Briefly About the Show

Back in April of 2006, we ran a story that was meant to address the common misconception that Macs are "more expensive" than PCs. The original story was more of an attack on something TechSpot ran, but we tried to make some general points as well.

Several months later (today) we received a comment from "Mac Hater" trying to attack the facts we were presenting. If you'd like to catch up on all of this before reading on, you can see the original story here and look to the comments to see the rest. The commenter brought up some interesting points. Especially the one where he recommends Gateway as the brand of PC that he'd use to set the bar for the industry. We've never heard anyone actually recommend Gateway before, but even so we thought this would be a good opportunity to update our story.

We originally claimed that Macs were on par with a similarly configured PC. So, has anything changed? Would a comparable Gateway (as suggested by Mac Hater) actually be loads cheaper than a Mac? Let's find out....

We went to the Gateway web site and chose one of their decent desktop base models and then compared it with the current iMac offering found at Apple's web site. Please note, that these prices reflect what we found on the day this was written. What we found was interesting.

It doesn't quite fit Mac Hater's idea of reality, does it? As you can see, the iMac is a much better deal. You're getting a slightly faster chip, better video card, and slightly larger screen for over $200 less than the Gateway offering. On top of that, you get a built-in iSight and the only Wifi and Bluetooth offerings from Gateway come in the form of USB adapters. Yes, your DVD writable drive is twice as fast in the Gateway. So is that where the extra $200 comes in?

The iMac can also boot both Windows and OS X, has a great bundle of software (iLife) and isn't a big tower machine. So why are people so hung up on the idea that Macs are so expensive? It's hard to say. I think it comes from years ago when Macs were thought of as a luxury item while PCs could be built or purchased wholesale for a bargain. However, when you look at Apple as an OEM just like Dell, HP, or even Gateway, you can see that their prices are quite respectable.

And for those of you looking for inaccuracies in our configurations... No, we did not leave the check marks next to the printer, scanner, speakers, or even any software at Gateway's site. What you see here represents "all" of the major hardware components of both machines. Obviously the mouse and keyboard don't really matter.

Also, this is not to say that you'll never find a PC that's cheaper than a Mac. OEMs who sell Windows machines usually have the occasional sale that makes them much more attractive, but let's get away from this ignorant idea that Macs just cost more. They don't.