Way OT – Laptop or iPad?

[Dave Haynie]

I’m not in the least defending Windows here. Just the benefit to the consumer of commodity hardware rather than semi-proprietary hardware. Apple’s selling you the same hardware for 2x-3x the price.

The key to understanding this is realizing that Apple functions as a software company, and their hardware is just a fancy and overpriced dongle. People think Apple’s a hardware company, but Alf suggested, look at their profits. The only other companies making those kinds of margins in tech are software companies. Apple’s one of the few “hardware” companies actually good at software development… because they’re really a software company.

As for the hardware: nice mechanical design, but that’s about it. Apple’s motherboards are made in the same factories as Dell’s or HP’s, with the same chips, by the same people. Apple’s products are expensive compared to the very same spec hardware made by other quality vendors — I’m not even suggesting that Apple’s expensive because I cheap out.

For example: my HP laptop cost $1280, directly from HP. The comparable MacBook Pro (same CPU, same memory, 10GB less storage, one more Firewire port, one less USB port, same radios, same Intel system chips, comparable displays… don’t know if Apple had IPS in their laptops back in 2007, half-rather-than-full sided ExpressCard port, same camera, no card reader) cost $2999, direct from Apple. Ok, this was a few years ago… you could actually swap the batteries in both, back then, today, not an option with the Mac. And the HP is still going strong.. over time, I added 2GB RAM and swapped out the HDDs for 640GB models (two of them).

What did Apple offer here? MacOS — that’s the only reason they can charge so much for the very same thing. They’re selling the software.

Same with the iOS devices.. they’re overpriced. It’s not too obvious with tablets yet, since ALL tablets have been historically overpriced. But also largely a niche item. As these catch on with the public, this will change. Most of the other top tier companies with ARM tablets are pricing relative to the iPad. But in truth, these are not more expensive than Netbooks (cheaper CPU/SOC, less RAM, less storage, smaller battery, same display, no keyboard, add $30 cost for the touch screen, $25 if you need a cellular modem).

-Dave

[John Davidson]

Do any of you have an iPad? This is teetering dangerously close to a mac vs. pc war, which I’m sure we’d all rather avoid :).

Specs are only part of the puzzle to any technology purchase. The XBOX 360 is 5 year old technology, but it’s still rocking just as hard as it did when it first came out – much harder than my unused PS3. More importantly, how did I land in a Sony Vegas forum? I’m Final Cut all the way!

At the end of the day, if you want your wife to go ‘oh’, then get some generic underpowered netbook with a weak battery. If you want her to go ‘ah’, the iPad’s your man.