[ctopher]

warlock7 said:

What kind of memory and FSB and what are the screen resolutions in each device?

Memory:
HP 8510w - 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
Apple MacBook Pro - 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM
Dell M4400 32bit - DDR2-800 SDRAM

Display resolution:
HP 8510w - 15.4-inch diagonal 1680 x 1050
Apple MacBook Pro - 15.4-inch (diagonal) 1440 by 900
Dell M4400 32bit - 15.4” (1440x900)

The reason the Dell looks like a better bang for the buck is it's old 32-bit motherboard. Dell does not offer 64-bit XP or Vista for this machine (in spite of it being included with the tech specs, you cannot purchase a 64-bit OS). In fact their web site is clear when it states:
--------------
Notebooks configured with 4GB of memory and 32-bit OS: The total amount of available memory will be less than 4GB, the amount less depends on the actual system configuration. Only notebooks configured with 64-bit OS can support greater than 4GB of memory.
-------------

[Rhywun]

I think we can safely rule out the possibility of purchasing anything from a company that sells a computer with more RAM than it can use.

[benroethig]

I like these comparisons, but I think the author is missing the point of the ads by only using direct comparisons with similar machines. They're making the point that you if you want a screen larger than 13" with Apple you have to buy a very high end professional notebook as there are no Apple (and therefore Mac OS) 15 or 17 inch consumer models. The Apple tax is usually small when it comes to similar machines, but it gets much larger when mismatches arrive because of the limited nature of Apple's lineup. You not only have to pay a bit higher margins, but you also have to buy a lot more computer than what you want or need.

[chrisgalen]

Though you touch on it a little, one thing you kinda miss is the issue of cost. Apple has never offered a $500 or lower portable computer (unless you count the iphone with a 2-year AT&T contract). As great as OS X is cost is the first thing most people look at. They can balance cost versus value and re-sale but the initial cost is very important. Besides portables, currently Apple's cheapest expandable desktop costs $2499! Unreal! They basically have abandoned this market it seems. However, it's the smart people, the up and coming designers of whatever, who use that type of computer. Back to portables, if you're a student and you need something today...I'd get a $500 laptop and if I'm smart enough (or one of my friends is) have OS X installed on it ala Hackintosh...
Apple computers are too pricey in any market let alone this one....who can say $18.4 billion in the bank?

[wiz302pa]

This article is useless. The author states "I haven't tested these laptops and make no judgment regarding which one performs best". All these spec.s have little or no value unless you assess PERFORMANCE. Without performance-based results you are comparing Apples and, well, plug-and-pray PC "oranges".

[greenshed]

Misses the point,
Question, i want a 15+inch laptop for (non pro) photographs and word processing e mail internet, Dell have a solution for less than £600 (UKP)
Apple don't come any thing close the Cheapest Macbook pro is £1369
Forget it!!!! I would love to replace my Powerbook G4 with one, but seriously i can put up with Vista warts and all.

[Macalways]

Macworld said:

"?Macs have tended to last longer and give me far fewer problems. And Macs are simply a joy to use, thanks to the Mac OS's many ingenious features and Apple's design savvy. I've rarely felt that way about a Windows computer."

Last November, America had a choice, i.e., a diamond in the rough or a roughed in diamond. One contender professed decades of experience. Years of proven leadership. Though mired in the tradition that surrounded him.

The other was simply a joy to watch and hear, and thanks to an ingenious amount of knowledge, a wherewithal to listen and intrinsic savvy to learn and lead. Rarely did anybody feel that way about the former.

Both would start at the same price. So it would appear. But thank goodness, the country choose based in part on a need to change, not a change of need. Undoubtedly, the former would induce a cost to startup, while the price of the latter was just too high to imagine.

[warlock7]

1066 MHz FSB combined with DDR3 RAM makes a huge difference in overall performance! What are you talking about? Perhaps your "average consumer" doesn't care about performance, mine do.
If the FSB is slower than the memory then there is your bottleneck slowdown. Slower memory architecture and FSB are huge bottlenecks in the system. Many of the PC manufacturerers are using PC2-5300 DDR2 RAM when configuring these systems. There's the bottleneck slowing down the rest of the system.

Using DDR3 would make his system faster overall and allow it to take full
advantage of the installed CPU’s 1066MHz front side bus, which many manufacturers choose
to cripple by pairing it with a 533MHz memory architecture to save
money and deliver a cheap system for people who don’t know what they’re
really buying.

While the green factor may help to sway people, the fact that the machines have a better architecture and therefore can run software faster than their counterparts, including Windows, should be enough to sway people.

[warlock7]

Really?!?! If cost is the first consideration in a purchase, then why aren't we all driving Yugos? Give me a break, this is an old and tired argument that doesn't hold any water.

[lenny]

The most important thing that Dell is missing is Mac OS X! So what's the point of this comparison?

[natssdad]

The thing that was not mentioned is when the windows laptop is purchased, a month or two later it will have nothing but issues. Blue screens, viruses, popups, spyware, etc.
A friend bought a brand new Dell laptop for $799 about a month ago and now he's calling having nothing but issues.

[wiz302pa]

and your point is......?

[bluvg]

Comparing workstation-class laptops from Dell and HP to a MBP is not an equal comparison. Why? "Workstation" = ISV certification, not simply higher specs (i.e., you pay for certification and the GPU class). Furthermore, the percentage performance bump of 2.66 GHz over a 2.4 GHz pales in comparison to the percentage difference in what Intel charges between them.

[wessterling]

I'd like to point out one thing and I'll use an analogy to do so.
Let's say that you have two vehicles, both come with the same performance parts made by the same manufacturers and those parts form the engine. And say you have two teams to build those vehicles to use those parts, as well as assemble those parts to make the fastest vehicle possible. Team A includes a plethera of accessories, say multiple air-conditioners, water pumps, and alternators, because Team A has to use a generalized, third-party design and none of the parts can really get their specific task done alone, hence the overlap. Let's say Team B uses an in-house design, which requires only one of each of those accessories, because they know a better way to get more efficiency out of those parts and there is no need for overlap. Although both Team A and Team B were given the same parts, because of Team B's better design, their engine is more efficient and thus will perform better.
So, I would rather see a performance comparison between a PC and Mac rather than a spec comparison.