Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!aplcen!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!cornell!vax5!pv9y From: pv9y@vax5.cit.cornell.edu Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc Subject: Re: Low cost Mac's ? Message-ID: <5111.26cfe834@vax5.cit.cornell.edu> Date: 20 Aug 90 17:40:03 GMT References: <3965@crash.cts.com> Distribution: comp Lines: 63 In article <3965@crash.cts.com>, pkovac@pro-truckstop.cts.com (Peter Kovac) writes: > In-Reply-To: message from boris@world.std.com > >>At these prices, Macs seem a lot more competitive > > Take a Mac Classic at $2000, take off 30% and you have a $1400 machine (if I > can do math). For $1300 you can get a 20Mhz 386 with more slots, 1 meg of > RAM, a drive, monochrome monitor, and keyboard. That's enough to bury the Mac > Classic. If the Mac Classic is similar to the SE or Plus, the $500-$700 price > range would be best. After all, an IBM XT clone costs around $400 and an AT > clone is about $700. Looking in the PC Today database of lowest PC prices, I see 4 of about 20 systems that are around $1300 for a 20 Mhz 386. Those include one disk drive, no hard disk, 1 meg RAM, Hercules mono monitor (which are terrible), and a sticker on it which says something to the effect of "Made with pride by Joe in Joe's No-name Computer Store". Hope you know Joe personally. Basically the issue is you get what you pay for. I'm perfectly willing to buy a PC clone from someone like Dell, but there's no way I would buy one from Joe's No-Name Computer Store, especially mail order. I'm a consultant and don't need much in the way of tech support, but I do like to think that the company will be around as long as I own the computer. The other thing you have to realize about the mega-low cost PC clone is that they use junk parts. THe reason Dell's prices are higher than Joe's are because Dell uses brand name parts. It also helps that Dell has excellent technical support. You can carry the analogy to the Yugo cars. They are incredibly cheap, but you run the risk of having the engine fall out when you sit down in it. That's why people still pay more for Hondas and Toyotas. So sure, the Mac Classic price might be a tad high, but you are getting something for that. Apple has consistent quality (occasionally bad, but consistent and they usually fix the big boo-boos), so you can be guaranteed of getting a Mac that works and works like all the rest of them. This is not true with PCs any more. Just ask the people whose hard disks were trashed by Windows 3.0 because they used a non-standard, but popular partioning scheme. That's not compatibility in my eyes. So yes, you are right about the PC-clones being cheaper. But when you are comparing apples and oranges (pun intended), you have to keep in mind what makes up the orange. And yes, Apple will probably lose some customers because their prices are higher. IBM and Compaq also lose customers because of that. But if people don't realize they are comparing apples and oranges, they obviously don't know enough about what they are getting into and should do more research. And if they still buy a mega-low cost PC clone, they get what they pay for. (And I won't even get into the real-world costs of making a PC clone into a supposedly graphical machine with Windows 3.0.) > > > > UUCP: crash!pro-truckstop!pkovac > ARPA: crash!pro-truckstop!pkovac@nosc.mil > INET: pkovac@pro-truckstop.cts.com -- Adam C. Engst pv9y@vax5.cit.cornell.edu ---------------------------------------------------------------------- "I ain't worried and I ain't scurried and I'm having a good time" -Paul Simon