^^^ $720?

Ripped off again... I got a computer with half as much RAM and HDD space for the same price. No monitor.

BenKenobi88,

First of all congratulations for some smart shopping you did there. I don't know anything about graphics cards, but I take your word that yours is a great gaming card.

Intel processors are currently seen as faster than AMDs, but I don't want to get into details about that because I'm not that knowledgeable. Safe to say that Apple uses nothing but the latest Intel processors.

I also read Tida Lockhart's statement which tells me again that not everybody has the time and technical expertise to buy that cheap. I certainly never had, and actually my frustration with the PC shopping experience led me to try a Mac back in 2005.

Buying a Mac was as simple then as it is now: Do you want a Portable or a Desktop? Do you want the small, medium or big one? That's all you need to know. You have to try to imagine what a big relief Apple's clean product grid is to many shoppers.

Me being a complete stranger, if I came up to you and asked you to buy me a great low-cost gaming PC today, how much would you charge me for the time and effort it would take you?

I'm not trying to argue with you if the Mac OS is better or not. Everybody interested should try it on his/her own and see what he/she can get out of Mac OS. I'm just challenging the statement that it's a bad value, because there's lots of value in Mac hardware.

And you may scoff at people who just buy a Mac to look good with it, but how about seeing a Mac as a beautiful object of design? How about people who like good furniture? Looking at the Mac as a design object for your home it's an absolute bargain compared to the thousands of $ you can spend on a single well-made and -designed piece of designer furniture. Again, if that's not for you try to imagine the way many people feel about ugly electronics in their home.

Also, you can get Macs cheaper on Black Friday. The $1499 model was available for $1354 at one retailer. [1] There are also student discounts of around 7 % all year and students also get a free iPod on top during the summer season. So there's always an MSRP, there's a common street price and there's a special bargain you can sometimes get. It's the same for Macs and PCs.

I also mentioned stereo speakers, Bluetooth 2.0 (For example you can use a WiiMote to control the Mac. [2]), and I mentioned a microphone and a webcam. And I mentioned that there is also a $1200 iMac (which was on sale for $1135 on Black Friday).

And there is the big resale value, a sold Mac will give you back hundreds more than a sold PC that used to be the same price. All this leads me to challenge your statement of a $700 price gap.

[1] http://www.macrumors.com/2007/11/21/apple-and-others-black-friday-2007-sales-prices-and-links/
[2] http://www.iospirit.com/remotebuddy/

You could if you really wanted buy a bluetooth card for your windows machine and use a wiimote on it. I don't see how this is a selling point for mac. For that matter you could also use a sixaxis, or a 360 controller.

As a side note I would say buying electronic equipment because "it looks good" usually means you get the shaft spec wise. Not always, but in general. Anyways there is only one mac that actually looks good. A mac pro. The rest look like some sort of fisher price "my first computer" insult to the computer world.

I wish PC's and Mac's were more like consoles...

I wonder if Bill Gates sits back and watches those Mac vs PC commercials while counting his billions and just laughs at the hilarity of it all.

You can get spyware from just surfing the web trying to track down drivers (it's happened to me), and don't feed me this nonsense about "You can install anti-spy/virus software and it'll be fine!"

My computer should not be like my cat in that I have to clean up after and vaccinate both of them. A computer should be like a TV: as long as I don't fling something through its screen, it'll sit there and do its job and not need to be cleansed of malware and defragmented.

I buy Macs because they just work. I don't need to install anything else on them. I don't need to pay any extra attention to them. They just sit there and do their job without issue or complaint.

Speaking as a guy who has had windows computers fail on him at key moments, yes, I WILL pay an extra $2,000 for the stability, reliability and versatility of a Mac.

 Yeah I don't really want a webcam, and a Bluetooth dongle costs about $30 I think.

The resale value is a good point, but then again, I've never sold a PC, I've almost always got a family member or friend who could use a PC every 4-5 years.

I understand that some people prefer the style, and computers can be treated like a designer piece...but for the price, again, I could deck out my PC case to look very nice.

It's fine if you uys like the reliability of Macs.  But for tech savvy people, and there's lots of them, PCs running Windows or Linux is just fine, viruses are not an issue, and buying a computer for stability seems pointless. 

Don't you even install firefox so you can avoid safari?

I fail to see how all this "It Just Works" nonsense came about. It doesn't Just Work all the time. Case in point http://www.macfixit.com/

I can admit Windows has a lot of problems. It's time mac people started admitting their OS isn't perfect either. Users bitching about problems is how lots of things get fixed. If Apple users started doing it more instead of pretending problems don't exist then they may get more fixes.

PC all the way! (except for iTunes, love it love it love it)

...Unless you AB-SO-FRIGGIN'-LUTELY need it to perform and never fail, sure.

I can't afford to have a computer which could crash during a presentation, become afflicted with the latest virus that's wrecking havoc, have a run.dll error and kernel panic for no particular reason or become so bogged down and slow from fragmenting that it ceases to function.

Computers should be self-reliant. They should be a work-alleviating device, not a device which generates extra work because it needs regular maintenance and care to prevent it from slipping into entropic ineptitude. It's not like you install antivirus or spyware software ONCE, either. People keep coming up with new viruses and spyware so you need to keep buying updates to the protection libraries like vaccines for a child with no immune system (and on a side note, if you think Norton and McAfee aren't writing their own viruses so they can sell the antidote to you, you're mistaken. Does anyone honestly think they're having all those "write a virus" contests to "better protect their customers"? HA!).

Every PC I have seen has, without fail, gone downhill and eventually died. That's friend's computers, PCs I've used, EVERYTHING. I have a friend who reformats his PC every three months as regular MS-recommended maintenance. I always thought he was insane for doing it but it's actually the best course of action if you want to keep a PC up and running.

If Macs and PCs were people, they'd be far, FAR different than the "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" ads suggest. The guy who plays the PC would have to be only partially dressed because he couldn't do it on his own and he'd need to be wearing a football helmet to protect himself from all of the things that could hurt him but that he has no idea how to avoid. Also, he'd look like Frankenstein's monster, with his arms and legs patched together out of various, mismatched pieces which don't work terribly well together. One leg would be longer than the other and his eyes would be different colors.

To top it all off, he wouldn't trust anyone because he has no way to tell who wants to help him, harm him or infect him with something awful.

So bottom line, yes, PCs are basically equivalent to Frankenstein's monster with a football helmet and a paranoia complex.

Meanwhile, a Mac would be like Ace Rimmer: sure, he has his head stuck up his own ass about how great he is, but he gets the damn job done and if the mission calls for him to act like a shambling corpse wearing a football helmet (so I can play TF2), he can do that, too.