5 ms·

and it might end up costing the same amount of money or near-ish after I add all the options I'd be interested to see someone do an analysis of what it would c

• c0nsumer 13y ago
  A coworker and I were discussing this earlier so I priced out a Dell workstation with fairly similar specs: same number of cores but across 2x CPUs, same RAM, same video card RAM, no 1TB of flash storage. The Dell ended up costing negligibly more, something like $50 or $60 above the Apple.
  • Uchikoma 13y ago
    In 2006 I wrote about how everyone claimed Apple was so expensive, and compared it to a similar specced Lenovo T60p, guess what? The Lenovo was either more expensive or same price, depending on the MacBook version.
    • csmuk 13y ago
      T60p was far superior build to any MacBook ever made. My old T61 which is virtually identical had the living crap beaten out of it 10 hours a day for 5 years solid and it still works fine today. It had a new battery and a new fan and that was it. Well worth the investment.
      • supercoder 13y ago
        How'd the MacBook you were comparing it to fair ?
        • csmuk 13y ago
          Long post. This should cover it. Family of 5 history of Apple and Lenovo/IBM kit: 2010 MacBook Pro (DEAD 2011 - caught fire after water spillage next to it - WTF). 2006 MacBook Pro (DEAD 2008 - logic board failure). 2007 MacBook (DEAD 2010 - logic board failure). 2006 Intel iMac (DEAD 2008 - backlight). 2007 Mac Mini (sold 2009 - worked fine at the time). 2005 IBM T43 (ALIVE - sister's daily driver). 2006 Lenovo T61 (ALIVE - backup machine - stopped using it in 2012). 2007 Lenovo T400 (ALIVE - bought 2012 second hand. My daily driver). 2008 Lenovo X200 (ALIVE - mail server because it's cheap to run). All of the above have lived a HARD life. The only Apple kit I have that is still alive is a 2008 iPod Nano that barely works (to be expected here). Two iPad 2's (one barely manages 2 hours on battery - replacing that will be fun!) and a brand new iPad Mini Retina. Apple kit stinks from my experience. I don't want to hear the favourite defence of "anecdote" to this post. Once probability. Twice coincidence. Thrice certainty.
          • modfodder 13y ago
            I've had just the opposite experience. Every IBM and Lenovo laptop I've used has died or had to be replaced within a year (2 IBM and 2 Lenovo). I've had decent experience with Windows towers, but not laptops. Now my Apple experience, having laptops going back to the Duo 280c, I've had to have two faulty batteries replaced and one screen replacement, all which were fixed within a week. That's 8 laptops over 20 years, each were passed to family members when I was finished and each worked when they were given to family friends or donated to charity. And as you say, once probability, twice coincidence, thrice certainty. That's why I stopped buying Lenovo in 2009 and finally decided Windows and its grief was not necessary in my life.
          • r00fus 13y ago
            It's s wonder you keep buying Apple kit - my experience has been almost polar opposite - still have a 2003 iBook, 2006 MB with SSD that is decent at browsing, 2008 MB Unibody running Mavericks, 2010 MB Air that's still quite snappy, a 2010 MBP with SSD upgrade running great and a Mac Mini that I just recently donated to a disadvantaged friend after upgrading to SSD. Only failure I had was a 2004 iMac G5 that died in 2007 - that SOB was heavy, and was not missed. Personally moved to all-laptops after that.
      • Uchikoma 13y ago
        As someone who owned severals Lenovos at work, and several MacBooks at work, from my experience 3 Lenovos broke the plastic rim of the screen and keys flew out, MacBooks have all been fine and upgraded to new ones while still working.
• marquis 13y ago
  > the cost of off-the-shelf build of similar specs More importantly in my busy life: those same specs work well together and when I have a part failure or two I have a repair program as good as Apple's. Or if it fails completely I don't have to find similar new parts to rebuild something that my software/hardware setup is already running perfectly on.
• tedunangst 13y ago
  You can save a lot of money if you are willing to believe that an i7 is the same as a Xeon and a Radeon is the same as a FirePro. Depending on your line of work, that may be true.
• coldtea 13y ago
  See the comment below: >A coworker and I were discussing this earlier so I priced out a Dell workstation with fairly similar specs: same number of cores but across 2x CPUs, same RAM, same video card RAM, no 1TB of flash storage. The Dell ended up costing negligibly more, something like $50 or $60 above the Apple. I've done the same thing many times with the same results. Perhaps with non-brand name components you can do slightly better. Not much better in any case -- and you'd be wishing you had spent that extra $500 anyway. People make an even worse mistake comparing a MBP and other laptops. Sure, if all you want is the same CPU and GPU (or perhaps slightly better) you can get a similar PC laptop for half the price or less. But you didn't factor in stuff like: weight (isn't it kinda big deal on a laptop?), vastly better battery life (isn't it kinda big deal on a laptop?), size (isn't it kinda big deal on a laptop?), top notch retina display with top scores for color accuracy and brightness in reviews (isn't it kind of big deal in general?). And the little things, like: multitouch trackpad, unibody construction (you might not even want it, but you have to admit it DOES cost more than plastic) illuminated keyboard, thunderbolt ports, great sleep implementation, mag safe adapter, etc etc. So, yes, you do get something with same/better CPU/GPU for less money -- but you don't get the SAME stuff overall. Those comparisons are like basing your car purchase on horsepower or cc alone -- and forgeting everything else about the car.