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From: barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: The lawyer
Message-ID: <476@kaos.MATH.UCLA.EDU>
Date: 3 Oct 90 04:46:36 GMT
References: <90275.162540UH2@psuvm.psu.edu>
Sender: news@MATH.UCLA.EDU
Organization: UCLA Dept. of Math, UCLA Inst. for Fusion and Plasma Research
Lines: 49

In article <90275.162540UH2@psuvm.psu.edu> UH2@psuvm.psu.edu (Lee Sailer) writes:
>And now for something completely different.
>
>A friend of mine, a high priced lawyer in a big downtown firm, wants
>to buy a computer.  He and his law firm are both pretty computer
>illiterate.  He has narrowed it down to a MacII or a NeXT.
>He'll spend about $7,000 and can get the educational discount due
>to a faculty appointment at the local U.
>

At that price, he can't get _any_ Mac II fx (a diskless one with any
decently large monitor is > $7000) so his only option is a Mac IIci, which
with an 80MB drive and 13'' color or 15'' mono monitor will run him at least $5600.
That tops off to an even $7000 if you add in the Apple ``Personal LaserWriter''
SC (which is slow, and non-PostScript).

But, for $5600, he can  get the NeXTStation Color---if color
is important to him. He doesn't need the full distribution, so the
standard 105MB drive with 35MB + floppies is probably enough for now.

(Once his demands grow, he may want to add an external drive.)

Throw in the NeXT laser printer, and that puts you right at $7000. And
what you've got is roughly 2--3 times better on all specs than the Apple
system. (e.g, 3x as fast, 2x the RAM, largwer screen, printer twice
as fast, almost twice the resolution, PostScript over QuickDraw...) not
to mention a free copy of Improv and other bundeled stuff (dictionary,...)

And, if color is not important to him, that frees up about $2300---thats
enough to buy him a document scanner (Canon Image Scanner, $1550) and fax 
support (Mirage Fax, $895)!

(But, if he wants to get carried away, he could buy the Visus Scanner, Fax Modem
and support software (with filing, OCR, etc) for about $3500---only $1200 over
budget; maybe on budget if they give academic discounts.)

(With the Mac option, no color doesn't really free up anything, because
a decent sized BW monitor is the same price as their small color monitor.)
-----------

In short, for someone with no bias toward Mac (e.g. working in a all Mac office),
its _obvious_ that NeXT gives you much more for your money---and much more period.


--
Barry Merriman
UCLA Dept. of Math
UCLA Inst. for Fusion and Plasma Research
barry@math.ucla.edu (Internet)