price comparisons - macbook vs. inspiron

Nuts ... this post has been sitting in my drafts folder since mid September ... better late than never ...

I just went through a conversation a few weeks ago with a younger staff member who wanted to buy a personal laptop.  She really wanted a mac.  When asked why a mac, she replied ... and I quote ... "because it's cool".  She's never used a mac, but Apple's advertising has worked it's magic on her.  When she went over what she wanted a laptop to do, I highly recommended a less "cool" Dell that would easily integrate with Exchange and let her do exactly what she wanted...for much less than a macbook.

Of course I was immediately challenged that macs "cost as much as PC's these days" ... or so Apple would have us all believe.  So I decided to see for myself.  Here are the results straight off the websites of Apple, Dell, and Lenovo (IBM) as of 9/8/2006.

COMPARISON #1

Figuring Apple's 13" screen would be small for most people (I wouldn't like it) I started off with first looking at the specs and price of the 15" MacBook Pro.

So $1999 gets me a 15.4" MacBook Pro with 1 year warranty and free shipping.

Over to Dell.com to configure a laptop as close as possible to the above specs.  I did NOT choose Dells lowest line of Inspiron laptops 'cause I wouldn't recommend them.  So I started configuring an Inspiron E1505 and ended up with this...

$1136 gets me a 15.4" Dell with 1 year at home warranty service and free shipping.  Oh, and to make things as equal as possible I upgraded to the higher rez screen (1680x1050 which is actually finer than the mac rez) and made sure it came with Windows Media Center so you can use it as your digital media center with your TV and stereo (wireless remote is extra $26) just like Apple's Front Row app.

I was not able to configure the Dell with 667MHz ram ... was not available as an option for whatever reason...get it from crucial.com if ya want.  The ram speed difference though would be mute when you compare Dell has 4MB L2 cache vs. 2MB for the mac AND, this is very notable, the Dell has a Core "2" Duo chip.  Side by side the Dell clearly has the hardware upper hand.  They do have different versions of ATI radeon video cards though both have 128MB ... I'm sure the difference between them is mute in everyday computing.  So although I think the Dell would be faster with the Core 2 chip and such I won't belabor that point.  And yes, the Dell has Firewire, 4 USB2 ports, express card slot, and handy flash memory slot.

So I can save $863 $845 (edit because I forgot to add bluetooth) by going with the Dell.  Yes, you'll want good anti-virus and anti-spyware solutions ... AVG Free and Windows Defender fit the bill perfectly and cost $0.  If you want Microsoft Office but can't afford it ... OpenOffice is about as close to a clone of Office as you can get and it costs $0.  Of course church staff can purchase a charity license of the real Office2003 Pro for a mere $60.  So I'll add the $60 bucks for Office2003 Pro to the Dell total ... so I'm still saving $803 $785 by getting a Dell that has complete compatibility with our church network.  Hmm, and that's without calling a Dell rep and getting them to lower the price which they always do.

So what about Lenovo/IBM ... how do they compare to Apple?  Over to Lenovo.com ... Lenovo doesn't have much in the way of widescreen laptops so I was pretty much limited to the Z61 series.  Again trying to match the MacBook specs I ended up with ...

$1380 gets me a Lenovo Z61m with 1 year warranty and free shipping.  There is no Windows Media Center Edition option ... so no built-in features like Front Row.  Again, I'll add $60 for the price of Office2003 Pro ... so $559 less than a MacBook Pro.

At least in the laptop arena, the notion that Mac's are now comparable price wise to PC's looks like marketing untruths to me.  I can think of a lot of things I can do with the $803 I can save by getting a Dell :-)

END COMPARISON #1
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BEGIN COMPARISON #2

So I decided to go a bit further.  What is the absolute cheapest Mac laptop I could get?  And how would a similar (but not necessarily exact) Dell compare?  I'm pretending I'm on a tight budget so I don't want/need extras ... I just want a good basic laptop for everyday tasks for the least $$$.

So here's the entry level 13" MacBook price/specs ... that's it, there is no less expensive option from Apple.  Too bad ... many people can't afford $1100 ...

Then over to Dell to reconfigure that E1505 to see what kind of a deal I can get for a somewhat similar good everyday laptop ...

Dell doesn't have a widescreen smaller than 15.4" ... so I'm stuck with a much bigger screen :-)
Again the specs are similar, but I could not bump up to a Core Duo 1.83GHz to match the macbook ... my only option for the Dell is bump up to a 1.6GHz Core 2 Duo which is $150 and is above the class of the MacBook's 1.8 non Core 2 chip ... and it's not my fault Apple doesn't give the option for a different speed processor nor will I notice the diff between 1.6 and 1.83GHz for everyday tasks.
So including Office2003 Pro I'm getting a Dell with a MUCH larger screen for $390 less.  Not as big as the $803 savings for the more equipped laptops above, but I can think of lots of toys to get with $390.  (edit:  yes, comparo #2 is not an exact match hardware wise.  I already stated my objective was to spec out a very good everyday laptop for little $$$ and not match hardware ... it's not my fault you can't get a macbook under $1100 but you can a Dell)

END COMPARISON #2
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I'll prob do a similar comparo with desktops down the road to continue to satisfy my curiosity :-)

Sooooo, the next time I hear someone comment that macs and PC's cost the same these days I'll simply say, "oh really?" ... and then refer them to this blog post ;-)

PS >>> this is not meant to start some pointless mac vs pc debate ... this is a simple price comparison.  Hugs and kisses to my mac brothers and sistas.

PSS >>> for those still wondering ... to my surprise the staff person mentioned above did end up getting a Dell laptop.

Comments

[Brad]

I have had a Dell Inspiron e1505 since April and love it.

[Chris Marsden]

That is now, this is then.

When I bought my laptop (last year) I was looking for something small, light weight, and a good battery life. I also didn't want to settle for some entry level junk that I would hate as time went on. I looked at Dell, sony, fujitsu, apple, and at several others. What I discovered was that Wintel manufacturers consider their small light weight machines "business" machines and priced them higher than their 14-15" models. Apple, however, considers their 12" model as an entry level machine (smaller means you must not need to do as much). Feature for feautre, and all that, I actually saved around $100 and got the Mac I wanted. I debated a long time and went back and forth quite a bit. I don't exist in a Windows domain, so Exchange and all that is not a concern for me.

I think the current, "Apple is as cheap as Dell" statements are in reference to the Mac Pro. I have not done the numbers myself, so who knows if that is really true, or just manipulated.

Personally I love my Mac and have no intention of "going back." I still try and keep up with Windows since at this point any "real world" computer guy is going to have to deal with windows more often than not. Once VMware picks up Mac virtualization on a PC and PC virtualization on the Mac, I would probably buy Dell or Fujitsu laptops (with the Mac OS as primary) and Mac Desktops (virtualization doesn't handle video well).

[Jason Powell]

Good point Chris. You are right that the smaller PC laptops cost more than their 14" counterparts. They are designed to be as fast as the 14" models just with added portability for the road warrior business person. I should run a comparo between the 13" macbook and the small Dell and IBM models.

[Brett Anderson]

This "Macs are cheaper" thing all started with the new Mac Pro. Apple stepped it up when they introduced the Mac Pro, because it was like $800 cheaper than a similar Dell Precision workstation. Because the Mac Pro is running dual Xeon processors, it's considered a "workstation" and not a "desktop," so you have to compare it to other workstations. In that arena it's cheaper by far, but Apple has a long way to go to compete in the other product lines.

[Jesse J. Anderson]

For your macbook comparison you forgot to account for a built-in mic/webcam, and the iLife software and numerous other things, and you seriosuly don't think you will notice a differece between a 1.6 and a 1.83Ghz?? And how much does that Dell weigh? And not to mention the extra included junk software on the Dell that you have to hassle with removing (free AOL Trial anyone?), the lack of needing any sort of virus or spyware protection software. As well as the lack of BSOD. And the faster wireless connection. And the close-the-lid sleep mode that actually works. And a million other things that just make Mac better than Dell.

Plus if needed it will run Windows in a variety of different ways.

I mourn for your misguided staff person. =P

[Brian Marquis]

When I was looking for my next laptop in May, I had a difficult time deciding just on features/price alone. I noticed that most of the Windows laptops at the time where not using a dual core chip, and came with XP Home or Media, and that I'd have to pay a bit extra for XP Professional.

In the end, for the computer that I wanted, the Macbook Pro was about $200 more. Since I do web development and linux support as well as windows programming, I opted for the Mac running Parallels desktop.

I also advise first-time computer buyers to be aware that new computers are almost always cheaper than ones released 3 to 6 months earlier. Truth is that the price of a new laptop is lower now than it was when the Macbooks were first released. That way they don't get discouraged when they see a cheaper computer a month or two later.

Historically, Apple rarely drops prices for shipping products. However, they have been known to increase the features frequently. A case in point is the Intel Mac mini, which offered an introductory model with Intel Core Solo for $599. It now ships with a Core Duo chip and still sells for $599. The iMac is another excellent example, which debuted this year with an Intel Core Duo chip. It now contains a Core 2 chip.

I'm curious to know whether Dell or other PC manufacturers provide motion detectors within their laptops. The Macbook Pro offers this as a standard feature, not that I'd ever want to test it ;)

[Kirt Manuel]

I think you pretty much ate up your savings doing all the comparisons. ;)

[Jason Powell]

Jesse - thanks for your clearly biased and IMO unhelpful comments. Perhaps you should go back and reread what I wrote. This windows sucks macs rule mentality is unproductive and frankly makes me want to barf :-)

Brian - IBM began shipping laptops with accelerometers long before Apple :-) I believe Dell still does not have such a feature ... can't comment on any other manufactures.

[Derek Hatchard]

You just knew this post would attract comments. :) In my experience with Dell laptops, you need to compare MacBook Pro against Latitude, not Inspiron.

[Jason Powell]

Derek - Agreed, but for a personal home user's laptop the Latitude is lacking some features ... and it doesn't have Media Center Edition to compare with Front Row.

A mac and PC post attracting comments? Who would have thought ;-)

[utech]

The whole cost debate has focused on the workstation line, I think Apple still recognizes that there laptops are higher priced, heck there is a $300 premium to get black.
I think the fact that you can run WinXP and OSX on Mac hardware does have some value, maybe not for your user in mind but for some of us it does. Also, this may be petty, but have you called Dell Support lately? I have had a much easier time with Apple. But hey, at least both of them have/had exploding batteries :)
Good post Jason, it is good to see that you are at least giving some thought to it - those of us who live in both camps appreciate it.

[Adam T.]

Agree they are over priced but its a small price to pay for joy of using my mac. I have no disire to say which is better, but FOR ME. . . . its not about the money, its about the fact that it works for what I want and its easy and makes sense to me. Granted . . . I'm not IT guy. . . . but for the small brained guy such as myself. I'm happy to pay the extra.

Love you jason. . . . . . oh by the way, loved it when you walked in the office today and said, and I quote: "Where's the best place to dump!. . . . . . . . . . . . . long pause . . . . . my empty boxes?" it was great. I had a good chuckle at my cubicle.

Later.

[AJ]

FYI: It's not completely a straight comparison because you fail to take into consideration things like the magnetic power connector, iSight, iLife software, Bluetooth, Firewire port, and the accelerometer hdd protection mentioned earlier. That extra $863 does buy you a lot of extra stuff... the question just hangs on whether you value it. And that depends on what you do.

[AJ]

Oops, I just realized that the Lenovo has a firewire port.

Perhaps that's where the ~$300 price difference comes between the Lenovo and Dell? :)

That and I think the extra quality of the Thinkpad is well worth the extra cost, FWIW.

[Peter Webber]

Jason--

I also would like to mention dell's complete care. You could tack on a couple (up to 4) years of AT Home, Next Day, Anything Goes, Idiot Proof Insurance.....

coverage for things like... spilled coffee... afternoon fits of rage(laptops can be thrown very far)-- all things that would promptly void your mac (and most other's) warrantee

Even with completecare, your inspiron e1505 is probably going to come out cheaper.

[Jesse J. Anderson]

Jason - Well barf away my friend because you're fueling the macs suck pcs rule side of the equation. I didn't realize that pointing out inaccuracies in your attempt to prove macs are over-priced was so unhelpful. Maybe if you would read the points I made instead of making a biased "this guy must love macs, his comments aren't worth anything" assumption you could at least clarify why you didn't consider any of these points in your price comparison.

I can deck out a Dell laptop and make it a good chunk of $500 more than the cost of a mac laptop and just litter a that "comparison" with comments like "the difference in processor speed isn't really that important, so these are basically equal even though they aren't" and just ignore the fact that the more expensive laptop has features that the cheaper one is lacking. It's easy to say offhand that extra features such as the webcam aren't important but I could do just the same by decking out the over-priced Dell with a 3d card and just saying "I didn't feel the need to have a 3d card because most people don't even use that anyways, it's just a wasted feature."

But that just wouldn't be a very fair comparison now would it.

And by the way, I'm not a Windows Sucks Macs Rule guy. I use PCs and Macs and up until about a year and a half ago I held that same bias against Apple, like because I used a PC I had to hate Apple. Then I decided to give Apple a try and they won me over by just being a higher quality more stable product that happens to be really well designed. There are things I miss about OS X when I'm Windows but vice versa as well. I just think if you're going to try to prove a price comparison you can't just ignore as many aspects as processor speed (honestly that's the big glaring over-sight that forced me to comment), included extras (i.e. built-in webcam, built-in mic, motion sensor, etc), pre-installed software, weight, screen-size, battery life, etc.

[Joshua Gregory]

One thing I wish my Inspiron 9300 had that I used to have on my Powerbook: Back-lit keyboard! This is the greatest invention since the wheel mouse, and I can't believe that all laptops don't have it yet.

[Jason Powell]

Yeehaw!

Jesse - read any of my prior posts on how we're trying to help our mac users ... then tell me I'm a macs suck windows rules kinda guy ... or ask any of our mac users at GCC ... we're doing more for our hand full of mac users than we probably should given their very small % compared to our PC users :-)

I'm not an apple hater though I think their marketing is full of half truths ... and I do take issue with the many zealots out there that always slam windows ... and I mean always. And it's always the same old argument ... BSOD, crashing, freezing, viruses, etc ... pc vs. mac ... it's old and pointless. I lumped you in that group because you made the same points that are always brought up and just aren't true these days ... besides, I've seen plenty of macs freeze, crash (that unhappy face is a riot), and due goofy stuff.

If I offended I apologize ... your post just seemed to reiterate the same old comments and honestly sounded like troll bait so I bit ... you didn't back up your claims with any data either :-) ... we have close to 200 PC's and I don't see BSOD, constant crashing, rampant viruses, spyware, etc. Sure, windows has issues, all OS do. I run my desktop and laptop for weeks at a time without a single hiccup or restart needed ... and I'm even running beta software (typing this using Vista RC1)!

You seem hung up on the one processor comment dealing with the 2nd comparison... I thought I made it clear that the next higher processor I could get for that lower end Dell was bumping it up to a core 2 duo ... and it'd STILL be less than the macbook ... AND I'd have a nice 15.4" widescreen to boot AND only one ram slot filled (the macbook is full). Let me do a double blind test with you and see if you can actually tell the difference between 1.6 and 1.83 GHz in everyday computing tasks. If it bothers you that much just ignore the 2nd comparo and focus on the first which was my real aim anyways :-)

You did also notice that in the first higher end comparo the Dell had a core duo and the macbook pro did not...also notice I didn't belabor that point in my post though I easy could have made that a HUGE HUGE deal. Save $800 AND have a much better/faster core 2 processor than the macbook pro AND higher rez screen. The macbook pro comparison was what I really cared about ... I just added the macbook comparo as an afterthought.

So to answer some of your "macbook is better because" claims ...

Built-in mic?? I had to go digging for this one ... no built-in mic on the inspiron? That's whack. I only buy Latitudes which due have mics so just assumed inspirons did to. I can see how having a mic with webcam would be needed ... headset is far superior to some built-in mic of course, but it's nice to have a built-in when you really need it.

Firewire 400 on the macbook ... the Lenovo has firewire and so does the Dell. Firewire 400 is basically USB2 speed anyways. Firewire800 is where the speed is.
Here's all the ports you get with the Dell 1505
I/O Ports
IEEE 1394
4-USB 2.0 (Universal Serial Bus) compliant 4-pin connectors
Flash Memory Slot - Secure Digital (SD) and SD/IO compliant 5-in-1 Combo Card connector - reads MS, MS Pro, SD/SDIO, MMC, xD CD type I/II, & IBM Microdrive through ExpressCard adapter
Video: 15-pin monitor connector
S-Video: 7-pin mini-DIN connector
Audio jacks: Stereo headphones/speakers mini-connector (same as line-out), microphone mini-connector
Slots
One ExpressCard slot 54mm 1.5 V and 3.3 V

Does the macbook have a flash memory slot? I do like that the mac has digital audio in/out ... again, not that it's really that useful or needed.

Bluetooth ... my bad on that one ... I didn't realize it was an add on for the dell ... add a whopping $18 to add internal bluetooth card. I've updated the post to reflect that.

Battery life ... they both have standard 6 cell batteries 53 and 55Watt hour ... of course with the Dell I can get the optional 9 cell battery (85WHr) for an additional $90 with the $800 I saved over the macbook pro. And I can also run dual batteries simultaneously ... twin 9 cell batts will last a crazy LONG time! Of course the added weight is something to consider.

Faster wireless?? Not sure where that's coming from ... where's your data to back that up? The Dell has an optional 802.11n wifi card if you want really fast wireless and have a .11n access point.

Webcam ... true, no such option for Dell or Lenovo. I don't see that as a big selling point today ... maybe in a couple years. Ditch the webcam and put a fingerprint reader on the macbook ... that would actually be extremely useful. I love the fingerprint reader on my Lenovo.

Screensize? Are you referring to the 13" macbook as being better than 15.4? If you want small then yes, that's a plus. Most people want a larger screen.

Weight? Best I can tell it's a 1 pound difference with the mac being lighter. Of course I'd opt to run the Dell with dual batts for crazy long runtime at the expensive of weight.

Motion sensor? Lenovo has it (actually way before Apple ever did) but Dell doesn't. It's certainly a nice feature, but is in NO WAY security from a hard drive crash ... you still have to back up your critical data. Drop a laptop with a motion sensor and let's see how well it protects the drive ;-)

Pre-installed software? I've played around with iLife before ... we had a macbook pro to experiment with for a couple weeks. Honestly, except for a few of the apps, the rest have very limited use ... especially Comic Life. Add Microsoft Office to a Dell and you're ready to be productive ... or go get OpenOffice. True, it's not pre-installed unless you pay for it. My favorite mac app is Keynote. Again, I don't see this point as a huge selling point. Everyone I know, mac or PC, goes out and downloads/installs stuff off net.

So I think I covered as much of the "other" details as possible...and at this point I'm now even more convinced the $785 I could save with that Dell is the better deal. Your mileage my vary...

Glad you love your mac ... that's great ... have a nice day :-)

[Jason Powell]

I might also mention that we're moving all laptops at GCC from Dell to IBM/Lenovo ... more on that in a later post somewhere down the road.

[Jesse J. Anderson]

Aww I wrote a long post last night but it looks like it didn't actually post.

Anyways boiled down to agree to disagree and though I still find your data faulty (at least in the 2nd MacBook example) the argument is kind of moot anyways. And that most of what I've written has been the sort of thing said with a sly grin, jokingly jabbing.

And good to hear you guys are moving from Dell to Lenovo's... I've heard much better things about the Lenovo's. If you're gonna stick with crappy old PCs might as well pick the better of the bunch ;)

[Mac User]

I used to be a pc guy. Then one day I stopped by Hollywood, realized the people doing the stuff I love use Macs. After my arm was twisted ( and pretty much broken... ) I switched to Mac ( when I said my arm was broken, I really meant PC... it crashed 3 times in one summer... and yes... I had an IT guy running Chevron servers helping me... he kinda knew what he was doing ). Anyways, long story short... I can now finish my videos, it's beautiful.

It all comes down to what you want to do. If you're typing up a word document, Windows or Mac will do... I personally think it's more fun on a mac... I get bored and need my widgets ( yes... yahoo has them, google has them.. but what OS has perfected them? ). Guess what? My mac crashed!!! AHHH!! But I plugged it into another computer... held down T and started it in Target disk mode, backed up my info just in case... popped in the OS disks and whala... half an hour later I hadn't lost anything except the half hour it just took... computers crash. O well... but you don't have to lose everything. If you want to make videos or music or any other such media driven stuff, again, either platform will work, one platform has actually been designed to do it better though. I'm still trying to find where the PC wins on this thing... I was gonna do a little comparison... like if you want to do Excel spreadsheets and other boring stuff.. buy a PC... but you can do that junk on Mac too... and the icons look better! So it comes down to this, use what you prefer. If you prefer waiting 5 years for your OS to be updated with sweet new features that they steal from an innovative company, go for it. If you prefer going with the innovative company right off the bat... seems like a smarter, faster, less painless way to go. If you don't have the $1100 to buy a computer from Apple, get a dell, it's virtually the same thing right? ( O yeah.. I forgot you have to run windows... we should factor that in too next time... ). Bad OS = cheap. Good OS you actually want to use = Priceless.

[Jeffrey Myers]

GCC=Innovative Church
MAC=Innovative Computers

What's the disconnect here?

Ok that was a joke. This debate will rage to the end of time I have no doubt. I love that you posted this. The mac-evangelists got their fuel from Job's WWDC speech unveiling the new Mac Pro's, in which he showed a price comparison of a Dell with the same specs as the mac pro.

Everything else I admit will be much more expensive than a windows machine.

And lets just face it, the only reason you PC guys hate mac is because there's less video games. Get an Xbox maybe? I have one, I love it. Thanks Bill Gates, I love the xbox. It doesn't even crash.

Ok.......tons of sarcasm.......love you.......wish I knew how to work a windows computer.......wish I had a full time job........wish I was you.

My mac just made me coffee.