Showing messages 1 through 11 of 11.

• looking at numbers...
  2004-05-19 00:31:11  fneunemann [Reply | View]
  
  
  Last October I did a price comparison myself when I was thinking about the purchase of a G5 Mac to replace my old G3 b&w. In order to avoid comparing oranges to bananas I was looking for a brand name PC with similar computing power as the G5 2x2 GHz and picked a Dell with dual Pentium Xeon 3.3 GHz and similar "accessories".
  
  In fact I was unable configure a Dell exactly as the G5 and ended up with 2 configurations that came close to the G5 and the result? The price difference was Euro 300 in configuration 1 and Euro 700 in configuration 2, the G5 Mac was cheaper in both cases! I did not include a monitor in these calculations because with both machines the same monitor can be used using a DVI connection. However I preferred the Apple 17" display.
  
  Of course I bought the 2x2GHz G5 and I am still extremely happy it. :-)
  
  The PowerBook to PC notebook comparison is a different story. Here I think Apple still has to do a lot to lower prices and more importantly, increase the quality of their PowerBooks.
  
  A month ago I had to return a G4 PowerBook 1.25 GHz (for full refund) after 3 failed repair attempts by Apple. The display as well as the keyboard were way below standard in a notebook with a Euro 3500 price tag.
• looking at numbers...
  2004-05-19 07:10:37  Whit [Reply | View]
  
  
  I'm sorry to hear about your failed attempt at buying a new PowerBook, but I have to take issue with the last comment. It's one thing to want a super-high resolution LCD as offered by some WinTel manufacturers, but arguing that the actual quality of the PowerBook display is below standard is just silly - except for the iBooks and the 12" PowerBook (neither of which you bought), Apple uses the very best LCD screens available. I'm typing this message on the very machine that you took back and the screen is vibrant and crystal-clear.
  
  And what on earth is below standard about the keyboard? Not only is it automatically back-lit when the lights go out but the tactility and overall feel are superb.
  
  I was disappointed at having to ship my early-batch 15" PB back to have the screen replaced (white spot glitch), but aside from that this is the finest piece of computing machinery I have ever laid my hands on.

• looking at numbers...
  2004-05-17 19:01:56  funkyfido [Reply | View]
  
  
  $2000? 2300 for the Dell? Least expensive, QUALITY Flat panel From Apple is $699 (See Below) Did you add a DVD Burner to the Dell? If not Subtract $200 Dollars from any of these configurations. Low End G5 with a DVD Playing/CD burning Combo drive + 17" Apple Flat Panel (Quality monitor, pure digital interface) + 1GB of RAM ($229 from RamJet shop around you can probably get a better price. 512 MB of RAM $109. TOTAL: $2527 with 1.5 Gb of RAM. $2407 with 512 MB of Ram/17" QUALITY Flat Panel. Apple doesn't sell a 19" monitor.
  
  $699.00
  17" diagonal viewable image size
  1280 x 1024 optimal resolution
  16.7 million colors
  17.3 x 17.6 x 6.9-9.8 inches
  14.6 pounds
  Two USB ports
  Apple Display Connector
  
  
  G5 - base configuration
  $1,799.00
  1.6GHz PowerPC G5
  800MHz frontside bus
  512K L2 cache
  256MB DDR333 128-bit SDRAM
  Expandable to 4GB SDRAM
  80GB Serial ATA
  SuperDrive
  Three PCI Slots
  NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Ultra
  64MB DDR video memory
  56K internal modem
  
  1. Don't buy ram from Apple buy it from a number of different vendors.
  2. You don't have to buy a monitor from Apple.
  Even though the quality of that monitor is probably better than you are getting from Dell. All of Apple's monitors are excellent as far as quality goes...even the low end. They are also price competitive with QUALITY flat panel monitors from other vendors.
  
  
  When you talk about high end go price those computers with duel Xeon processors or Duel AMD 64s. Duel 900 & 1Ghz sytem busses. That's right each processor has a 900Mhz or 1Ghz system bus. Windows XP Pro. That is what you can compare Apple Duel G5's with.
  
  Mid range G5
  $2,499.00
  Dual 1.8GHz PowerPC G5
  900MHz frontside bus/processor
  512K L2 cache/processor
  512MB DDR400 128-bit SDRAM
  Expandable to 8GB SDRAM
  160GB Serial ATA
  SuperDrive
  Three PCI-X Slots
  NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Ultra
  64MB DDR video memory
  56K internal modem
  
  
  High end G5
  $2,999.00
  Dual 2GHz PowerPC G5
  1GHz frontside bus/processor
  512K L2 cache/processor
  512MB DDR400 128-bit SDRAM
  Expandable to 8GB SDRAM
  160GB Serial ATA
  SuperDrive
  Three PCI-X Slots
  ATI Radeon 9600 Pro
  64MB DDR video memory
  56K internal modem
  
  Got Gigabit ethernet? iMovie, iDVD, iPhoto, Garageband?
  I don't know what web page you were looking at.
  
• looking at numbers...
  2004-05-17 19:09:17  funkyfido [Reply | View]
  
  
  $2407 with 512 MB of Ram/17" QUALITY Flat Panel.
  
  Correction: The $2407 price would be with 512 MB of ram added added.
  Should read: $2407 with 768 MB of Ram/17" QUALITY Flat Panel.
  
  $2527 with 1.5 Gb of RAM
  Should be: 1.25 GB of RAM

• looking at numbers...
  2004-05-17 19:00:53  funkyfido [Reply | View]
  
  
  $2000? 2300 for the Dell? Least expensive, QUALITY Flat panel From Apple is $699 (See Below) Did you add a DVD Burner to the Dell? If not Subtract $200 Dollars from any of these configurations. Low End G5 with a DVD Playing/CD burning Combo drive + 17" Apple Flat Panel (Quality monitor, pure digital interface) + 1GB of RAM ($229 from RamJet shop around you can probably get a better price. 512 MB of RAM $109. TOTAL: $2527 with 1.5 Gb of RAM. $2407 with 512 MB of Ram/17" QUALITY Flat Panel. Apple doesn't sell a 19" monitor.
  
  $699.00
  17" diagonal viewable image size
  1280 x 1024 optimal resolution
  16.7 million colors
  17.3 x 17.6 x 6.9-9.8 inches
  14.6 pounds
  Two USB ports
  Apple Display Connector
  
  
  G5 - base configuration
  $1,799.00
  1.6GHz PowerPC G5
  800MHz frontside bus
  512K L2 cache
  256MB DDR333 128-bit SDRAM
  Expandable to 4GB SDRAM
  80GB Serial ATA
  SuperDrive
  Three PCI Slots
  NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Ultra
  64MB DDR video memory
  56K internal modem
  
  1. Don't buy ram from Apple buy it from a number of different vendors.
  2. You don't have to buy a monitor from Apple.
  Even though the quality of that monitor is probably better than you are getting from Dell. All of Apple's monitors are excellent as far as quality goes...even the low end. They are also price competitive with QUALITY flat panel monitors from other vendors.
  
  
  When you talk about high end go price those computers with duel Xeon processors or Duel AMD 64s. Duel 900 & 1Ghz sytem busses. That's right each processor has a 900Mhz or 1Ghz system bus. Windows XP Pro. That is what you can compare Apple Duel G5's with.
  
  Mid range G5
  $2,499.00
  Dual 1.8GHz PowerPC G5
  900MHz frontside bus/processor
  512K L2 cache/processor
  512MB DDR400 128-bit SDRAM
  Expandable to 8GB SDRAM
  160GB Serial ATA
  SuperDrive
  Three PCI-X Slots
  NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Ultra
  64MB DDR video memory
  56K internal modem
  
  
  High end G5
  $2,999.00
  Dual 2GHz PowerPC G5
  1GHz frontside bus/processor
  512K L2 cache/processor
  512MB DDR400 128-bit SDRAM
  Expandable to 8GB SDRAM
  160GB Serial ATA
  SuperDrive
  Three PCI-X Slots
  ATI Radeon 9600 Pro
  64MB DDR video memory
  56K internal modem
  
  Got Gigabit ethernet? iMovie, iDVD, iPhoto, Garageband?
  I don't know what web page you were looking at.
  
• looking at numbers...
  2004-05-18 14:55:07  davidmeyer [Reply | View]
  
  
  Since you are insisting on that "with QUALITY flat panel monitor", you might as well note that the latest Consumer reports has an article on computer monitors and rates the Apple 17" as #1 - despite its price being among the highest in the group.
  
  I got mine as a fully-warranted refurb for $500 - I thought it was a good deal. ;^D

• looking at numbers...
  2004-05-17 10:14:25  puggsly [Reply | View]
  
  
  You will have a hard time convincing anyone at the extreme high end or the ultra low end as trying to create "equivalent" systems is not possible.
  
  I can show a dozen examples of PC laptops comparing them to every mac laptop and show the benefits you get from apple. You might post up a specific Windows Laptop that you don't feel Apple can compare to and why but this will be a tough fight to win.
  
  The same is true on the entry level. How much does dedicated video memory add or subtract? How fast is the G4 vs the Pentium 4. How do the iLife applications compare to windows equivalents? Suffice it to say that you can get a very useful computer for less than a grand Mac or PC.
  
  But if you want to show Apple's price weakness. Price out a killer mid-range system $1200-$1800 (US). The air gets really thin there for mac users because we can't offer much more performance than we do at $800. This is where Apple gets it's ass handed to it. Sure you can argue the power of the G4 1.25 vs 2-2.4 but up over 3Ghz? And yes Apple ships with a good video card but by moving up to this price range the PC can step up to a great video card.
  
  This could all change very quickly with the 970fx potentially moving through the Mac line but until that happens there is quite a hole between 1.25 G4 and even a 1.6Ghz G5.
  
  
• looking at numbers...
  2005-05-11 17:02:31  desrick [Reply | View]
  
  
  First of all u cant say that a pc would be faster because of the lastest hardware in it. The mac put more emphasis into thier hardware. A g-force 5200FX for the mac would probably be much faster than a g-force6000 or something for the pc. The mac puts more work into thier graphic cards and softwares. I was testing a game on a g3 500mhz 128mb ram ati ragepro against a athlonXp 1700 256mb ram and the G3 500Mhz ran faster which surprized me, because the G3 only runs at a 100mhz bus. o and like the guy was saying earlier, A virus can kill your machine which is expensive . but with the mac your investing your money. Its worth spending more money for something that will last longer and is faster. Than for something that isnt that stable. Even windowsXp still have hundreds of down falls and glitches. Thats all i want to say. By the way, I live in the bahamas and used Pc for years. Now i switched to the Mac because of the stapability, beauty and power they have. thank you

• Yeah Europe is getting ripped off
  2004-05-17 09:05:49  strikeman [Reply | View]
  
  
  Check out the American Apple Store - the basic 1.6GHz G5 is US$1800 which is €1500. You are paying a lot more in Europe for the same stuff.
  
  And I'd question how you've configured your Dell. When I try the configure a Dell to the same specs at Dell.com I get $3208 vs $3498 for the Mac. Hardly a massive difference.
  
  When I was buying a notebook a Powerbook was more than cost effective as compared to your name brand Intel books.
• Yeah Europe is getting ripped off
  2004-05-17 22:39:08  geuerp [Reply | View]
  
  
  I guess the European Apple store lists VAT which the US one doesn't?
• Yeah Europe is getting ripped off
  2004-05-19 07:32:13  jwenting [Reply | View]
  
  
  yes it is legally required to.
  But last I checked European salestax wasn't 100%...
  
  In fact, the highest European salestax is something like 21% at the moment.
  
  Europrices ARE a ripoff compared to the US.
  I know people that mailorder stuff from the US and are cheaper off despite having to pay not only salestax and shipping but also import duties on the goods (tax and duties are very democratically leveraged over the shipping cost as well).
  Stores are now starting to run their own import channels getting stuff from the US (which is somewhat illegal under EU law where any goods for which there is an importer or manufacturer inside the EU may not be purchased for resale outside the EU) to be able to compete somewhat with the online retailers.