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ThinkPad x61s FTW!

Did they test Thinkpad? Thinkpad is no doubt one of the best laptops you can get.

Paul!?!?!  You must be kidding me!  Wow, only YOU could turn an article like that into a cost comparison... since when are people looking to buy the fastest laptop possible even worried about $200.  

Also, are you honestly saying that you can find a faster 17" windows laptop for cheaper than the Macbook Pro 17"?  I would like to see that model!  

Go ahead and spec them out people... it can't be done!  Post your model/specs/price here if you can do it.  Remember, it has to be equal to or greater specs than the 17" Macbook Pro.

Also keep in mind that the Macbook Pro is going to be getting updates in November.

Any alienware or XPS laptop would smoke the MBP.

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For some odd reason, people in my group as well as employees seek my opinion for hardware. I am certainly at a loss for knowledge on laptops. Since there are so many smart people here, could you give me an idea of the best [non Apple please] on the market. Paul T, you say ThinkPad but do not give a model. Please give the goods so that I can help my staff and partners. I obviously insist on Vista, but XP is not uch of a choice, except for the custom sites to my knowledge.

Paul T, how about a review on solidstate hard drives? Worth it or no? Laptop or desktop, would be interesting reading. Again people like me seek knowledgable poeople like Paul and not a journalist who couldn't install RAM, but will write as if they are experts. It just drives me iCrazy, especially with my OCD.:)

These Thinkpads might be good but they are fuggly... they look like the laptop of the 80's, sqarish, boxy. And that red pointer what a pain in the a** !!

My people want reliable products that will not break their piggy bank. Most of them are radiology technologists and nurses.

Lenovo has simplified their products lines, so you really only have three choices in regards to ThinkPads (more if you count the consumer oriented Lenovo 3000 series)

R - Mainstream models, typically a little bit heavier, but also the cheapest available.

T - Powerhouse, with discreet graphics and fast processors and a wide variety of configurations.

X - Smallest.  Many less than three pounds.  Lacks an optical drive.  Also available in tablet form.

The x61t would be the best choice for people in the medical field, since you can use it in tablet mode, and will be cheaper than tablet only models from Motion Computing.

I also disagree that they are ugly.  More like understated elegance, and a brand that has been known to be reliable.  I've been buying only Lenovo for my sales force for a while now.

I actually think ThinkPads are fugly.  I kept reading how cool the Thinkpads were and then after purchasing a couple T61s for my company I couldn't stop staring at the off center display, odd carved out space where a camera apparently is on some models, and the battery protruding an extra inch off the back (WTF is that?).  I miss the simplicity and attention to detail that Apple puts into their computers.  Also, the one thing that still amazes me about Windows machines is how much crap comes installed on them.  The Thinkpad was pretty barebones as far as 3rd party software goes but I still had around 10 Lenovo/IBM hardware controlling apps in the taskbar and this is before I even installed Anti-virus.  I wouldn't be surprised if the MBP won strictly because it is truly a clean install with drivers only and none of these processor/memory hogging apps running in the "background".   Some will think I'm full of shite but I normally find that Windows XP for normal business use (MS Office, Firefox, email, etc.) runs faster in VMWare Fusion on my MBP than on many of the PCs in our office.  

Thanks. It's sounds perfect for one of the guys who's in the market. Some of the guys are going Apple for desktops, while others are Vista. I help some customize desktops/towers at CyberpowerPC, so if you know of any similar sites with similar pricing, please post.

"the battery protruding an extra inch off the back (WTF is that?)"

those are typically 9-cell batteries for extra runtime.  6-cell batteries are the ones that fit without sticking out.  i'd take the 9-cell any day.

@ "weedmonk":  "Any alienware or XPS laptop would smoke the MBP."

Did you miss the part of the PC World review where they said, "The fastest Windows Vista notebook we've tested this year--or for that matter, ever--is a Mac. Not a Dell, not a Toshiba, not even an Alienware."?

Go ahead and read it again, this time without letting your preconceived notions cloud your vision. You'll be amazed what you can discover when you actually pay attention.

fivepoint,

I'll blow the mac's price out in two ways.

from HPshopping.com

hp dv9500t

first option: at same price ($2800)what configuration can I get...

Core 2 Duo T7700 same as Mac

17 in 1680x1050 same as Mac

4 GB Memory 2x as much as Mac (a $700 mac upgrade)

256mb Nvidia 8600m gs not sure what mac has

Fingerprint reader and webcam mac has only webcam

ABGN + bluetooth same as mac

240GB 5400rpm(2x120gb) mac has only 160gb

HD-DVD-R with SuperMulti mac only has SuperDrive

Digital TV Tuner mac doesn't have option

2 Hi cap 8 cell battery

__________to recap_______________

Pavilion pwns, no question about it...

second option: match the mac pro specs

if I drop 2GB ram

if I drop the HD-DVD-R for a DVD+-RW SuperMulti

If I drop TV Tuner

if I drop 1 battery............I get:

a price under $1600

__________to recap_______________

Pavilion pwns again

________________summary_______________

fivepoint was pwned

Actually it's a 6 cell.  This is the exact computer I purchased:

biz.pcconnection.com/.../Detail.htm

Overall it's still a nice machine but I'd pay a little more for design of the MacBook.  Still, I'm not surprised that Paul prefers ThinkPads "by a wide margin".  

1)  How many operating systems does it run?  ONLY ONE.  AND ITS WINDOWS.

2)  Does it have iLife?  NO.

3)  Does it weigh less than 7lbs?  NO.  IT WEIGHS WELL OVER 8.

4)  Is it likely to contract a virus or require hundreds of dollars per year to keep it from getting one?  YES.

5)  Is the company who builds it considered to have the best (hands down) customer support in the world?  NO.  

6)  Does it come pre-loaded with tons of crapware, including games, 30-day trials, etc?  YES.  

7)  Does your computer company have hundreds of brick and mortar stores all around the U.S. which make it easy for you to take the product in and get it repaired?  NO.

8)  Does your computer win design contests, and get lauded for its beauty and industrial design?  NO.

Jello,

Apple over charges for their ram, and I mean WAY over charges, which is too bad, I actually went to the Hp website and did some of my own comparisons and you are correct, the hp is cheaper but you forgot a couple of facts.  

First the Mac is over 1 lb. lighter, and second you did not consider the software bundle you get with the Mac.  For example, you need to purchase anti virus and photo editing software with the hp. and exactly which of the six or is it seven versions of Vista is that thing running.  Further the mac comes with a iphoto, photobooth, and a bunch of other software that would have to be purchased on the Hp.

All that being said.  The Mac is still more expensive.  Is it outrageously more expensive as Paul and the Windows crowd wants the masses to believe?  No.  But you do pay a premium, I just bought a new mac book pro, the 2.2 version.  Did I know I was paying a premium.  Yes, but my experience with Apples has been that their longevity more than makes up for their higher price.  For example, you can run the latest version of OS X on a five year old Mac, you can barely run vista on the latest computers being built.  Personally I see a lot of value in that.

If you don't that's fine.  But remember the value of things is often subjective.

Regards

Joe Dokes

fivepoint,

I am sorry I thought this was a mature conversation.

1)It can't do some stuff I life can but it can do lots ilife can't like media center...

2)It ways just UNDER 8 pounds.

3)Yah, it runs windows, and heck even linux if you want to.

-bye the way for you to wun windows you would even have to fork out more money.

4)I honestly don't know a single person to get a virus since xp sp2 came out.

5)HP's support has won numerous awards, and like any company some will like it some won't

6)It is not that much of a burden to remove crapware considering I save over $1000 dollars.

7)Umm, I could add next day service as an option and still be cheaper than your macbook, or send it in.  I have heard more horror stories about mac nerds screwing things up than I can count.  Or if I buy it at a place like best buy, they can service it. (I think macbooks only get 90 days support full support included)

8)Actually many people find the dv9500t very attractive, and it has won numerous awards look at the list on this page: www.shopping.hp.com/.../computer_can_series.do

You were saying....

"Actually it's a 6 cell."

that sucks.  other manufacturers are making batteries that are MUCH smaller.

"The fastest Windows Vista notebook we've tested this year--or for that matter, ever--is a Mac. Not a Dell, not a Toshiba, not even an Alienware."?

funny how they seemed to forget this one:

www.pcworld.com/.../eurocom_d900c_phantomx.html

it completely lays the smackdown on the MBP.  

try to dispute it losta, but you can't!

First Paul et al.  *** about how expensive the mac book pro is and then when it comes time to find a computer that is actually faster than the Mac Book you have to step up to a 5158.00 dollar laptop that ways a whopping 11 pounds.  

My back aches just thinking about it.  According to PC mag with accessories the thing weighs in at an obscene 14 lbs.  Geez, a 20" imac is only twenty lbs.

I'm not saying this thing isn't a lap top.  But, considering that it uses a desktop processor and has the cooling to go along with it, I'd hope the thing can be faster than a laptop at half the weight and half the price.

Regards

Joe Dokes

"I'm not saying this thing isn't a lap top."

funny, but by their own accounts, they did.  it's also funny that they have no reviews on Asus's similar laptop that offers desktop processors and NVIDIA's replaceable notebook graphics options, nor do they have any reviews on the Core 2 Extreme notebooks.  in fact, very few 17" notebooks have the same specs as the MBP, so in reality they're comparing, ahem, apples to oranges.  also, absolutely NONE of the notebooks are running x64 versions of Windows, so right off the bat they're only seeing 3/4 of the installed RAM on 4GB systems.

Honestly, who is the target audience for that??  I have to walk a mile each way from the subway to work.  My 5 lb. MacBook Pro has given me sciatica, that thing would likely put me in a wheelchair.  Throw in external drives and other accessories and you'd be better off throwing a full desktop computer complete with display into your backpack.  

Jello, Hi, I'm Bill. My 50yr old sister-in-law was looking for the cheapest ticket to China and gave me a Trojan horse in 20 minutes on my PC with XP sp2. I have had to completely reinstall XP sp2 in 4 friends computers due to malware completely rendering it inoperable. To say XP sp2 is safe and secure is complete BS. I went to another friend's house last month. His daughters have a Mac, PC tower and 1 laptop. The PC tower and laptop have XP sp2 installed. They were 'slow', so I I ran Norton anti-virus and found hundreds of viruses. The Tower had 36 Trojan Horses. The Mac was purchased in 1995, running OS 9.0. It was fine but dusty. Is XP safe? Absolutely not. Most users surf and download as they please, without a care. There are over a billion PC's with Windows and 25 million Macs. There are therefore only 25 million safe computers in the world. Get in touch with reality and stop the BS now.

Waethorn,

I don't understand your comment, are you agreeing with me that the Asus is obscenely heavy and thus too impractical to be called a laptop?  To be honest, I could see this beheamouth being attractive to twenty something, living in a small apartment who wants something smaller than a desktop and something that can occasionally be lugged to a friends for a lan party, and wants close to the power of a good desktop.  

The other issue about memory.  You complain about the fact that many of the tests were unable to take advantage of the various machines 4 GBs of ram.  Exactly who's fault is this?  Do we blame the laptop makers who sent the machines to PC World with out an OS ready to see more than 3GB of Ram.  Do we blame PC world for not installing the 64 bit Version of XP or Vista?  Do we blame third party hardware developers who have been unwilling to build the necessary drivers so 64 bit Vista can run in a real environment.  Do we blame Microsoft who has been unable to make a 64 bit OS that is truly ready for the mainstream user?

The issue we've been discussing without coming out and saying it is the conception of value.  I would argue that value is based upon criteria that goes beyond price.  Is it the price, quality of hardware (read reliability), performance of hardware (read speed), weight, cutomer service?  It is all of these.  This is something PC people sometimes fail to recognize.  Value goes far beyond price, thus when you buy a mac you're buying the complete package.  The Mac clearly doesn't win on every count against every computer.  But I believe and this is why I bought a mac, that when you weigh all the factors price, reliability, speed, customer service the mac is a winner.  

Regards

Joe Dokes

When problem is add ons. You can buy two 500GB hard drives for the price of one added to the Pro Tower from Apple. RAM is just as bad. I don't understand why Apple does this.

Well, apparently there is a new malware for Mac OS, which can be gotten by downloading a porn pi os Brit Spears. It will try to insall itself when executed, but you will get a warning and the Mac OS will ask for your password. You would be an iTard if you let it install. They are calling it a Trojan since it does not propagate/replicate itself. Unless this is a hoax of course.

I agree Joe.   I actually used to be a huge fan of Microsoft and hated Macs.  Of course that was pre-OS X which changed everything for me.  In '02 I bought a TiBook for myself to try out the Mac but I still considered it a toy.  The hardware was cool but OS X is what really attracted me to the Mac.  At that time I understood most of the criticisms of Macs, they were slow, they didn't have a huge selection of software, OS X wasn't the mature platform it is today, and trying to do any real work in Windows using Virtual PC was a complete nightmare.  When Apple switched to Intel all of that changed.  Now I'm running Window XP and Ubuntu in VMWare at crazy fast speeds, I dual boot between Vista and Leopard and can run Tiger from a USB powered external drive (BTW, MS really needs to add this functionality to Vista) if I need to run Mac software that's not compatible with Leopard.  On top of that it's UNIX so I have the ability to run any piece of software that I want.  I work for a company that's 75% Mac and 25% Windows running Unix, Windows, and OS X servers so having one machine that can administer everything is a huge plus.  

Installing software from a porn site is always a good idea. ;)

DRWAM,

I did not mean to say that I surf the internet commando.  I like most people realized that anti-virus software is almost 100% necessary for PC.  I also realize there are numerous free near zero maintenance anti virus programs that I recommend every pc user use.  I have been using programs like AVG and Avast on my family ( including extended) 15 pcs for years.  Most members in my family I can describe as not brilliant with respect to computers, that being said I have not had an issue in a very long time.  You could have saved your friends and family (even yourself) a lot of time if you would have taken these simple measures before hand.  Obviously you are a pretty avid internet forum user and you should have known enough to do that.  

Lotsa=iFaggot.

"My 50yr old sister-in-law was looking for the cheapest ticket to China and gave me a Trojan horse in 20 minutes on my PC with XP sp2."

try using (read: *BUY*) a reputable, up-to-date antivirus and antispyware product then, and quit downloading illegal software and music.  honestly, there's no preventing the stupidity of users sometimes.

"I don't understand your comment, are you agreeing with me that the Asus is obscenely heavy and thus too impractical to be called a laptop?"

no.  it was the Eurocom.  the Asus system I mentioned is just similar to it.

and no, I'm not agreeing with you at all.  it has a clamshell design, much like the MBP.  any laptop/"notebook" that has a 17" screen is not portable by any stroke of the imagination, regardless of the weight.  however, both have a clamshell design and are smaller than a desktop, so they both fall under the "desktop-replacement laptop" form factor category.

"I could see this beheamouth being attractive to twenty something, living in a small apartment who wants something smaller than a desktop and something that can occasionally be lugged to a friends for a lan party"

....and the MBP is different from that how?  oh ya - it won't play games, so the LAN party is off.  they also both target those that favour speed, and have more money than brains.

"The issue we've been discussing without coming out and saying it is the conception of value."

noooo....we were discussing which system was the fastest notebook running Windows Vista.  i provided the answer.  

"Do we blame the laptop makers who sent the machines to PC World with out an OS ready to see more than 3GB of Ram."

No.

"Do we blame third party hardware developers who have been unwilling to build the necessary drivers so 64 bit Vista can run in a real environment.  Do we blame Microsoft who has been unable to make a 64 bit OS that is truly ready for the mainstream user?"

No, since all of the hardware in those notebooks runs great on Windows Vista x64 versions (including the MBP).

"Do we blame PC world for not installing the 64 bit Version of XP or Vista?"

Yes!  PC World customized the MBP.  they didn't, however, customize the other notebooks that they were testing it against.  their testing practise is flawed.

PC World said they didn't test one as fast as the MBP, and yet, they conveniently forgot [at least] one that is under their own laptop category.  so the statement:

"The fastest Windows Vista notebook we've tested this year--or for that matter, ever--is a Mac."

is a) incompetence

or b) a lie.

take your pick.

Waethorn,

totally agree on every point

"I dual boot between Vista and Leopard and can run Tiger from a USB powered external drive (BTW, MS really needs to add this functionality to Vista)"

if your system BIOS supports booting from USB, this is already supported.  sadly (but not expectedly) for you, it's your Mac's EFI (and Boot Camp) that prevents doing that with Windows.  

BTW:  where's the eSATA at?  sorry, but not on a Mac.  WTF's up wit dat?!?  :)

I was using the newest Norton Suite [I bought it] when she got the Trojan and she was not downing anything illegal. She must have looked at some Army pics of her nephew, one with a Trojan. However, my friends have kids that must download all kinds of crap, thus getting innumerable viruses and malware from the 'free utilities'. It's not Microsoft's fault that buttheads write this crap, but you will not stop a teenager or college student from the stupidity. I think that you know that. While we may practice smart computing, these kids will not, and I have seen numerous computers infected with hundreds of bugs. That will not stop me from buying Windows, but if you have stupid relatives, give them a Mac [for now]. I send my colleges emails links for antivirus and security software as well as many anti- malware apps, They all seem to install it, but probably never run the app. One guy did not even update his 'paid for' virus definitions. They call me when the crap hits the fan. One thing that drives me crazy is their wireless router problems, especially with changing accounts. I had my entire house hardwire with a bundle of 2 cat5 and Coax, but had to go wireless with my Dell laptop in order to try to understand their problems. I imagine their would be similar problems with a Mac, but have no experience. I feel for them, but just want to sometimes say 'Dammit Jim, I'm a doctor not a computer repairman.'

BTW, eSATA does work on a Mac, and NewerTech makes the add on card. Here's the proof:

eshop.macsales.com/.../MPQXES2

Anyway, thanks for your help. I am inspired to build another dream machine, which will be a Vista beast!

"any laptop/"notebook" that has a 17" screen is not portable by any stroke of the imagination, regardless of the weight. "

You have obviously never toted around a 17" MBP then. Mine fits into the backpack I bought over the summer for my old Lenovo t60p perfectly and I have not noticed any additional weight.

Now, I wouldn't want to lug around my buddies 17" Toshiba Satellite. That mofo weighs more than my Windows desktop tower (and is easily twice as thick as the MBP).

To each their own I guess.

Pingback from  notebook computers » re: Fastest notebook of 2007: Apple MacBook Pro

I hope that you are all still reading, and I am sorry for treating this blog as a forum, but I have a question that I hope someone can help. My Dell Inspiron 8200 pointer/curser keeps floating down and left. I deleted the driver for the touch pad and it's software as well as all mouse drivers, cleaned the touch pad, reinstalled the latest software from Dell, but it still does it, rendoring the laptop useless, even with using a mouse. My next step was to disconnect the touch pad's cable. Any other suggestions? The searches for the solution at Dell and the web were no help.

Thanks,

WAM

If you want light, you need to go ultraportable.  While the lightest MacBook seems to be around 5 pounds, I can get, and did get, a Lenovo x61s, and with the 4-cell battery, is 2.8 pounds.  I've gotten so used to the small size that when I use a laptop that is bigger, I am taken aback.  And yes, I have felt the MacBooks in the Apple store.  If weight was an absolute issue, there is a growing market of inexpensive UMPC's.  A very attractive one is the Fujitsu U810, which you can get for around $899.

To answer DRWAM's question, no doubt, for the medical market, a tablet or pure slate Vista computer is the way to go.  The inking improvements in Vista make it a slam dunk.  Go to www.jkontherun.com.  That blog has a ton of information on just this type of stuff.  Also www.gottabemobile.com.

"1)  How many operating systems does it run?  ONLY ONE.  AND ITS WINDOWS."

Or Linux.  This is a weak argument, since it only runs Windows as long as APPLE continues to support it.  I'm sure some of those sales of Leopard have to do with Boot Camp Beta expiring by the end of the year.  Also, Apple does not support running on non-Mac hardware, making this argument irrelevant.  Talk about a monopoly ;)

Anyway, all of these people crowing about using Windows on an Mac, are you guys properly licensed?  

- Crickets -

If you truly want to use the fact that a Mac can run Vista or XP, you must factor the cost of Windows in to the price.  And that cost MUST be the full version, not an upgrade.

"2)  Does it have iLife?  NO."

Once again, a weak argument.  Proprietary software.

"4)  Is it likely to contract a virus or require hundreds of dollars per year to keep it from getting one?  YES."

Huh?  Hundreds of dollars per year?  You can go a few ways with this.  First, you have a few freeware options that are still quite good.  I use some myself.  Secondly, you don't need to spend nearly that much per year even if you want to buy the software.  OneCare is $49.95/year.  Other options exist for cheaper.  Do your research.  In fact, with rebates around tax time, you can usually score the full Norton or McAfee suites for free.  www.fatwallet.com FTW.

DRWAM, you need to replace the touchpad.

I find it ABSOLUTELY HILARIOUS to listen to you guys talking about buying a quality virus software, updating it regularly, monitoring it for any virus/trojans/etc.  

I haven't had to put up with that crap for 6 years, and I am very happy about it.  What a pain in the a$$ that used to be!

It is also absolutely hilarious because:

A)  Did you add that into the cost of the HP laptop?  I just looked up a popular one (Norton) which sells its 2 year service for $135.  That means over the course of the lifetime of the computer... lets say 6 years... you will have spent another ~$400 on virus protection.  

B)  How much time are you going to spend keeping that software up to date, and if it fails,  how long is it going to take you to fix the problem?  How much is that time worth?  Did you add that to the cost of the HP laptop?  I know that MY time is pretty valuable... how about yours?

C)  The point of cost is pretty ridiculous when you are only talking about a fraction of the total cost of owning a computer.  How about energy use?  How about periphals that stop working when you update to the next version of windows?  How about the software you have to buy, to gain the same basic functionality as the mac?  GUYS, WE ARE TALKING ABOUT TOTAL COST OF OWNERSHIP HERE.  Why consider something else?

I guess here is the bottom line... that is fine that you guys want to keep buying your pcs, and that is fine that you are happy with that.  But take it from someone who owns a mac.  It is a MUCH better experience.  From the day I bought mine I have been 100% happy with the purchase... and 6 years later, I am going to update my old mac with Apple's new operating system (which by the way has completely dominated vista in most reviews).  I would like to see any of you PC guys update your 6 year old pc with vista.  

If you don't want to worry about viruses, get a mac.

If you want the most logical, advanced, operating system, get a mac.

If you want the most beautiful hardware, get a mac.

If you want the best built in software, get a mac.

If you want to be able to run the world's two most popular operating systems at the same time, get a mac.

If you want to have a superior user experience, and never have to worry about security and/or viruses, etc, get a mac.  

You have every reason in the world, and the only thing you guys can say in return is:  "uh... yeah, but it costs like a couple hundred more"  and  "yeah, but I want to be able to update the processor in a few years."  and my personal favorite... "haha, macs are just toys" in combination with "I want a computer that is a true gamer."  

Anyway, guys... keep this up.  I am truly getting  a good laugh at your expense!  I truly pity you!  

Guess what, the fastest laptop just got faster.  Today Apple announced the availability of a 2.6 GHz Mac Book Pro.  

Seems the others will have to continue to chase Apple.

Regards

Joe Dokes

Thanks Dipsh, I will probably just disconnect the cable and use a mouse, since my kids use it. I have my Custom overclocked PC and a Mac Pro Tower [3GHz quad with 4GB RAM and RAID 0]. I think that NERO comes very close to many of iLife features and only costs $99. I do not think that I could tell the difference in home DVD's made from a digital camcorder. Also, Comcast and Verizon give a free anti virus/security suite, which seems to work well, although I surf wisely. So Security costs are really not an added cost to Windows. Maybe some anti-spyware is, but Counterspy is pretty good [PC World] and is $29. However, we cannot argue about the wasted time issue for PC security, which only becomes a significant if you have many PC's and you take care of them all yourself [like me and my wife and kids]. I would mind it less if my friends would stop calling about the problems that their kids bring to Windows. Even my best friend's 53 yr old wife downloads stupid stuff. It's just unbelievable.

At the 4 Hospitals, our PACS workstations [for viweing diagnostic imaging] are blocked from the internet for fear of virues and malware. The IT guys use a tough firewall, and do not want the anti-apps on the PACS WS as they fear conflict with the proprietary GE PACS software. It's kinda stupid as I have the same software at my offices and you can surf the web on the same type of workstations and PACS software. We just have a password protection and software to block undesirable sites. We have never had a problem with any of them since the June 2004 install. I just can't wait until they upgrade for IE 7 compatibilty so that we can all upgrade to Vista soon. It's inevitable.

"If you don't want to worry about viruses, get a mac."

Malware these days follows the money, plain and simple.  They operate like regular software developers in this way.  If you have limited market share, you don't necessarily develop for that platform, simple as that.  Game makers know this, so they don't.  Malware authors also don't develop for the lowest market share either.  The monetary return is low.

However, as market share increases for the Mac, the economics of it starts to change a little bit.  And remember, this many times has little to do with physical or software security, but with user behind the mouse.  Low and behold, such a social engineering attack is emerging, and I think that it is inevitable that more will come.

See here:

sunbeltblog.blogspot.com/.../mackanapes-can-now-can-feel-pain-of.html

"I just looked up a popular one (Norton) which sells its 2 year service for $135."

And I pointed you to other options you have that are much less, or free.

Conscientious users are really what drives security.  The last "virus" I have been infected with on any of the computers that I use was a Word macro virus, probably back in 1995 or so.  While I was in college, this was spread through the computer lab through the old "sneaker" method.  That was it.  Nothing since then.

fivepoint,

obviously somebody's not reading my messages, or other people's.

With AVG or Avast installed:

A) I haven't paid a dime.

B) It automatically updates, and automatically searches the computer.

C) What about energy use? You are the one running the 6 year old mac, thats an energy hog.  A Lot of my peripherals still work.  The one's that don't (can't think of any) I wouldn't want to use anyway.  It's called FREEWARE.  There is actually decent software out there that does what your precious iLife does.  You can get nero for free normally with mail in rebates at places like Fry's electronics.

You probably don't realize it but you made a few logical fallacies in your argument.

I think if you add up all the money(Extra dough, time included (unless you are worth $500 an hour, I'm not)) I'm spending, I would still be getting a cheaper system.  It's great that you are telling me my user experience is crap, when you are not me and my actual experience is quite the opposite.

I guess here is the bottom line... that is fine that you want to keep buying your mac, and that is fine that you are happy with that.  But take it from someone who owns many pcs.  It is not the hell hole you think it is. I love my pcs.  From the day I bought mine I have been 100% happy with the purchase... and let me see I have been using pcs for 15 years. None of them ever crapped out on me.  When I wanted a new one that could do something better, I typically donated my old one in perfect working order. I use my computers frequently for video editing and gaming, so no being able to load vista on a six year old pc is a mute point.  No six year old pc can keep up with my multitasking.  Again you say that PC's are less energy efficient, last time I checked since mac switched to intel, they are the same exact thing on the inside!  You with your 6 year old mac are the one sucking power.  That's not to say my family is all on new equipment.  A few of the computers are from the late 90's and still running great with very little maintenance.  No they are not running vista, or being used for video editing, but they do just fine on XPSP2 at what they are being used for.  All of your statements are statements of opinion.  You aren't actually making any valid points.

fivepoint please read my article before making another reply.

Your indication that malware does not affect the mac purely because of market share is hilarious, and has been proven wrong many times over.  

1)  Many virus writers are simply trying to make a name for themselves, and hoping to accomplish somethign that hasn't been accomplished before.  Why not try and hac the mac?  That would be a challenge... there have been hundreds of thousands of security threats on the PC and not a SINGLE SUCCESSFUL VIRUS for the Mac.  

2)  Most virus writers are big time computer nerds, and -- like you -- probably hate mac guys.  Why not knock that smirk off of their face for good?  Why not SHOW THEM that they are vulnerable?  The reason?  They can't.  

3)  Mac OSX provides far more security by definition than Vista does.  There aren't many experts that would deny this.  The fact is, that it is simply EASIER for you to just blame it on market share.  

4)  If Mac has 6% of the market, why don't they have 6% (or even half that) of the market in viruses?  

5)  Its called administrator access.  Figure it out.

The fact is, sir, that Macs have NEVER encountered a successful virus.  NOT A SINGLE ONE.  

And really, for a second lets assume you are exactly right that it is all about market share, who gives a dang?  I don't care WHY my mac is secure and that I never have to worry about it getting a virus... I just care that it IS THAT WAY.  Make all the excuses you want... at the end of the day... Your system has viruses, and mine does not.

In terms of power usage, please see the most recent desktops by Lenovo.  The A61e is perhaps one of the most energy efficient desktops on the market, if not the most.  With an optional solar power panel that can be hooked up, it certainly seems to be the most efficient desktop there is.  I don't see any other big players that have made this much progress.

fivepoint, your analysis is just simply wrong concerning market share.  The people that are in the trenches every day investigating malware, such as those people at F-Secure, McAfee and Sunbelt, which are blogs that I read daily, plus SANS, the overwhelming majority of malware is written with the intention of making money somehow.  No one is really in it for the fame anymore.  If you actually do some research on this subject (which I'm sure you won't, so I don't know why exactly I'm wasting my time), you will see that these malware writers are simply following the money.  Either they are phishing, or with the most recent DNS changers, actually trying to build up affiliate money by pointing people away from legitimate sites to those that make money.

Apple has done a grave disservice to people like fivepoint that feel that their OS is somehow invulnerable.  Complacency doesn't work, and it WILL come back to bite them, both Apple and its users.  Please read the link I provided, it provides some unbiased insight.  Here it is again:

sunbeltblog.blogspot.com/.../mackanapes-can-now-can-feel-pain-of.html

The Mac doesn't have 6% of malware simply because it wasn't profitable to develop for it before with such a small market.

"Mac OSX provides far more security by definition than Vista does.  There aren't many experts that would deny this."

With XP, I can believe this, but provide me with some of this "expert" opinion regarding Vista.  I think it is just the opposite.  Look at the situations where the Leopard firewall is being disabled, and look at the critical flaws found in Vista compared to other OS's.  The numbers don't back up what you are saying.

"Your indication that malware does not affect the mac purely because of market share is hilarious, and has been proven wrong many times over."

How?  Did the Mac suddenly have some short surge of market share and then go back down?    In order for your argument to be true, the Mac would have had or have a huge market share that is comparable to Windows.  That was or isn't the case.

"ts called administrator access.  Figure it out."

You should figure it out.  It only takes some careless users to circumvent these controls and inadvertently give admin access to malware.

"The fact is, sir, that Macs have NEVER encountered a successful virus.  NOT A SINGLE ONE.  

And really, for a second lets assume you are exactly right that it is all about market share, who gives a dang?  I don't care WHY my mac is secure and that I never have to worry about it getting a virus... I just care that it IS THAT WAY.  Make all the excuses you want... at the end of the day... Your system has viruses, and mine does not."

I think the rest of the pro-Mac comments have been sufficiently nailed to the inside of the coffin.

As far as cost of antivirus software goes, as well as "headaches", OneCare is simply the easiest one I've found so far which doesn't get in your way.  Granted, in Windows Vista, you don't need a lot of the added functionality that OneCare provides, but to have everything integrated in one application, and figuring that it only costs about $17US/yr to protect a computer with it (1 license is good for 3 computers), it is well worth it.  Also, with OneCare 2.0, there is some new multi-PC management capabilities which facilitate controls over "the kids' computers" for example, Vista's Network Access Control security added to XP, as well as online photo backup services included.  You don't buy OneCare like they way you buy Norton.  Whether you buy it online or in retail, it's ALWAYS an online subscription, and upgrades are free, so long as you're still subscribed.  Anybody that's currently subscribing will get the 2.0 upgrade for free when it gets released (likely by the end of this month).

I would also argue that Norton products are not that reputable.  They may sell well, but as far as security problems go, malware attacks the biggest market share, and I've worked on several systems where Norton just didn't pick up viruses where other scanners did.  In many cases, Norton just wouldn't detect the virus or malware until you did a full scan of the drive.  This begs the question:  If Norton's on-access scanner was working properly, how did the malware get stored on the drive in the first place???  (That's rhetorical - it wasn't)

Also, for business IT types, if you haven't looked at Forefront Client Security, you need to have a good slap.  If you don't need the management server capabilities, it will only cost <$13US/computer/yr for protection.  FCS doesn't require the server components either.  In fact, if you've ever used Windows Defender before, you've seen FCS, because the protection engine "plugs-in" to Defender's interface (it is a separate program, but it borrows some of the protection services that Defender uses).  For companies with 5 or more Windows Vista systems, it's the perfect match.  If you're using 10 or more systems, it's highly advisable that a company invest in the management server though, since it makes monitoring and servicing those PC's like a walk through the park for the IT staff.

....oh and I'd like to add for anyone considering the cost of antivirus vs. the cost of Mac's:

If you work out the inflated cost of a Mac, as well as the required service pack upgrades for OSX (for support of new bug fixes, and security updates, of which are numerous), the cost of a PC is still far, FAR lower.

Some time earlier in the year, I priced out a MacBook Pro on WindowsITPro with several "required" add-ons that anybody buying a notebook should have (mouse, bag, extended warranty, etc.) which came out to about $3300, and the price was $900 more than a comparable Dell system with the EXACT same specs (aside from OS, but I didn't price in Windows on the Mac either)!!  They I looked at systems that I build, and I was still ANOTHER $200 less than that.  So for an extra $1100, you can honestly sit there and tell me it's worth it??!!?  LMAO.  You seriously need help if your answer is yes.

The answer is yes.  An Apple is absolutely worth a premium over a Dell.  Is it the 900.00 dollar premium you claim, no.  But there is a permium.  

Why are Mac users willing to pay the premium, because over time we realize that the Mac has a lower cost of ownership.  The Mac has a higher degreee of customer satisfaction, a longer life, overall better build quality, and according to the article and if you buy the top of the line, it is the faster truly portable computer on the market.    

By the way the FUD you are saying about how Apple charges for fixes is just ludicrous.  Apple does charge for upgrades, for example from 10.4 to 10.5 but they do not charge for bug fixes and security updates.  

The only thing you have been able to nail to the inside of the coffin is your credibility.  Occasionally you express some insight.  For example, the realization that Norton sucks.  But your inability to understand that Apple makes an excellent product at a competitive price is what is truly laughable.

Regards

Joe Dokes

Here's the key thing for all us mac users to remember now as we spend time responding to Paul's biased color commentary about Apple in a blog run by Windows IT Pro...  

Paul Thurrott's views on Apple and the Mac don't matter.  

He seems like a good family man and knowledgeable Windows expert, but when it comes to Apple,  he's just plain out to lunch.  His clear editorial bias against the Mac and Apple products as being "overpriced" is just as irrelevant as it is dishonest.  Same goes for his marginalization of OSX's stellar upgrades as mere Windows Service packs.

The mainstream web and print media has warmed to the mac and garbage anti-mac editorializing is now being relegated to windows fanboy sites and general niche trolldom.  The media that 99% of earth reads has now abandoned the ancient prejudices against the Mac.

So rejoice.  Paul's approach to Apple news is at long last a minority view.

The real man to worry about is Rob Enderle, whose outrageous ignorance, careless disregard for the facts, and constant back-handed "compliments" about Apple as being a "marketing company" are quoted all over the place.  This guy and his "enderle group" (composed of him and his wife) spread FUD about Apple where ever they are quoted.  Focus your enthusiasm on him.

Peace.

"Is it the 900.00 dollar premium you claim, no.  But there is a permium."

"His clear editorial bias against the Mac and Apple products as being "overpriced" is just as irrelevant as it is dishonest."

I'd say that was a challenge.  So here it goes:

Here's a Dell system:

Dell Inspiron 1720

Core 2 Duo T7700 2.4Ghz 800Mhz FSB

Windows Vista Ultimate

17" Glossy 1920x1200 screen

256MB GeForce 8600M GT

4GB DDR2-667 Dual Channel RAM

250GB 5400RPM SATA HDD

DVD Burner (standard type - no additional software)

Intel 3945n Wireless

2.0 Megapixel webcam integrated

High Definition Audio

Microsoft Office 2007 Home & Student

Logitech V220 Wireless Mouse

DellCare Premium service w/ 3 year warranty & security solution included for term

Online backup with DellCare Premium

Integrated modem/LAN

$2661US

Now here's the comparable MacBook Pro:

Core 2 Duo 2.4Ghz (doesn't specify model, but will assume T7700 because of FSB speed)

4GB DDR2-667 Dual-Channel RAM

250GB SATA 5400RPM HDD

17" 1920x1200 Glossy screen

Apple USB modem (modem not integrated)

AppleCare Protection plan (3year warranty + support)

stuff on spec sheet but not on checkout:

High Definition audio

Apple Wireless N

Geforce 8600M GT 256MB

NO office suite included

NO online backup included

NO wireless mouse included

$4147

Go ahead.  Try to prove your statement now.

"Is it the 900.00 dollar premium you claim, no.  But there is a permium."

You're right.  The difference is a whopping $1486!!!

That's really justified. (sarcasm)  There is absolutely NOTHING that you can claim the Dell is missing that is worth that kind of money.  In fact, you could buy another lower-end Dell notebook for that kind of money.

"His clear editorial bias against the Mac and Apple products as being "overpriced" is just as irrelevant as it is dishonest."

How dishonest can it really be when both of those prices come directly off of each respective vendor's websites?  It's your word against his word against theirs (the truth)....

"By the way the FUD you are saying about how Apple charges for fixes is just ludicrous.  Apple does charge for upgrades, for example from 10.4 to 10.5 but they do not charge for bug fixes and security updates."

yes, but their lifecycle on product versions is extremely short compared to Microsoft's.  if you want those fixes, you best be running a more recent version of OSX.  that's what i call forced upgrades.

"whose outrageous ignorance, careless disregard for the facts, and constant back-handed "compliments""

Hmm, sounds like someone we know of who frequently posts to WinInfo. ;)

"has now abandoned the ancient prejudices against the Mac."

And is now prejudiced FOR the Mac.

"This guy and his "enderle group" (composed of him and his wife) spread FUD about Apple where ever they are quoted."

Funny, we can say the same thing about the Gartenberg over at Jupiter Research vis-a-vis FUD about MS.

waethorn,

that is almost the same comparison I made with HP.  Look at my first post on the page, I got the same results.  MacBook Pros are WAY overpriced.  So much so that it goes beyond the term "premium".  Premium works when I want to get cheerios not toasted o's, not when the price is >$1000 difference.

Waethorn,

It's amazing what happens when you do price comparisons.  For example, I priced out the Dell and guess what, when I did a true comparison I got the number 2963.00 Dollars for the Dell.  HMMMM.  Why is mine so much higher?  Well could it be that I had to add a butt load of software to get the Dell up to the level of the Mac.  Now keep in mind that you made EVERY expesive addition to the Mac that you could.  For example, even Apple fans know never to buy memory from Apple.  You order 4 GB from Apple increasing the cost by 700 dollars.  Everyone knows that the street price for quality memory at reputable places like Crucial.com is about 250.00.  Basically you add every single expensive option to the Mac then complain about how expensive it is.  

Gee talk about a straw man.

Here is a couple of things you didn't include that made the Dell substantially cheaper.

1.You included a glossy screen not a flat one.  Glossy looks better on the showroom floor but matt is better for actually getting work done.

2. DVD authoring software

3. Blue Tooth

4. Fire Wire 800, is that even an option, for that matter is firewire even an option?

5. Juke box software

6. Photo editing software

7. Backup software

8. Any software that remotely compares to iLife.

By the way if you have a kid or are a student of ANY kind you can get the educator discount and get a 17" mac book pro with 2 gb of ram and 160 gb harddrive for an even 2599.00

The fact that you had to add a ton of crap that makes Apple a bunch of money in order to make it more expensive just proves how weak your argument is.

Regards

Joe Dokes

"Premium works when I want to get cheerios not toasted o's, not when the price is >$1000 difference."

ya, that's an expensive box of cereal.  ;)

considering that for the price of a MacBook Pro, you could get an equal Dell, and get an Adobe Suite bundled for "free", businesses considering Mac's should really give their [IT BDM's] heads a shake.

"Everyone knows that the street price for quality memory at reputable places like Crucial.com is about 250.00."

So what you're saying is that "Apple isn't reputable".

Straight from the horse's mouth here, folks!

"Glossy looks better on the showroom floor but matt is better for actually getting work done."

Absolutely 100% wrong!  Glossy screens give you a much higher contrast than non-glare screens, and colour is more vivid.  Non-glare screens are designed for portable use, which 17" laptops are not.

"Now keep in mind that you made EVERY expesive addition to the Mac that you could."

That's just a damn lie!  The only options I added to the stock 17" model were these:

2GB RAM -> 4GB

160GB 5400rpm -> 250GB 5400rpm

High Res, Glossy Screen

Modem

AppleCare

I had to add WAAAY more stuff to the stock Dell to get it up the same specs, and yet the price was still >$1400 difference.

"DVD authoring software"

Meet Windows Vista Movie Maker HD and DVD Maker.  Still better than iMovie '08!

"Blue Tooth"

My bad.  Add $18.  Big whoop.

"Fire Wire 800, is that even an option, for that matter is firewire even an option?"

Firewire is dead.  eSATA is the option of choice.  Show me a Firewire 800 drive that's faster than an eSATA drive and we'll talk about it's benefits.

"Juke box software"

Meet Windows Media Player 11.  Still a better option than the "Excel spreadsheet of jukeboxes: iTunes".

"Photo editing software"

Funny but there's nothing with the Mac that even remotely comes close to photo-editing software.  If you mean the silly little program that is iPhoto, then Windows Live Photo Gallery compares quite nicely.

"Backup software"

Don't make me laugh about Time Machine again.  Not only does Windows Vista Ultimate give you more control over backups, you don't need an extra drive for Previous Versions.  Also, you can make a CompletePC recovery disc with the Business and Ultimate versions of Windows Vista.  Dell also includes online backup with their DellCare.  Apple charges extra for .Mac for that service.

"Any software that remotely compares to iLife."

Let's see.  Hmm....compared to the $1400 that I'm saving, I'd say that's a moot point.

"The fact that you had to add a ton of crap that makes Apple a bunch of money in order to make it more expensive just proves how weak your argument is."

No.  What I'm doing is configuring equal systems from both Apple and Dell.  Let's face it, you can't deny that you already admitted to Apple hosing customers.  And yet you sit there and try to defend your own comment stating incorrectly that Apple's prices are in-line with the market.  You can't.  I've already proven you wrong.  There's nothing you can do to justify Apple's prices whatsoever.

In reality (which is what Mac users seem to avoid), you've already stated these two things:

"Everyone knows that the street price for quality memory at reputable places like Crucial.com is about 250.00."

and

""The fact that you had to add a ton of crap that makes Apple a bunch of money in order to make it more expensive"

Does that crow taste good?

What crow.

The louder you yell, the less you're heard.

Gee, Fire wire is dead?  Gee, that's why all professional grade external hard drives use it?  

Second, I couldn't figure out why you and jello were able to build a lap top that APPEARED to be so cheap, yet on its surface seemed to have many though not all the features of the mac.  It was then I actually began pricing my own dell.  Since I'm no a PC fan I didn't understand the varioius lines of laptops at   Dell as a result I failed to recognize that you always chose the CHEAPEST laptop and then built it up to try to match the Mac.

First, lets compare APPLES to APPLES shall we.  First let's take a laptop that is in fact close to the Mac.  So rather than comparing a bottom of the barrel Dell or HP I decided to compare a more top of the line Dell.  Guess what, now the Dell is a heck of a lot more expensive.

I actually built a Dell XPS with a 2.4 Ghz that came to 3900 bucks.  This was after I downgraded the hardrive to 120 to match the Mac.  Now you might be saying, "hey that's not fair"  But keep in mind the Apple is the FASTEST laptop out there so I think comparing it to the top of the line Dell is not only fair but required.  

Now if you add the 700 buck for memory the Apple is still CHEAPER, and GUESS WHAT FASTER!

Second, I believe Apple is highly reputable.  Considering the high marks given to them by Consumer reports, they do to.  That being said.  Apple choses to over price their ram.  Why?  My guess is that it is easy.  All companies look for ways to maximize their profits.  Why do you think that MS created all this crap about VISTA ultimate, it was a way to maximize profits with little value to the customer.  On the PC side they do this by loading their PC with a bunch of crapware that needs to be cleaned off.  Or they offer rediculously overpirced subscriptions to Norton and other software vendors.

Does this make all business not reputable?  By your flawed logic yes.  But keep in mind that at least Apple is upfront about the cost of their systems.  When I order my Mac I see the cost right there in front of me.  As a result I buy it with the minimum ram and if I need to I upgrade later.  Personaly since I don't do video editing 2 GB is enough for me.  Compare this to the "reputable" Dell who sell you a computer loaded with crapware taking up valuable diskspace that you paid for.  Dell even recognizes this and is willing to sell you a system without the crapware for a PRICE.  Are they upfront about it?  No, you have to go diggin around to find it.

Regards

Joe Dokes

"Gee, Fire wire is dead?  Gee, that's why all professional grade external hard drives use it?"

AHAHAHAHAHA!  "Professional grade hard drives"???

Welcome to 2007 buddy - home of eSATA and SAS.

"Since I'm no a PC fan I didn't understand the varioius lines of laptops....Now you might be saying, "hey that's not fair"  But keep in mind the Apple is the FASTEST laptop out there so I think comparing it to the top of the line Dell is not only fair but required."

Don't make me laugh.  Considering that you're comparing that to a Dell with an older 667MHz FSB Core 2 Duo, instead of the 800MHz FSB I quoted, not to mention that you're comparing a regular ho-hum Mac to an enthusiast gaming machine, ya, your logic is completely flawed, and you know ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about what you're talking about.

"Compare this to the "reputable" Dell who sell you a computer loaded with crapware taking up valuable diskspace that you paid for.  Dell even recognizes this and is willing to sell you a system without the crapware for a PRICE."

ABSOLUTELY 100% WRONG!  Dell no longer charges extra for unbundled software.  Also, their Windows install media are 100% clean install discs, not recovery discs with extra software.  Extra bundled software is ALWAYS included on a separate disc, even if it is preinstalled.  If you format and reinstall Windows from disc, that's all you get - Windows.  You have to separately install the bundled software from the CD/DVD.

"First, lets compare APPLES to APPLES shall we.  First let's take a laptop that is in fact close to the Mac."

I already did spec-for-spec, and proved you wrong.  Mac's are hideously overpriced.  Get over yourself.

Waethorn,

So what you're saying is that if joe consumer goes to Dell (which you call reputable) looking for a fast (though not nearly as fast as a Mac, because it IS the faster laptop) looking for a gaming laptop, if they choose an XPS laptop what they get is a slower notebook.  For more money.  Explain to me again how unreputable Apple is.

As far Firewire vs. esata eSATA the fact of the matter is all the external drives that include eSATA also include a fire wire port as well.  So much for it dying.  Second.  The Dell you quote DOES NOT EVEN COME with the eSATA you claim is so superior, and neither does the XPS notebook.  And neither come with fire wire 800.  

Further, I missed another difference the Mac comes with a gigabit ether net connection Dell still stuck at 100base T.

As far as Dell finaly offering a clean install disk.  You are right.  After Dells customer service went into the crapper, they began to offer their customer computer sans crapware.  Gee great, I can order a Dell without junk software.  Yeah.  Gee Dell offering computers without crap, what a novell concept.  Gee I wish Apple would do that, ohh wait.

Regards

Joe Dokes

"So what you're saying is that if joe consumer goes to Dell (which you call reputable) looking for a fast (though not nearly as fast as a Mac, because it IS the faster laptop) looking for a gaming laptop, if they choose an XPS laptop what they get is a slower notebook."

Faster for drive access because of RAID options (not even an option on the Mac), MUCH MUCH faster for graphics (thanks to NVIDIA SLI, again not on the Mac), but slower for raw computing power.  These are NOT laptops for doing Photoshop on, since spending money on gaming graphics options and RAID would NOT be well utilized for productivity applications.  Clearly you don't understand anything about this, which is exactly what you stated when you said: "Since I'm no a PC fan I didn't understand the varioius lines of laptops"

"As far Firewire vs. esata eSATA the fact of the matter is all the external drives that include eSATA also include a fire wire port as well."

Show me a company that exclusively does this.  Most eSATA drives on the market are USB2/eSATA, NOT Firewire/eSATA.  The only ones I've seen with Firewire include USB2 AND eSATA.  You don't know what you're talking about here.  eSATA is a 3Gbps connection - the same as internal hard drives.  Firewire 800 is 800Mbps.  Firewire is dead.  End of story.

"Further, I missed another difference the Mac comes with a gigabit ether net connection Dell still stuck at 100base T."

WRONG!  That's Gigabit Ethernet.  Keep trying though.

"Gee I wish Apple would do that"

Ya, a pity they still come with iLife.  What a load of crap that is.  Why not offer OEM versions of Microsoft Office instead?  Oh right - they'd rather sell you iWork, which is a pathetic rip-off of Microsoft Works.  Microsoft Office 2004 would make a real value bundle for any Apple user, but Apple is too thick-headed to work with Microsoft to offer OEM-bundled versions.  Instead, they charge more than double what an OEM version costs with a PC.  Office 2004 is still one of the "killer apps' (if you can call it that) that most Apple users purchase.

"The Dell you quote DOES NOT EVEN COME with the eSATA you claim is so superior, and neither does the XPS notebook.  And neither come with fire wire 800."

Oh but just wait right there.  Mine does!  ;)

The systems I build with the same specs are also $300 cheaper than Dell's with the same specs, which are in actuality, over $1700 cheaper than Apple!!  So where, oh where, is that money being spent on with the Mac?  Customer satisfaction?  I think I'd be more satisfied keeping that extra $1800 thank you very much!

It is amazing.  I was willing to give the Dell a couple hundred dollar advantage.  After searching around Dells website.  Which by the way is an absolute disaster.  and pricing out various laptops I came to the conclusion that Apple is frequently cheaper than Dell, and Dell while occasionally cheaper than when you are willing to put up with the obvious short comings.  Further, if one is not careful, they become MORE expensive.  

iLife a load of crap?  Obviously you are stuck in the idea oh it's mac it must be a toy.  iLife software is quite good and very usable.  Simply put and Paul Thurott agrees there is nothing like iLife on the PC side.  You may not like the fact that Apple actually makes good software and good products, but you cannot deny it.

As far as eSATA goes, yes the raw drive has eSATA output which has a 3GB THEORETICAL limit.  Yet, there isn't a drive made that can write that fast.  Second,what I was referring to was not raw drives but drives sold for external use.  ie drives that normal people buy.  There are typically two types, one has simply a usb 2.0 connection and the others have a combination of usb, fire wire and eSATA.  Thus my argument that firewire is still being used and is not dead stands.  Perhaps I was unclear.   Further many camcorders are still using fire wire, which is why it is stil included in a variety of higher end pcs.

By the way you can order a copy of Office and the same time you order your mac.  Office will probably come before your mac and since all you have to do is drag the office icon to your hard drive it takes about two minutes to install.  

Also, As an Office user I will give credit where credit is due.  (something you seem unwiling to do)  Office for the Mac is a Good to Great Program.  It is incredibly powerful yet it still does things that I find just weird.  And Office for the Mac is a Cash Cow for MS.  Office for Mac is responsible for about 20% of all Office Revenue.  So Office is doing great on the Mac and Personally I can't wait for Office 08 to come out, so I can have a native version to run on my Mac.  Though, even under virtualization Office runs faster on my new mac book than it did on my old G-5 imac.

Second, I would argue that the Apple is far from a "Ho Hum " laptop.  Remember it was the FASTEST, and before you say, hey but it isn't the fastest for gaming.  Let me quote the REVIEW,  "In games it achieved a blazing frame rate of 141 frames per second in Far Cry"  considering that the human eye cannot even detect changes at 141 frames per second  that is pretty impressive.  Further, its gaming cred is bolstered by, " nVidia's new top-of-the-line notebook graphics card."  Again you call this a "HO HUM" laptop.  Gee.  Talk about hyperbole.  

Finally, the longer you type the cheaper your PC garbage gets.  This is typical PC fanboi garbage.  I have had so many friends who when I suggested various macs they would say.  Oh Windows machines are so much cheaper.  Then, there shiny new machine with no style and plenty o platic bits that looks like it was built by fisher price shows up and we talk price, they spit out an actual price that was within a couple hundred bucks of a Mac.

If the disparity in price were anywhere near as great as you would like to believe Apple's gross profit margins would be in the 60% to 80% range not in the 20-35% range now.  This by the way compare to about 15-20% for Dell which is why Dell still has a slight price advantage.

Regards

Joe Dokes

PCWorld's comparison had the MBP at $2949 [they added the price of Vista too] with a 2.4 GHz CPU and 4GB RAM, but the DELL Inspiron 1740 at $2534, but it only had a 2GHz CPU and 2GB RAM. Therefore, you are all full of beans. There were more expensive and less expensive similar configured brands, although the less expensive ones had less RAM or slower CPU. I'll go with PCWorld as they showed no bias  and have been doing this for years. I know for a fact that you only need 2GB RAM for anything, including video editing on a Mac. I would have to say that the prices are pretty darn close. Also, no one in my group of 30 will ever buy another Dell. Poor quality [hardware failure] and customer support. I have been recommending buying at BestBuy and using them for service since you can bring it in fast [and they then do not need me... well hopefully]. I am not saying that they can fix hardware well,  but it is convenient and Dell just stinks. I hope that they have better luck with Toshiba, as it's price was great, but I will now be looking at the mid-range Lenovo thanks to the tips here. You guys are a wealth of knowledge. Vista seems like it has a lot of good features. I can't wait to give it a try.

Oh and about MS Office, Entourage rules! Best PIM/email app for my use, and replaces the palmdesktop app. I test drove iWork and really did not like it, but I had limited use as I love MS Office. I just don't like Apple's mail.app and Safari. Sorry. I guess that I am a bad fanboy, or it could be the steroids.

I went ahead and configured the Dell Inspiron 1720 with the specs that our Canadian friend Waethorn configured, plus I juiced the price a little bit with an easily available coupon from gotapex.com.  With that I get a cost of $2507.28.  Note that the 3 year Dell Care Plus includes accidental damage protection.  AV software is included, as is LoJack protection and 20GB of online backup space.  I did drop the hard drive to 160GB, but I prefer the speed of a 7200 RPM drive over a bigger drive.  Nevertheless, I would probably go the minimum on this and upgrade to a Hitachi 7K2 drive.  As I'm also sure I could save on the memory and go for the minimum and upgrade through Crucial or eBay.

Specs:

Inspiron 1720

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T7700 (2.4GHz/800Mhz FSB/4MB cache)  

Genuine Windows Vista® Ultimate Edition

Alpine White

4GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 at 667MHz

High Resolution, glossy widescreen 17.0 inch display (1920 x 1200)

256MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 8600M GT

160GB SATA Hard Drive (7200RPM)

CD/DVD writer (DVD+/-RW) +Roxio Creator 9 Premier-Ultimate Burn/Authoring

Integrated Sound Blaster® Audigy™HD

Dell Wireless 1505 Wireless-N Mini-card

Camera Integrated 2.0 Megapixel Webcam

Anti-Virus/ Security suite (pre-install)

56Whr Lithium Ion Battery (6 cell)

DellCare Plus

Built-in Bluetooth capability (2.0 EDR)

Dell Recycling Recycling Kit and Plant a Tree for Me

DataSafe Online Backup included with DellCare Service bundle

Mr. Admin,

Thank you.  You're prcing of 2500.00 dollars is very close to my total.  When you consider the educator discount (which is really available to anyone like the education version of Office) the mac is only marginally more expensive.

Thanks for running the numbers.

Regards

Joe Dokes

Do you know if you guys helped each other, rather than compete, fight and ridicule, slander, name call,etc...you might [or might not] learn more. I am learning losts by reading what you smart guys post. I am just a geek wanna be since I have been a jock all of my life, besides an MD now. I wish that you guys were my neighbors. I could help you add smarthome technology as well as other electrical stuff that my dad and brother taught me.

Peace

DRWAM, about the Best Buy thing.  I'd be careful.  Are you talking about the Geek Squad fixing these things?  Go to consumerist.com and search for Geek Squad.  Do a search for Best Buy while you're at it.  Your opinion of them might change.

I will say that my experience with Dell has been very good.  Out of all of the Dell computers that I have owned (about 4 so far), and those that I have recommended to friends, I have to say that they have been very reliable and competitively priced.  Personal experience only.

And I have to say that my experience with Toshiba was horrible.  I'd stay far away for them.  Generally I like HP and Dell for desktops, and Lenovo for laptops.

I should also add that those that went to college, check your Alumni associations web site.  I was able to score some good deals on Dell and Lenovo through them, easily saving me another $100-200 on both.

"Do you know if you guys helped each other, rather than compete, fight and ridicule, slander, name call,etc...you might [or might not] learn more."

What's the fun in that :) :) :)  The life of a fanboy is one of limitless passion and limited reason!

And even though I priced this laptop out at that price, it is way out of proportion to what I want to spend.  I got my ThinkPad x61s for about $1,500, which I could easily get for $200+ less if I had purchased it now, and I got my Dell XPS 410 for about $1,800, which also could have been purchased for a little less now.  I could use that savings, drop to a lower video card, and pop in the new NVIDIA 8800 GT that pretty much smokes all of the competition around the price range of $200-250.

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"considering that the human eye cannot even detect changes at 141 frames per second  that is pretty impressive"

Considering that you don't understand how benchmarks work, your argument is not.

"Second,what I was referring to was not raw drives but drives sold for external use.  ie drives that normal people buy"

eSATA is NOT a "raw drive".  Maybe you should do a bit more research before you type.  It's sad actually.

"Further many camcorders are still using fire wire"

There are very few camcorders on the market now that are still using firewire exclusively.  Many are combo USB2/Firewire, or just USB2, and many professional camcorders have switched to eSATA for connection to hard drives (RAID 0 hard drives mind you), and PCMCIA Flash Memory storage.

"By the way you can order a copy of Office and the same time you order your mac"

By the way: it still costs full retail price.

"Remember it was the FASTEST, and before you say, hey but it isn't the fastest for gaming.  Let me quote the REVIEW"

I'm gonna stop you right there before you make yourself look even more silly.  Try to find another notebook on their site with the same speed CPU and GPU.  There aren't any.  You're trying to put credit towards Apple's engineering team where credit isn't due.  Only when you have two identical systems can you say where there are bigger and better feats of engineering, of which there are not.

"When you consider the educator discount (which is really available to anyone like the education version of Office) the mac is only marginally more expensive."

That's absolutely wrong actually.  You can't legally use a Mac for educator purposes without providing ID, and you also can't use it for commercial use.

Compare Apple's to apples, and the price on the Mac is still too high.  I'm going by the books here - ordering online.  You can't get "educator" prices online for either.  Apple is fleecing customers.  The argument still stands.  Until you can provide proof that their online store is cheaper by the specs, I'll take anything else you say with a grain of salt.

BTW:  I'm still waiting on those XPS specs you seem to be so enamored with.  Just try and post them here - I'll rip your argument apart.

"PCWorld's comparison had the MBP at $2949 [they added the price of Vista too] "

I'd like to see where it says that Vista was included in the price.  In fact, if you figure out that when you take the stock 17" and add another 2GB of RAM, and the price difference is only $150, I would highly doubt that also includes the Windows license.  Add to that the fact that with Apple's pricing, another 2GB would put the system at $3499, and you can't honestly say that they bought the system with Vista included, nor did they buy the RAM from Apple, which makes their price comparison completely bogus.

"You're prcing of 2500.00 dollars is very close to my total"

I'd like to see how you came up with that - the total I get with AppleCare AND the education discount and 4GB of RAM (but absolutely NOTHING else) is $3468.

Waethorn, I read that the Vista price was included in another article, which could have been wrong. But you are saying that PCWorld lied about the price? I doubt it. What would inspire a PC magazine to make a Mac look good? To SJ pay them off? Well I guess anything is possible. However, this means that you can never trust PCWorld and any future reference to it's credibility is null.

Dipsh, thanks for the info [warning]. You're breaking my heart. I though I was cleverly avoiding the phone calls asking me for help with their PC's, when in fact it could get worse with my recommendation. Talk about shooting myself in the foot! I will stick with your recommendations. This is what I get for not researching it well enough.

One more question. Do I read that Vista's built in software eliminates the need for Nero or am I over speculating? I like Nero, but that saves $99 toward Vista purchase [not that I need the money]. That brings the price closer to Leopard.

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Waethorn,

When you tell someone they don't know what they are talking about it is polite to inform them not just that they are wrong, but why they are wrong.  For example, with regards to the video card in the mac book.  According to the review the Mac Book is using the then current top of the line nVidia notebook graphics card.  Is this not one of the best graphics cards for a notebook?  I understand that framerate has a lot more to do with graphics than just the limitation of the Human eye, my point is that at a certain point a few frames is just not that important.

Speaking, by any chance do you have benchmark for the frame rate on your Dell?  Does it beat the Apple? Does it beat it by a significant amount?  Now you're saying well it really is hard to measure the true speed of a computer because you have to find the exact same spec..  Yada yada yada.  What you're really saying is darn the mac is fast and My Dell just can't keep up and I don't have the benchmarks to prove him wrong.  So I'll use an ad homonim attack.  Let me make this clear, other posters have, it was the FASTEST NOTEBOOK THEY HAVE TESTED ALL YEAR!  You're right considering the amount of product in the windows world it is physically impossible to test every single combination by every single vendor.  I would argue that considering the plethora of crap coming out of Dell it is impossible for any magazine to even benchmark all of Dell's machines.  

Use of Raid 0 or stripping is a very dangerous way to increase the throughput of your computer.  You should know that.  I value my data, I suppose if you're just a gamer or perhaps you are running some data acquisition that absolutely requires RAID 0 to keep up than it might be fine.  Otherwise, you are doubling the probability of a data loss.

Again you keep adding the extra 2Gb of ram, how about taking 500 off the price of the Apple just to be fair.  Or, if you must lower the system Ram of the Dell to 2GB to do your comparison.  It would actually be fairer anyway since that Window POS without 64 bit whatever, can't even SEE more than 3GB.

As far as the educator discount.  First, I am a teacher, so I'm entitled.  Also, I have a daughter enrolled in a local elementary school.  Also, I'm a grad student.  And NO YOU DO NOT NEED TO PROVE YOU'RE AN EDUCATOR OR STUDENT TO GET THE DISCOUNT.  So knock off the FUD.  You merely need to state you are eligible.  It's the honor system.  You can't get an educator discount online?  WTF, you know during this discussion you have made a number of points, where I was unclear, or even wrong.  But listen up, I am sitting here typing this on a mac book pro that I ordered online with the discount.  Next to me is an imac G-5 that I ordered online with the educator discount.  Now do this go to apple website, click on store, over on the left hand side of the page is a little icon that says," Education Store" it isn't very big.  Choose which form of education discount you want.  Hint, it doesn't matter they all give you the same discount.  Heck, Apple will even give you the discount if you home school you're little tike.  If you choose k-12 teacher, enter your zip and pick the local school.  Place your order.  I never had to show Apple proof that I was a teacher or student.  

Further ABES of Maine has it for 2555.00 and unless you don't live in Maine he probably won't charge you sales tax.  Now add 250.00 for 4Gb. and now we have a comparison.  www.abesofmaine.com/item.do

Third, I was referring to pricing done by ADMIN on the DELL, he came up with a price of 2500 dollars which I thought was within a couple of hundred of mine.  Thus, an honest comparison.  You and your cronies come up with these rediculous prices that defy logic.  You do so mainly by artificially inflating the price of the mac.

Home version of Office is $149.00.  Apple use to offer Office preinstalled.  They don't any more.  Maybe when MS gets Office 08 with native intel support out the door they will do so again.   Personally, I don't why the hell you're beating me up for that comment, maybe it's because you can't take a compliment.  go figure.  I mean what does it take to make you PC guys happy.  I came out and said Office was the best productivity suite, make MS a boatload of money, is reasonably priced, and you can buy a copy at the exact same time you buy your mac.  

It's really touching that you feel Apple is fleecing its customers.  I guess all those customer satisfaction surveys and the loyalty of Apple users is just a big lie.  Apple has had problems in the past.  During the mid 90s it failed to innovate rapidly enough and to be frank got its clock cleaned.  It's products were significantly more expensive than comparable PC and the quality and inovation weren't there.  That is why the company had so many problems.  

Today however, Apple is again highly innovative.  Time just called the iPhone the product of the year, and with the switch to intel, Apple has been able to create a product that is frequently best in class.   So is Apple freecing its customers.  I don't think so, when I meet people who own Apples they are VERY satisfied.  PC people not so much.

Regards

Joe Dokes

Yep, I was wrong. I looked at the PCWorld specs and the Apple website and compared prices. They must have upgraded the RAM elsewhere as it is $700 for 4GB at Apple, but dealram.com has it for $140 to $275. Also, there is a ton of other software that they used to test, which would have cost a lot of money.  Assuming made an ass out of me, not you.

Good laptops can be gotten for much less, but since speed and quality differences can be minimaml when compared to price, I usually steer friends away from the MBP, unless they are willing to pay more for better security. What I mean is that my 53yr old friend with the wife who had 364  viruses detected while I was 'cleaning up' her laptop, then more when I gave up and left, I asked them to consider a MBP because of the screen size [old eyes] and she and her daughter cannot responsibly surf the web/download stupid crap. I actually tried to talk them into an iMac, but the old lady wanted a laptop. I guess the alternative is to just buy the restore disc and a cheaper machine, and backup personal files, but they too would probably be infected. These people just will not learn.

"And NO YOU DO NOT NEED TO PROVE YOU'RE AN EDUCATOR OR STUDENT TO GET THE DISCOUNT."

OK, you are in fact saying something that is *factually* true, however, is it the *right* thing to do?  This page on the Apple web site store.apple.com/.../routingpage.html specifically says "If you’re a student, teacher, administrator, or staff member".  Assuming that we play by the rules, unless you fall in to these categories, you can not take advantage of special pricing.

As a teacher, you should not be advocating that others take advantage of education pricing, as it will only hurt you in the end.  And as a grad student and teacher (flame suit on), clean up your grammar.  Yes I know you can find flaws in my grammar, but yours is pretty bad, at least as far as teachers go (flame suit off).

"Otherwise, you are doubling the probability of a data loss."

Not really.  Besides, you are making a decision based on your needs.  Most likely those with such a beast would certainly have another computer that they keep their "data" on, and I would HOPE that everyone here takes regular backups.  RIGHT?

"One more question. Do I read that Vista's built in software eliminates the need for Nero or am I over speculating? I like Nero, but that saves $99..."

It generally does, but Nero and its ilk do have many more features.  Personally, I've never really liked any of the burning software that I've used over the years.  You can also get Nero for much cheaper than that.  Go to pricegrabber.com.

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"I read that the Vista price was included in another article, which could have been wrong."

i'd like to see where they said that.  as far as review units go, Apple has NEVER been in the habit of providing Windows with their computers.  PC World also DID NOT say Vista was included with the price.

"But you are saying that PCWorld lied about the price?"

they also didn't say how they got the extra 2GB for only $150 more in a "review unit".  again, incompetence or a lie - take your pick.

"Do I read that Vista's built in software eliminates the need for Nero or am I over speculating?"

Aside from disc-to-disc recording or working with ISO images (not a common usage for consumers in all honesty), in Vista Home Premium (or Ultimate), all legal forms of disc burning are handled with the included software.  Those are:

Data CD's (handled in the shell)

Data DVD's (ditto here)

Audio CD's (Windows Media Player 11)

MP3/WMA CD's (in the shell as a data disc)

Movie DVD's & video editing (Windows Movie Maker HD & DVD Maker)

ripping music CD's (Windows Media Player 11)

For disc-to-disc copies or burning ISO's to disc, I use Slysoft's CloneCD.  It also rips discs to their own format (.CCD), and they have Virtual CloneDrive available for free to mount them (or ISO's) as a virtual drive letter.

Slysoft also has AnyDVD and CloneDVD fo hollywood DVD's, but it's [ever so slightly] in the grey software domain.  There's no other software that's updated as frequently, or as a result, as compatible with as many different copy protection schemes.  It also does BluRay and HD-DVD discs if you can afford one of those drives.  There is NOTHING on the Mac that even comes close.

"Is this not one of the best graphics cards for a notebook?"

only for a single GPU in the DirectX10 class (which is completely wasted on a Mac, unless you're using Windows Vista on it).  The SLI-enabled laptops with older chipsets (like the 7950) are actually much faster.  You won't find those on Mac's though, because they're for GAMING notebooks.

"Let me make this clear, other posters have, it was the FASTEST NOTEBOOK THEY HAVE TESTED ALL YEAR!  You're right considering the amount of product in the windows world it is physically impossible to test every single combination by every single vendor."

That whole line doesn't say much about PC World though, and you're just apologizing for them because their test reviews are pretty pathetic.  They don't have any other system with similar specs.  If you want to benchmark something, try comparing apples to, um, Apple's.

"It would actually be fairer anyway since that Window POS without 64 bit whatever, can't even SEE more than 3GB"

And again, you want to try to give the upper hand to Apple by not comparing equal specs....

"NO YOU DO NOT NEED TO PROVE YOU'RE AN EDUCATOR OR STUDENT TO GET THE DISCOUNT.  So knock off the FUD.  You merely need to state you are eligible.  It's the honor system."

Actually, they do audit purchasers online by contacting schools to find if students are actually enrolled.  If you read their terms of sale, you'll actually see that.  If you're not enrolled and you somehow manage to get a discount, you're just cheating the system, and taking money away from your precious Apple.  Apple also considers it fraud (call their sales staff as ask them that), so if they ever want to persue legal action, you're in for a world of hurt.

"Home version of Office is $149.00"

....which puts it in line with the Office Home & Student 2007 retail version.  However, it is ONLY licensed for non-commercial use.  If you want to use it in a profit-making business environment (even for home businesses), you have to buy the Standard 2004 version, which is $400.  There is NO OEM version of Office 2004 though, so it costs more than getting Office Standard 2007 with a new PC (which goes for about half that price).

"Nero and its ilk do have many more features.  Personally, I've never really liked any of the burning software that I've used over the years."

I've preferred Roxio software myself, but it is bloated.  I think the programs included are still better than Nero because of the inclusion of new versions of MGI Photo-and Video-Suite.

If you want good photo editing software, I've been using the trial of Corel's Paint Shop Pro Photo X2 for the last week, and I'm very impressed by it.  It features options that are fairly comparable with Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom combined, and even some that they don't have.  It also feature HDR Merge for incredible photo quality.  It can be had for $100 (less if you look around), and the purchased version includes a lot of extras, including training videos.

www.corel.com/paintshoppro

"Otherwise, you are doubling the probability of a data loss."

That reminds me:  Apple's prices for a RAID card in their Mac Pro's is COMPLETELY out to lunch!!

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I actually admitted that I wa wrong about Vista included in the price in a post above. I read it at another site, which was wrong since the boatload of tested software would have cost lots of cash. However, you are wrong about the RAM. At dealram.com, you can see that you can buy 4GB [2 sticks of 2GB] for the MacBook Pro for a total of $140, or $70 per stick.

I was comparing the video editing or the DVD making software in Nero to iLife. I tested each. Actually , Nero suite is easier until iLife finally made a one click to DVD like Nero, but I never tested how the one click method works for iLife. It really is one click for Nero. Hook up the camcoder and click the button and walk away.

One friend, a Podiatrist, is bring his Dell to my house tomorrow. His wife told me that they have a virus, and could not get MacAfee or Norton to work, now the computer is 'locked up' and will not 'work'. You can say all you want that they need a Mac, but the medical software that we commonly use just does not exist on a Mac. Browser based apps are usually plug-ins that are not Mac Compatible. Boot Camp is cute, but I would rather have a separate PC as you still need the same security, so you only save space. But for students downloading stupid stuff, I recommend good security or  a Mac.

Now, my friend just bought a Pro Tower and had the Leopard upgrade disc. He is not computer savy and was used to OS 10.2, which is very similar in appearance to 10.4, but Leopard [10.5] just got him confused when he upgraded a backup drive. He deleted it and gave me the upgrade disc. It is faster than Tiger [10.4] but I do not think that most of the 'new features' in Leopard are useful to the average user. But I do expect flames for this comment. It least it installed flawlessly, even though I have the Logitech Control Center which supposedly has APE [blamed to cause the BSD].

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"I recommend good security or  a Mac"

You can't have one with the other, ESPECIALLY  for "students downloading stupid stuff":

www.eweek.com/.../0,1895,2210900,00.asp

"At dealram.com, you can see that you can buy 4GB [2 sticks of 2GB] for the MacBook Pro for a total of $140, or $70 per stick."

The problem about a big online presence like PC World writing an article like this (not that they're really known for benchmarking), is that they're quoting a certain amount for a MacBook Pro with a given configuration.  If you go to Apple's website, you can't get it with that configuration for the same price, and yet PC World didn't say that, nor did they say if and/or where they got the extra upgrades.  That, and add the fact that they're comparing all different configurations as equal, which is no where even close to being an accurate representation of the performance of one system over another, not to mention at least one computer configuration that kills the MacBook Pro's scores that they conveniently forgot about.  That's misleading, and is just bad for consumers - the audience that they're presenting to.  That's bad media.  I would expect something like that from a publication like WSJ or Fox'orbes, just so they can make a false statement about Apple.

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Waethorn, I agree 100%. The lack of the info which is 'the real deal' as well as different CPU's and RAm is misleading as well as confusing. I think that it minimal to no help to the consumer.

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