[geeks] can't wait for Vista

[velociraptor]

On 11/6/06, Charles Shannon Hendrix <shannon at widomaker.com> wrote:
> True.  I would love to have an Apple, but it is incredibly hard to
> justify the expense.
>
> Take a look at their top-of-the-line. It is nice, and probably well
> built, but it isn't really worth the price in terms of getting work
> done.

The multi-core desktop machines are less than any other name-brand
computer vendor's unless you are buying at corporate discount prices.
These aren't no-name white-box computers.

> I also wonder at the omissions: no external drive ports, low end video
> card, only supports 4 drives, various common PC features missing, lack
> of upgrade and repair options, etc.
>
> Apple basically has no option for users who want to upgrade or repair
> their machines. Their solution is for you to buy a totally new machine.

I disagree entirely, and so would a whole heck of a lot of people out
there using "low-end" Macs.

This is somewhat true for the G5 line, mostly due to it's short market
life.  If you think that as far as the G4's and prior, then you are
not familiar with the aftermarket upgrades.  Not to mention the fact
that with PPC boxes, the newer versions of OS X have actually improved
performance (outside of graphics, easily cured with a new card).  In
my experience, the PPC's are much longer lived than x86-ilk.  We'll
see if that holds going forward, but I expect it will, since short of
a significant core overhaul of the OS, any new versions should be more
efficient, not less.  I mean, look at Solaris on the Sparc line--it
still runs perfectly fine on U2s.  Remember, OS X is *NIX, not
Windows.  Throwing the baby out with the bath water isn't generally
how *NIX OS upgrades work.

Case in point:  My current home Mac desktop was built in '01 and
handles 10.4 fine.  On the other hand, the work PC I had when I
started $curr_job, a Dell built in '02, labored under 6 xterms and 1
instance each of FFox, T-bird and oCal running under KDE.  Admittedly,
my Mac has 2x as much RAM (512MB vs 256MB) and a newer ATA HD.
However, while the Mac slowed gracefully when I overtaxed it with
MySQL, Amarok, and X--still useable but not fun, the Dell box got to
the "don't bother with anything but ctrl-C" stage when I tried to load
a 40K line db into MySQL on the command line--even after closing
everything but a couple of xterms.  That Dell regularly had a load of
2+ with just my usual desktop apps running.

> Your options are basically the anemic Mini, or the very expensive pro
> line.

I doubt many would call a dual-core Mini "anemic" unless they were
trying to do video editing  using the internal drive only.

> Apple needs a mid-range badly.

They have a mid-range it's just not designed for you.  It'ss designed
for people who want a stunning display without the hassle of a machine
with multiple parts--people who use their machines for a very limited
set of applications but have no interest in portability.  The iMac
obviously sells or they wouldn't have continued the models, since I'm
sure the margins are lower on it, since the production costs are
probably similar to laptops rather than desktops.

Go lay hands on a recent vintage Mac before you dismiss them out of
hand, 'cause from what I can tell, your bias slip is showing.

=Nadine=