Mac vs. PC – The Apple Tax?

I work for Microsoft, you probably already know that. I also carry a Macbook Pro and own two Mac Desktops. So yea, I like Macs, and I am probably going to take my snarky ass down to the Bellevue Apple Store tomorrow to buy a new one (with the Microsoft discount of course!)

That being said, I also got this email with a deal from HP on laptops, and it compelled me to show just how far off the gap in price and features are.

Ok, that’s quite the list. Let’s break down a few of these things in a minute, first I want to talk about Mac vs. PC in general. So you have to be asking me, “You work for Microsoft, you USE a Mac, yet you are telling me to buy a PC.”

Fair enough, let me explain a little about myself. I am a closet musician. I used to use a software package called ProTools. My Mac odyssey started when I broke down and bought a Macbook Pro in order to run Logic Express as my recording software. ProTools is notoriously expensive, the LE version is limited and they constantly deprecate their own hardware with newer versions (and charge a nice penny for ever dot upgrade even) So I decided to take on Logic. After awhile of really enjoying Logic, I bit off a 24” iMac so my studio wouldn’t be based on the same laptop I carry around every day.

When I upgraded to Logic Studio, and then also bought Aperture, I decided to move to the big boss Mac Pro to run my audio gear. I guess at this point you can figure out I have a little expendable income and a computer habit that rivals most heroin junkies, sue me. So the part of this story that you may be missing, is that along side both of those Macs at home, are two very nice, very capable Vista based PCs. One is a 32bit machine I do all of my web development and work from home stuff on, the other is a 64bit Vista machine I use for Media Center, all my music, backups, general file server, etc. Both are incredibly stable, fast as hell and in no way play second fiddle to my Macs.

That being said, if I was a college student, home user or someone who was in the market for a new computer with no brand allegiance, and I looked at these two options, I would buy a PC no question.

I do like OS X and I think it’s a fantastic OS, but I don’t see anything in it that screams, “I am so much better than Vista.” To be fair, I don’t look at Vista and think it burns OS X either. I think they are fundamentally different operating systems, different usage patterns and ultimately I don’t care which I use as long as it runs the software I need to run.

That’s where the rub comes in. It’s getting much better in recent years, but it used to be that you couldn’t go to Best Buy and purchase anything that works with a Mac. Even now, try to find more than one or two alternate keyboards for the incredibly annoying (but terribly sexy looking) new Apple keyboard. Sure, you can plug about any keyboard in and it will work, but who wants to type on a computer with mislabeled keys?

Then look at all the nice design choices (i.e. limitations) Apple makes for you. Steve Jobs says, “I understand you just bought a 1TB Firewire hard drive, and that it’s a very common interface for digital video cameras and other cool gadgetry (namely any good audio interface) but we at Apple have decided that port is kind of ugly so you don’t need it anymore. That may not be what drove them to that decision, but look at the new Macbook, it’s gone. Just about all of them are. Two USBs and some headphones and you are going to have to start trying alternate places to plug stuff in, maybe you could shove it up your….never mind.

Ok, so back on the path I seriously diverged from, I think I covered most of my disgruntles with the new laptops.

I think if you look at the specs of the two laptops, and consider your probably 10 years of experience using Windows, you will agree that while OS X is fantastic at a lot of things, Windows Vista runs fantastic on current hardware, it’s just as stable and secure as OS X is these days, and Microsoft’s Live Suite has everything iLife has covered with the exception of Garageband, and it even includes Office!

What are you going to buy?

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