Doren -
Your post had so much in it to comment about, but I'll just select a few things.
You said that you were amazed by comparisons between G4s and Pentium IIIs. Basically, the only reason I made that particular comparison was in response to another poster's comment about P4s being faster than G4s.
I completely agree with you that AMD is a greater threat than Intel at present, because they are producing faster and arguably better chips than Intel. That's why I'm long AMD, and why my next PC will probably have a pair of Athlons in it. (I'm also planning on getting the fastest Mac I can lay my hands on when OS X ships.)
You also said "Comparing a Dual Processor Mac at $2600 to a crappy single processor Intel machine at $1500 is comparing a $2600 machine to a crappy $1500 machine."
Actually, the comparison that I referred to came from PC Magazine, and it was between a decidedly non-crappy Dual Processor 1 GHz PIII machine and a Mac G4 500DP. That's TWO, not one, 1 gigahertz processors. Yet the lowly dual 500 MHz held its own against it. I do think that's a meaningful comparison, since the PC really ought to smack the Mac silly, but it doesn't.
By the way, I priced out a similarly configured PC at Dell and came up with $3,821. All things considered, I think I'd be happier overall using the Mac.
I do use both PCs and Macs, and have for a long time. I agree that the PC is better for some things, and the Mac for others. I also think that most users will have only one machine, and will have to use it for everything they do. My wife has only her Mac, and she doesn't worry about how it compares to my current 800MHz Pentium III box.
In a way, I agree that comparisons between x86 and Motorola processors are meaningless. The fact is that people choose a Mac because they want a Mac. They don't say, "Hey, the PC is faster for the same money, so I'll get a Dell." They want to use Macs because they've discovered that they like using Macs.
Many PC users have never used a Mac, or have used them only a little. They don't want to switch because the Wintel world is familiar to them, or because they prefer it.
Because there are so many different kinds of computer users in the world, being long on AAPL and AMD at the same time makes sense (to me). It's not really a matter of one type of machine being "better" than the other. There are buyers for both types.
- Allen |
