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From: es1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Ethan Solomita)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Price of NEW Macs (for comparison)
Message-ID: <1990Jul29.034643.3855@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu>
Date: 29 Jul 90 03:46:43 GMT
References: <139326@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> <1990Jul24.011128.188@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> <2651@corpane.UUCP>
Sender: news@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (The Daily News)
Reply-To: es1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Ethan Solomita)
Organization: Columbia University
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In article <2651@corpane.UUCP> sparks@corpane.UUCP (John Sparks) writes:
>es1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Ethan Solomita) writes:
>
>>	Of course it is! You aren't considering that the Macs
>>COME with the screen built in. And although a color monitor is
>>nice for most people (who buy on Educ. Disc.) the Apple
>>monochrome is just fine. It DOESN'T flicker and looks very solid.
>>The price for an A500 w/1MB, 2 drives, monitor and 20MB is
>>$1,369. This makes the Mac $280 cheaper.
>>	I'd say that at that price the SE/20 will be the most
>>sold Mac (on discount that is). An equivalent Amiga is much more.
>
>Well, whether or not a 9" B&W monitor 'is just fine' or not doesn't mean
>that a color monitor is not worth more. And the Educational discount price
>for a 20mb amiga 500 system is: $1208 
>
>You get 
>Bundle:
>A500P CPU (*WITH* keyboard and mouse! and 512K)
>1 meg memory
>Extra Floppy Drive (two total)
>Color Monitor (14" !!)
>
>for $799.
>
>The 20meg drive is $409. Total $1208. 
>
>Now on the Mac, for $1089, you only get ONE floppy drive and a B&W 9" monitor, 
>and have to buy the keyboard extra (another $100 bucks or so). 
>So your cost will be more like $1189 for the Mac SE/20meg. 
>
>Only $19 diff and you have color and an extra floppy on the amiga.
>

	Let me state publically that the price I have on my educ.
price sheets says $519 for the A590. It is true that the price
has come down on it (thank God) to $409, so the prices I quoted
were off by $110. I still believe my point is valid, although
somewhat tempered by this.
	BTW, the Mac Plus and SE do come with keyboards at the
quoted prices, that isn't extra. Admittedly color is desirable
for many instances, but not all. I think the advantage of a
non-flickering screen far outweighes the disadvantages of black
and white. Also, while we're discussing advantages inherent to a
system, the fact that the Macintosh is a compact and portable
unit is a plus.
	I hope Commodore is hard at work finding a way to put the
new display-enhancer chip of the A3000 into the other models.
Yes, poor MicroWay will suffer, but it will do too much for the
Amiga not to do so.
	You have to consider that not being the standard lowers
your value, so there have to be several other things to make up
for that. In summary, the positive points for an A500 bundle
system with A590 are: color, multitasking, better games, extra
floppy, better expandability. Advantages of the Macintosh: sharp
display without flicker, portable, standard, higher-quality
software, more science software, better support due to more
people having familiarity with hardware, computer's future is
more solid, better reputation, no Irving Gould running the show
8^>. Those are the main things to consider. The two systems are
within about $100 of each other. I think that most people will go
for the Mac, unless they are more into games or like playing
around with their computer.
	I think someone just defined a new acronym, IMAO. I think
that fits! 8^>
	-- Ethan

Ethan Solomita: es1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu

"If Commodore had to market sushi they'd call it `raw cold fish'"
		-- The Bandito, inevitably stolen from someone else