah mac software makes the computer cheaper, but factor in that apple releases new versions of the OS very often which is an additional cost, and that your old programs more than likely won’t work on the new version of Mac OS. Apple doesn’t care anything about backward compatibility, so have fun buying new versions of your fav mac software.
Posted at 8:22 am on Nov 26th
@Gary - OS X updates are generally cheap, add real functionality and normally don’t break compatibility with 3rd party software. That said, the key is in the name ‘3rd party software’. It is really up to software developers to ensure that there software works on a platform. Most developers are quick to provide editions of their apps which work with the latest OS version.
Microsoft’s model has been to persevere with an ancient, relatively insecure architecture simply to prolong compatibility. The result is: more system crashes, less security and an OS that finds it very difficult to evolve.
Posted at 2:02 pm on Nov 26th
I’d generally agree with that too although it’s worth adding that one of the applications to suffer most incompatibility problems with Snow Leopard wasn’t a third party one at all - it was Apple’s very own Mail!
Although for most users, it seems the various issues with Mail have been pretty much resolved by now.
Posted at 1:11 am on Nov 27th
Not everyone buying a Mac will use the software added into the price. I agree that the iLife suite is a bonus of $80 if you factor in the retail.
But that does not make up for the other added costs. We know for a fact that Apple makes really good profit margins and that shows in how strong they have been even in a recession. They have not been forced into big discounts. I beg to differ that many people can get a much cheaper PC and still manage to buy software with coming close to a Mac price tag. Yes, we all would say Mac’s are better, but features wise this is not that true. Not everything is about CPU speed. OS X is a gret bonus that sells Mac’s. But beleive me if many had a choice to run OS X legally on a $500 Dell they would.I just sold my macBook and bought a Acer. I needed a larger screen to ease eye strain. But I was not going to buy a MacBook Pro for $1500!! I got a PC with bigger HD, faster graphics and more RAM for half that! Now Apple cannot justify its software is worth that much. At least I don’t think so. I still have a Mac Mini but unless Apple offers a cheaper 15″ laptop I’ll be a PC.
Posted at 11:50 am on Nov 27th
@John, I take your points although I did point out at the beginning that Macs can’t compete with PC’s in the lower price brackets with or without software.
It’s true what you say about people would probably run OS X on a $500 Dell if they could. That’s basically what Psystar were offering until Apple put a stop to it:
http://en.onsoftware.com/apple-v-psystar-and-the-hackintoshes/
I completely understand about eye-strain too although if you were using your MacBook mainly at home, one option would have been to buy an external monitor, external hard drive and simply upgrade the RAM like I have.
I can’t ever see Apple moving into the cheaper end laptop market by choice. As you say, they’re surviving the recession without discounting prices because they know they offer a higher-end quality product. However, if any other companies manage to legally do what Psystar tried, then they might be forced into it.
Posted at 11:54 pm on Dec 3rd
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Posted at 7:37 am on Dec 4th
The author of this must just be another insane Mac user.
Posted at 7:47 pm on Jan 21st
There is also the question of repair and service. Assembled PCs (read “Windows” and “Linux” computers) have a huge advantage when it comes to the do-it-yourself model of replacing some component that fails.