Macs are cheaper to own than PCs

According to IBM!

I have to agree - more expensive overall but the initial higher investment pays for itself in reliability, longevity and better mental health.

Your experience?

1 Like

Yes.

Yes was all I was going to say, as it said it all, but apparently I must only submit a comment that is more than five characters so I had to extend the length of this post.

I could, perhaps, be annoyed by this, as once I reached middle age I am in fact entitled to get annoyed at how things aren’t as good as the used to be, such as how great a laconic, pithy one word response (preferably squeezed out the side of a barely open mouth) could be compared with the world of blithering, 140 character vaccu-tribes than emanate from the empty headed youth of today.
And don’t get me started on the choice facing America next month between a vulgarian boor with a really bad haircut who has made, lost and made a fortune, and a cookie cutter establishment type who from emails is clearly a crook gotten rich from selling access to the establishment and has a low opinion of the average American (as do we all, but I digress). The sad thing is, there is a large number of fool voters who think either of these clowns will run the country for the people? Ha! Ha! Ha! They will milk the current and future taxpayers to line the pockets of themselves and their mates. The Crony Trinity of Big Government, Big Business and Big Unions all looking after the golden horde of trough feeders at the top. They even breed together.

At least Americans can choose not to vote, unlike the poor plebs in this country who are actually fined if they choose not to vote because they would feel like a turkey voting for Christmas, knowing that no matter who it is they will be plucked. The sheep in this country do not dare to give their masters the upturned finger. This cesspool is run by its own version of the establishment and their smug myopic friends croaking about their little pond, and it is just the way they like it. The sad thing is the many of the proletariat think one side is for the rich, and the other for the workers. That is what the labor-ral party wants you to think. Yet they somehow find fat little posts for their seeming political enemies and associated circus of trough feeders to boost their comfortable taxpayer funded super with a little extra six figure taxpayer padding of a Commissioner for Something Useless or the Consul for Some Nice Holiday Place.

And don’t get me started on the delay in new macs. Just as well they are having this Mac event on Halloween, as Apple definitely needs to bring something back from the dead. So it’s either the Mac or Steve Jobs. Personally I’m hoping for Steve Jobs so he can kick Cook up the arse and make him remember that more than the supply chain fuels the Apple train. Jobs could tell Cook while he is boxing him about the ears that the Mac is the heart of the company by which all things orbit. Flashy iPhones are cool, but ultimately ephemeral.

Ephemeral like the young whipper snipper hipsters of today with expensive degrees only good for barista work, or to go on the self absorbed artists’ subsidy aka NewStart. Universities don’t care, you fill a seat and they get this ginormous lump of taxpayer dollars lightly padded by a hefty student loan. The university gollums have their snouts deep in the taxpayer trough, only surfacing to spew tired and old Marxist crap. Just because every single time since 1918 socialist States didn’t work out just means it will really, truly work this time. Sure. Just remember these grey haired kids never left school.

So…where was I? Oh, yeah. Yes, I find total cost of mac ownership quite good. Yes the initial purchase price is steep, but the machine lasts longer and when it does have something go wrong with it, often Apple fixes it for nix. Sometimes at least. Anyway, there is also the pleasure of using Mac OS X on an attractive machine. That maximises my utility quite well.

So, Yes.

edit: (3,779 characters with spaces)

5 Likes

Best post of 2016 nominee right here… gold!

I’d disagree. At times in the past maybe, but I think IBM is talking about a corporate support environment where the ease of use and lower update costs would kick in. I’d agree with ease of use, I’d disagree with Longevity as Apple likes to cut support off for no reason whatsoever. I would also agree with mental health.

My 2008 Macbok White was purchased for $1800 in October 2008, a couple of months earlier a $350 Compaq was bought. The Macbook lost software support in Mid 2012. The Compaq still runs Windows 10.

Over the years, the Compaq was upgraded to Windows 7, then 8 then 10 - I think that cost around $300 and then a $100 charger replacement. Over 8 years the total cost has worked out at about $750.

The Macbook was upgraded to Snow Leopard, then Lion, then Mountain Lion - around $80 IIRC, the battery was replaced after a failure, the charger was replaced twice for a total of $329. That brings that to $2,209 and that was only for 3.5 years.

So $2209 spent on the Mac got me 3.5 years of support, then 6 months till school required me to have software that would only run on Mountain Lion, necessitating a new Macbook. The Compaq which over 8 years has cost $750 still runs fine today, Windows 10 runs well on it.

1 Like

The article seems to focus on support costs, not something the average home user needs to worry about. And if they are even a little tech savvy (ie don’t install the dancing monkey app) Windows doesn’t need a lot of upkeep either. Other than the Windows 10 upgrade my Surface Pro hasn’t been touched (and my XP and 7 VM’s are also still humming along without issue).

I think you just got a really unlucky model there @Oldmacs. In mid 2009 they phased out the older style white MacBooks for the newer “unibody” plastics ones. Of the old models, the Early 2009 run’s everything up to El Capitan and the Late 2009 models can run Sierra. Sadly the 2008 models seem to fit in the same category as the original intel based ones from 2006 and got cut off :frowning:

Windows requirements were going up slowly… then they took the approach to try and cram windows on lower specced/embedded machines which means the requirements today are 1GHz+, 2GB RAM+ . so pretty low really. Funnily enough your old 2008 MacBook would run Windows 10 if you upped the stock RAM (the Intel GMA X3100 in those machine support up to DirectX 10). Even the 2006 model MacBooks meet the minimum requirement :wink:

Obviously, that’s why Compaq is still around.

Oh, wait…

2 Likes

Regardless of this, it has happened time and time again - Apple has cut models off from support for no reason - Windows runs on hardware that is far far far older - I’m fine with cut offs when the hardware can simply not handle it, (Leopard on a G3 would not have flown for example) but not the arbitrary cut offs we’ve seen in Sierra, Mountain Lion and to some extent Lion. Even the last generation of PPC Macs only got around 3 years of support.

This is my point - My 2008 Macbook is better supported by Microsoft than by Apple - and it was not a cheap laptop. I have Windows 10 on it and it runs better than 10.7 did. People bang on about how light and refined OSX is, when in reality, at least in performance terms Windows 10 is far better. OSX on anything other than an SSD is a misery. But thats besides the point.

If you’re lucky you can get a great life span out of a Mac. My Aunt and Uncle purchased a Late 2008 Unibody Aluminium Macbook not long after my White Macbook was purchased, and they’ve gotten support up till now (their machine was one of the machines cut from Sierra for no particular reason). Though, they’d have gotten the same distance (Maybe more) out of a cheaper machine assuming the hardware didn’t die - Microsoft supports their older Operating systems far better than Apple.

That doesn’t even have anything to do with this! It could have been a machine from any other manufacturer.