Will Apple computers ever be a good deal?

[ShawnD1]

I saw the second part of that documentary "Triumph Of The Nerds" and apparently Apple computers have always been much more expensive. In the 80s, an IBM would cost $1500 and an Apple would cost $2500. Now, a good Dell can sell for $600 (plus ~$100 for a good monitor) but the cheapest respectable Mac is somewhere around $1100. A good Mac starts at $1800.

Will Apple ever cut the price of their computers to at least make them competative? Have any Mac users here seen a trend with prices? Relative to PCs, are the costs going up or down? Is Steve Jobs still with Apple?

[RADAR1797]

I don't know about desktops, but laptops Macs are competative with x86 computers.

http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPL...e?family=iBook

-RADAR

[elmers]

Keep in mind that most mac users are looking for "solutions" not hardware. I have a friend who uses his little mac box for his buisness and never, ever complains. He pretty much had no problems with it for 10 years.

[SpookyEddy]

As already mentioned apple offer some relatively good value laptop solutions, certainly here in the UK they are fairly competitive compared to x86 alternatives. The Power Mac G5 is a pretty slick bit of kit IMO, certainly wouldn't mind having one but its currently out of my price range (just like a well specc'd dual Opteron is ).

Can you build a faster x86 based desktop system for cheaper? Probably but perhaps thats not really the point.

Regards

ed

[The Real Bingo]

A lady at my mom's work; an advertisment employee, had a Power Mac G5 ordered just for her. Apparently it is good with graphics or something because the business she works for isn't exactly free spending. Also noticed the RAM is expandable to 8GB.

[thePh@r@oh]

I saw on techTV a segment about building your own mac it looked cool

[uethello]

They compete by having a stricter standard. By that I mean a PC could have just about any manufacturer video card, sound card etc. Apple had one, maybe two different choices. That allowed programmers to optimize for those peripherals.

Now, say what you will about MS they have made this much less important with their improved driver structures (WHQL etc) and DirectX, Directsound and so on. Not much point anymore, except they look nice.

[byunews]

The thing with Apple is that they control the operating system, software and hardware of their computers - nobody else can offer a slicker, smoother, more consistent product.

[HeadBand]

most of the people who get macs are like mac crazy and won't buy anything else no matter what the price is so lowering the price would not bring in as much buisness as they woud make from having those people pay high prices

[Redwolf]

Will the Sox ever win the World Series?