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Also any random Linux user is more likely to be a developer, which likely motivates them more to support the indie devs. And since Macs are 2-3 times as expensi

Also any random Linux user is more likely to be a developer, which likely motivates them more to support the indie devs. And since Macs are 2-3 times as expensive as their PC counterparts, owning one tends to imply you have money to throw around.

sanswork 14y ago
Macs aren't 2-3 times as expensive as their PC counterparts. Not even 1.5x as expensive. If you spec out a system with the same components and build quality from any of the PC builders you'll end up with roughly the same price. People just ignore things like screen quality and memory speed when pricing stuff out and then compare consumer PCs to workstation macs. Feel free to post a Mac that is 2-3x its equal though you'll be the first person in any of the times I've posted this reply that will be able to do it.
- powrtoch 14y ago
  Well, finding 2 computers that are exactly equal in specs is more effort than I care to put in, but here's the first reasonable comparison I see at Best Buy: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Toshiba+-+Satellite+14%26%2334%3B+Laptop+-+6GB+Memory+-+750GB+Hard+Drive+-+Champagne+Silver/5560019.p?id=1218704973366&skuId=5560019 http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Toshiba+-+Satellite+14%26%2334%3... Compare it to the 13" Macbook Pro (for the sake of being generous towards the Mac). It's just over half the price, has a bigger screen, more ram, a larger hard drive, and seemingly identical processor and graphics. Naturally there are give and takes on both sides (just about everything is inferior to Apple in terms of "build quality", though this is tough to put a price on), but I don't think it's unreasonable to say this is a comparable laptop, and the specs easily make up for it being $50 over half price. I don't say this to disparage Apple, I've got a MBP myself, but whenever I look at PCs with comparable specs, I do find that they tend to be about half the price. I'll withdraw 3x though, that probably is too high and even if I could hunt around and find one example, it's not like that would prove the point.
  - sanswork 14y ago
    Worse quality screen, graphics card, audio, and slower cpu. Worse keyboard(no backlighting), worse trackpad(my missus has one they are pretty awful), thicker case. Nothing is stand out worse but everything is just a bit worse which when your pushing the upper edges adds up to a lot of cost. Not even counting build quality.
    - alanctgardner2 14y ago
      By this logic, is anything but a Macbook comparable to a Macbook? How would you compare build quality objectively? I think it's safe to say if you're paying extra for a backlit keyboard, you're throwing around money.
      - sanswork 14y ago
        Yes but they cost just as much. As you'll note I said ignoring build quality even though it should be factored in. If you've ever had a backlit keyboard you will realize the usefulness of them. I consider them as essential as a good screen but again I just pointed out that its a worse keyboard not that the keyboard is make or break.
        alanctgardner2 14y ago
        I guess I tried to address two issues in this. Let's put it this way: one man drives an Audi RS4, and the other has a Toyota Camry. Nobody argues that the man with the Audi has the better car, but one might infer that he also has more disposable income. That is why we assume people with Macbooks have more disposable income; they've purchased a luxury item when there is a commodity alternative. A backlit keyboard is definitely not required to use a laptop, no more than heated seats are necessary in a car. You think they're essential because you have enough disposable income that the utility of the money you'd use to buy the keyboard has become less than the utility of the keyboard. This is the notion of value. You can also, likely, afford to give a few dollars to a charity if you'd like.
- bryanlarsen 14y ago
  Consumer Macs are price competitive on the day of their release but their price doesn't drop over time the way PCs do. Since Macs are refreshed approximately annually, this can mean a significant differential just before a refresh. On release day, macs are only price-competitive if (1) quality is more important than price and (2) Apple has a product targeting your needs. When buying a computer, you don't look at specs you look at needs. "I need a laptop to run the Internet and Microsoft Word". PC: $400. Mac: $1000 or higher if an 11" screen is acceptable. It doesn't matter that the $400 laptop has a crappy screen -- to many people a crappy 15" screen is better than a great 11". "super fast dev box": PC: $800, Mac: $2500 (and the PC is considerably faster) "great gaming rig": PC: $1500, Mac: ????
  - sanswork 14y ago
    I'll give you the laptop to browse the web and run word. But thats a low end task and thats not Apples target market with their laptops(hence the pro in the name). For the others I'm going to need to see examples.
    - bryanlarsen 14y ago
      "But thats a low end task". It's also about 90% of the market. Macs have a significant share of this market -- sold to those who care more about design, stability and/or status more than price. $800 should get you an i5 2500K, a solid motherboard, 16 gigs of RAM, a small SSD, a nice case & PS. No ECC, but it's considerably faster than a Mac Pro. For the 1500 machine, add a killer graphics card, a secondary HDD and a Windows license. You'll even have some money left over to sub in one of those silly "gamer" cases. That's BYO. Prebuilt stuff is generally about the same price, but comes with lower quality cases, power supplies & motherboards.
      - sanswork 14y ago
        The fact that people buy a high performance item for a low performance task does not make the item over priced it means they are over paying for what they need. There is a big difference. Again, posting what you should be able to get is all fine but if you're comparing to a mac pro then until you post me a parts list for a workstation with the same quality of parts put together already then you're not really making your point. You're not going to do that though because its time consuming and difficult to match up. Also you're ignoring the cost involved in the effort of finding/getting and assembling those parts. To be a fair comparison you'd have to go off one of the PC manufactures lists or at least add overhead for the labor.

sanswork 14y ago

Macs aren't 2-3 times as expensive as their PC counterparts. Not even 1.5x as expensive. If you spec out a system with the same components and build quality from any of the PC builders you'll end up with roughly the same price. People just ignore things like screen quality and memory speed when pricing stuff out and then compare consumer PCs to workstation macs. Feel free to post a Mac that is 2-3x its equal though you'll be the first person in any of the times I've posted this reply that will be able to do it.

powrtoch 14y ago
Well, finding 2 computers that are exactly equal in specs is more effort than I care to put in, but here's the first reasonable comparison I see at Best Buy: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Toshiba+-+Satellite+14%26%2334%3B+Laptop+-+6GB+Memory+-+750GB+Hard+Drive+-+Champagne+Silver/5560019.p?id=1218704973366&skuId=5560019 http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Toshiba+-+Satellite+14%26%2334%3... Compare it to the 13" Macbook Pro (for the sake of being generous towards the Mac). It's just over half the price, has a bigger screen, more ram, a larger hard drive, and seemingly identical processor and graphics. Naturally there are give and takes on both sides (just about everything is inferior to Apple in terms of "build quality", though this is tough to put a price on), but I don't think it's unreasonable to say this is a comparable laptop, and the specs easily make up for it being $50 over half price. I don't say this to disparage Apple, I've got a MBP myself, but whenever I look at PCs with comparable specs, I do find that they tend to be about half the price. I'll withdraw 3x though, that probably is too high and even if I could hunt around and find one example, it's not like that would prove the point.
- sanswork 14y ago
  Worse quality screen, graphics card, audio, and slower cpu. Worse keyboard(no backlighting), worse trackpad(my missus has one they are pretty awful), thicker case. Nothing is stand out worse but everything is just a bit worse which when your pushing the upper edges adds up to a lot of cost. Not even counting build quality.
  - alanctgardner2 14y ago
    By this logic, is anything but a Macbook comparable to a Macbook? How would you compare build quality objectively? I think it's safe to say if you're paying extra for a backlit keyboard, you're throwing around money.
    - sanswork 14y ago
      Yes but they cost just as much. As you'll note I said ignoring build quality even though it should be factored in. If you've ever had a backlit keyboard you will realize the usefulness of them. I consider them as essential as a good screen but again I just pointed out that its a worse keyboard not that the keyboard is make or break.
      - alanctgardner2 14y ago
        I guess I tried to address two issues in this. Let's put it this way: one man drives an Audi RS4, and the other has a Toyota Camry. Nobody argues that the man with the Audi has the better car, but one might infer that he also has more disposable income. That is why we assume people with Macbooks have more disposable income; they've purchased a luxury item when there is a commodity alternative. A backlit keyboard is definitely not required to use a laptop, no more than heated seats are necessary in a car. You think they're essential because you have enough disposable income that the utility of the money you'd use to buy the keyboard has become less than the utility of the keyboard. This is the notion of value. You can also, likely, afford to give a few dollars to a charity if you'd like.
bryanlarsen 14y ago
Consumer Macs are price competitive on the day of their release but their price doesn't drop over time the way PCs do. Since Macs are refreshed approximately annually, this can mean a significant differential just before a refresh. On release day, macs are only price-competitive if (1) quality is more important than price and (2) Apple has a product targeting your needs. When buying a computer, you don't look at specs you look at needs. "I need a laptop to run the Internet and Microsoft Word". PC: $400. Mac: $1000 or higher if an 11" screen is acceptable. It doesn't matter that the $400 laptop has a crappy screen -- to many people a crappy 15" screen is better than a great 11". "super fast dev box": PC: $800, Mac: $2500 (and the PC is considerably faster) "great gaming rig": PC: $1500, Mac: ????
- sanswork 14y ago
  I'll give you the laptop to browse the web and run word. But thats a low end task and thats not Apples target market with their laptops(hence the pro in the name). For the others I'm going to need to see examples.
  - bryanlarsen 14y ago
    "But thats a low end task". It's also about 90% of the market. Macs have a significant share of this market -- sold to those who care more about design, stability and/or status more than price. $800 should get you an i5 2500K, a solid motherboard, 16 gigs of RAM, a small SSD, a nice case & PS. No ECC, but it's considerably faster than a Mac Pro. For the 1500 machine, add a killer graphics card, a secondary HDD and a Windows license. You'll even have some money left over to sub in one of those silly "gamer" cases. That's BYO. Prebuilt stuff is generally about the same price, but comes with lower quality cases, power supplies & motherboards.
    - sanswork 14y ago
      The fact that people buy a high performance item for a low performance task does not make the item over priced it means they are over paying for what they need. There is a big difference. Again, posting what you should be able to get is all fine but if you're comparing to a mac pro then until you post me a parts list for a workstation with the same quality of parts put together already then you're not really making your point. You're not going to do that though because its time consuming and difficult to match up. Also you're ignoring the cost involved in the effort of finding/getting and assembling those parts. To be a fair comparison you'd have to go off one of the PC manufactures lists or at least add overhead for the labor.