Recently Microsoft came out with a new commercial. From what they have a history of putting out, commercial wise (and some will argue, product wise) this ad is one of the best ones they've done in my opinion:
In the last day or so though I've seen the Mac faithful completely pan the commercial. Paraphrasing some of the twitter posts and Facebook statuses I've seen, they are basically slamming the $700 pc she bought saying that it was garbage, who would want a AMD Turion processor, it didn't include gigabit ethernet or 802.11n support, etc.
It seems to me they completely missed the point of the commercial. To me, the point was, for the money...you can get more 'machine' buying a pc than you can a Mac. Yes, the specs on a $700 laptop don't quite stack up to the specs of the $999 MacBook. Two points on that:
1. She found the laptop with the requirements she wanted, 17" screen and under $1000. Which, she accurately pointed out, completely throws the Apple platform out as an option.
2. Spec a pc laptop at $999 and compare it to the $999 MacBook. As a matter of fact, I'll do it for you:
$999 pc laptop from HP -
SYSTEM COLOR Bronze/Chrome
PROCESSOR Intel Core 2 Duo P7450 (2.133GHz)
WARRANTY AND SERVICE 1Yr Ltd Parts and Labor
DISPLAY Glossy widescreen 17.0 inch display
MEMORY 4GB DDR2 at 1066MHz
HARD DRIVE Size: 500GB SATA Hard Drive
VIDEO CARD NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT 512MB Dedicated Ram
OPTICAL DRIVE 8X Slot Load CD / DVD Burner (Dual Layer DVD+/-R Drive)
WIRELESS CARDS 802.11abgn
NETWORK CARD Integrated network connector 10/100/1000 LAN (RJ45)
INTEGRATED WEBCAM Integrated 2.0M Pixel Webcam
BATTERY OPTIONS Lithium Ion Battery (8 cell)
KEYBOARD Back-lit Keyboard
And now, the
$999 Apple MacBook
SYSTEM COLOR White
PROCESSOR 2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
WARRANTY AND SERVICE 90 days complimentary support and 1 year repair
DISPLAY 13.3-inch (diagonal) glossy widescreen
MEMORY 2GB 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM - 2x1GB
HARD DRIVE 120GB Serial ATA Drive @ 5400 rpm
VIDEO CARD NVidia GeForce 9400M
OPTICAL DRIVE SuperDrive 8x (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
WIRELESS CARD 802.11abgn
NETWORK CARD Integrated network connector 10/100/1000 LAN (RJ45)
INTEGRATED WEBCAM Integrated iSight 1.3M Pixel webcam
BATTERY OPTIONS 55 Whr Lithium Polymer Battery
KEYBOARD Keyboard (English) / User's Guide
So, now if we want to make comparisons, it's much more "Oranges to Oranges." (To avoid the obvious pun.) The $999 HP laptop meets or beats the specs on the $999 Apple MacBook.
You may be starting to assume from this post that I really don't like Apple or the Mac, you'd assume incorrectly. I do not dislike Apple or their computers. I'm actually even typing this post while using my Mac. To me, whatever you need to do your job the best is what you should use, be that Mac or PC. What does sometimes drive me absolutely nuts though is the mentality of some Apple/Mac fans, that the hardware is some how so much better than the PC. I will give you that the design of Apple's computers is amazing. But here is where I may burst some Apple fans' bubbles...the inside of your Mac....(I'll whisper this part) is a pc! Isn't that insane!!! They did this to you when they switched the Mac over from the PowerPC platform to Intel. Don't start with the "OS X is so much better than XP, Vista, etc." I'm not talking about operating systems or software. Notice I left those out of the specs.
Going back to the $700 laptop the girl in the commercial purchased. If you look at the specs, it's actually not REALLY a bad laptop at all. The processor runs at 2.1 GHz. Yes the AMD Turion chip is still slower than either of the 2 laptops spec'd above but for her it's probably fine. Plus the Turion chip helps keep the cost of the laptop down. It's most likely going to be a home use pc so who cares that it doesn't have gigabit ethernet. Honestly, how many normal home users actually have gigabit ethernet switches/routers in their house? 802.11n...still not even a ratified standard and isn't expected to be published until at least January 2010. So again, is it really that big a deal for the average home user? For $700 the girl got a 17" widescreen laptop with a 2.1GHz processor, 4GB of ram, a hard drive that is 200 GB bigger than the one in the $999 MacBook, and a DVD Recorder. Not a bad deal at all.
Are Mac prices starting to come more in line with PCs? I'd say yes but, spec for spec they are still overpriced. It's a good ad from Microsoft.....and a valid one.
(I've turned off comments because I'm certain I'll get flamed. This blog is normally used to keep my family updated on our life and as such don't want them to have to deal with flame comments. If you want to flame me...do it on twitter. @tonymimms)
