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My daughter is getting frustrated with the limitations of her aging G4 iBook, and is thinking of a new laptop. She does a lot of video and photo stuff, and needs more horsepower—at low cost, as they have not much money. I sent her the news about the new white MacBooks, and also links to the Compare page at Apple, suggesting that what she really wanted was the $2,000 MacBook Pro with the 'discrete' graphics card. She responded,
"J___ [her husband] got his computer (a Sony Vaio) for about $850. He's very happy with it. Mac prices are absurd!!!! Captive market...."
Is the difference between Mac and PC laptop prices (for comparably-equipped models) really that great these days?
Inquiring minds want to know. . . Just as they did five years ago, and ten, and. . .
/Mr Lynn
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if you want to get everything as inexpensively as possible, get a pc laptop. if you're willing to pay 20% more to get a much more refined product, get a mac.
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low end PC lappys use lower end Core 2 Duo.
If her husband is happy with his PC, thats what she should get.
Don't forget to mention the virus/trojans/spyware/adware/malware etc... that she will have to contend with buying a PC. I have a year old Dell 1525 I use for work. Cheap build quality, but what should I expect, I only paid 499 for it at best butt. I have had to replace the powersupply and take the screen bezel off to replace a hinge screw that loosened and would cause the hinge to pop every time I opened it.
"It Works" is what I say.
P.S. I have had to get rid of a virus/trojan on my sons xp lappy (wifes old work computer) and also a good friends. Don't volunteer yourself for tech support.
Joe
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If she has been able to tolerate the iBook until now, she would be very well served by either the older white macbook (should be good deals now), the latest white macbook ($999), or even the 13" MBP for ~ $200 more.
I think there is a real hole in the Apple product line - the mid-range 15" consumer laptop. There are plenty of good, sub $1k options from most PC vendors now . Sure, they will not have the latest, cool Apple battery technology, no magsafe adapter, or latest trackpads. But they will have a decent processor, video card, screen, and decent (3 hour? or so) battery life.
Compared to her venerable iBook, even a Dell mini 10v would run Mac OS X (and 10.6, to boot) faster.
Maybe she'd be better off with a new iMac and get a Dell mini netbook.
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sekker wrote: Maybe she'd be better off with a new iMac and get a Dell mini netbook.
Or a mini?
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Watch the Apple Special deals for MacBook refurbs with NVIDIA graphics. They will probably do what she wants. The 2.13 GHz MacBook shows up at $749 from time to time. They list what is in the inventory so they come and go quickly. Here is an alert service:
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IIRC, the last time I saw a processor number for what was in the White MacBook, it was the same class of low end CPU that was in the cheap Windows laptops (or was that just the mini...). The current MacBook (1066 MHz 3 MB cache) seems to be one of the better class, a P8400 with VT.
