TexasCHLforum.com

Andrew wrote:Windows is an Operating System, Mac is a cult. Just sayin'

Mac is an Operating System, Windows is a cult. Just sayin'

3dfxMM wrote:Please let us know where you buy your iMacs. The list prices for them run from $1799 to $3849. That is without upgrading or adding any software or support packs.

My 27" was pretty close to $3,800 about a year ago.

apostate wrote:

anygunanywhere wrote:Is being a Mac owner equivalent to being a Glock owner?

Anygunanywhere

Hardly. Based on price and performance, Glocks are like Google Nexus 7 & 10 tablets.
Perhaps that makes iPads like HK, insofar as they do basically the same thing at twice the price.

...except that Apple doesn't hate you, and you don't suck.

pcgizzmo wrote:

The Annoyed Man wrote:

C-dub wrote:

Charles L. Cotton wrote:A Mac is a toy, a PC is a tool.

Bye now . . .

Chas.

Heard that for years/decades.

My entire business is Mac based. I have two iMacs (27" and an older 24"), two MacBook Pros (17" and 15"), and a MacBook Air (13"). Yes, they can be fun, but they are also legitimate business tools. The question isn't whether or not a Mac or a PC is the better tool....the answer is easy....the Mac is. The question is, are you willing to pay the extra you'll pay for a Mac?

I was talking to someone about this the other day. You can think of Microsoft as a software company who's OS will run on just about any PC and they charge a premium for the OS and PC's are cheap. Apple is a hardware company that has an OS that runs on their hardware. You pay for the hardware up front but OS upgrades are fairly cheap after that.

Finally, a guy with serious PC/Network experience who agrees with me!

That's actually an interesting comparison, and it bears out in my own experience: the buy-in cost is higher for the Mac, but cost of ownership is lower. In my experience, Apple is VERY forgiving too when it comes to support after your Applecare extended warranty has expired. I once accidentally dropped my 17" MacBook Pro. It was on a table next to me, and I reached for something else and accidentally pulled it off the table and it fell hard onto a tile floor. It landed on its left edge, deeply denting it there, and breaking the USB card on that side and an audio controlling board of some kind (I am decidedly NOT a hardware guy). I took it to the Southlake Apple store. They diagnosed it and said it could be repaired with a new case and the two cards, but they would have to send it to their regional repair center (which I think is in north Texas somewhere). The guy checked my Applecare account and confirmed that it was expired, and told me that I would have to pay for the repairs.....which would come to roughly $290 if I recall correctly. Well, I paid well over $3,000 for this laptop—it was a real top of the line unit—so it was worth it to pay $290 to get it repaired, and I authorized the charge. They told me it would take 7-10 business days to repair it, and they would give me a call when it came back in to the store. That was on a Saturday. On Tuesday morning, FedEx delivered the laptop to my door, and the invoice said "No Charge."

Dell/Sony/Etc. would have never done that. So the Apple computer is more expensive because it is better hardware, and then the Apple company supports it better than PC manufacturers because they are cognizant of the fact that they charge you more for it.

I have a rule of thumb which applies to any kind of significant purchase—is the cost of buy-in justifiable by the quality of the product AND the manufacturer's support for that product? This certainly applies to firearms as much as to computers. When I bought a $1730 M1A, and the MIM hammer broke 100 rounds later, Springfield had me send them the fire control group for repair and said that it would take a 2 week turnaround to get it back to me. Seven days later I had it in hand, with a forged steel hammer installed at my request instead of the OEM MIM part, and at no extra charge.

When I authorized my son (who has become a pretty good "shade tree" gunsmith) to attempt a trigger job on my M&P45 and he messed it up, I sent it to S&W for a repair knowing and having been informed that it was not covered by warranty because the trigger job had voided it. I was told to phone them in a week to get the final quote for the repairs (which was going to be in the vicinity of $100 for parts & labor) and give them a credit card number. They told me that it would take a 2-3 weeks turnaround once I had authorized the charge. Seven days later, I phoned to follow up as instructed and I was told that it was already repaired and on its way back to me. I had the repaired pistol in hand later that morning, again at no charge, with a nice note from the S&W Custom Shop stating that they had done a trigger job on it, above and beyond simply replacing the $25 fire control module......and they paid for the return freight.

It pays to take potential customer support into account when trying to decide what brand of a given product to buy, when the price is in the hundreds or thousands of dollars. In my experience, Apple has earned my trust, and if that costs a bit extra, it is worth it to me. It may not be worth it to someone else.

I will say this, last Sunday at church, a friend showed me his new Microsoft tablet....the one that is being heavily advertised on TV right now (I can't remember what it is called). He bought the more expensive "Pro" version of it, which cost him $1000 instead of the less expensive and less capable $500 version. I have to say that I was impressed with both the apparent quality of manufacture and the way the new OS works. Up to this point, ALL Microsoft OS versions have seemed clunky and inelegant to me, and they used the screen real estate very poorly. This new OS seems markedly different. I asked my friend if it was just another tablet, or was it a real computer. He said that the "Pro" version had the full version of the OS, and it was a fully capable computer which could replace a laptop IF the buyer could live with the smaller screen. When I gave my gen 1 iPad to my son because it wasn't truly meeting my business needs as a portable device, I bought a 13" MacBook Air to replace it. I would be very surprised if the next generation of the MacBook Air does not include a detachable keyboard and a touch screen. Apple is going to HAVE to do this—not because my MacBook air is in any way an inferior computer, but because the buying public is going to want those features in their portable devices and Apple is going to have to include them or they will lose market share......particularly with the new windows laptop coming out which has a reversible touch screen which can be used as a tablet.

But I have no regrets about having spent more for the computers I have. It was money very well spent.

C-dub wrote:

Charles L. Cotton wrote:A Mac is a toy, a PC is a tool.

Bye now . . .

Chas.

Heard that for years/decades.

My entire business is Mac based. I have two iMacs (27" and an older 24"), two MacBook Pros (17" and 15"), and a MacBook Air (13"). Yes, they can be fun, but they are also legitimate business tools. The question isn't whether or not a Mac or a PC is the better tool....the answer is easy....the Mac is. The question is, are you willing to pay the extra you'll pay for a Mac?