More the reason for Apple to compete more aggressively on a pricing front.

The day Apple starts doing that is the day Apple's business model collapses.

Apple is about three things: margins, margins and margins.

Price wars kill margins.

Have you never been a student or updated a CV?

That's what OpenOffice is for. It's perfectly adequate for most students or home users.

Price wars kill margins.

But in a recession, margins kill sales.

Not really.

Apple used Just-In-Time production to the greatest extent possible and what really kills firms is unsold inventory.

$20bn or in the bank can't hurt either.

That's what I'd have to agree with...

When I purchased my last MacBook we had almost $2 to the pound now we've got less then $1.4.

Thus, I got a 2Ghz Intel Core Duo, 512mb RAM, 60Gb disk for £789, oh and that was running OS X 10.4

Now in the states you can get a Alu 2Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2G Ram and 160Gb disk for $1299 which is £929 UK Apple price, if the exchange rate held out it could of been around the £500 mark. Only thing is now for some reason the Apple remote is extra!

But lets face it, I've an old 12" G4 867mhz powerbook (640mb ram 60gb disk) which runs OS X 10.5.x. OK I wouldn't use it for PhotoShop, but web access, reading e-mail etc it's still fine. On the other hand I've an old HP tablet (P3 1ghz, 2gb ram, 100gb disk) purchased around the same time and there is no way I would expect it to run Visa Professional, and do anything useful. It's fine with XP but it fails the vista compatibility test, although there are a few sites on how to 'cludge' Vista to get it running on the machine. I'd have to buy a new laptop, if I was die hard Windows user still, much like millions of other Windows users had to.

Isn't there a case here that Mac users don't need to keep having to buy newer machines as often as Windows users do.

Oh, and don't even get me started on the cost of upgrades.... 5 users OS X family pack was £120, a single copy of Vista Ultimate (upgrade) around £175 for a single desktop.

Only thing now, is will Snow Leopard still run on G4/G5 machines when it prowls the streets?

Even if it won't, I can't see masses of home Mac users running out to get new machines for a while at least, after all there are plenty of G3 users still out there.....

In reply to a post by ncudmore:

Only thing now, is will Snow Leopard still run on G4/G5 machines when it prowls the streets?

I haven't been able to find anything definitive but accepted wisdom on AD is that Snow Leopard will be Intel only.

t t

Edited by trailertrash (Mon 30-Mar-09 13:19:17)

I disagree. I don't think Apple has to match, pound for pound, the prices PC vendors charge for their machines but seriously, £1000 for a unibody Macbook and £500 for a Mac Mini? I can't honestly recommend a Mac to anyone at those prices.

You certainly need better specifications to play games, more so if you need Bootcamp.

In addition, eBuyer sell Vista upgrades for £53

In reply to a post by AnotherExPipex:

I would agree with your argument if Macs were more reliable than PCs. According to these figures they are not. Even discounting the results for Asus, Lenovo seem to be more reliable than Apple.

Do you have any links that show otherwise?

No, but this article discounts the accuracy of Resecuecom's findings. It's a bit like taking your Mac to TechGuys who aren't AFAIK an Apple authorised repair shop.

http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2009/03/26/ridiculous-...

Edited by Tacitus (Tue 31-Mar-09 18:08:36)

People are going to pay more attention to value for money nowadays than a pretty case.

The bird in the advert is therefore in more trouble finding a boyfriend than a dirt cheap laptop.