Boy am I glad you posted this thread! lol. I am looking to purchase a new computer in October for a birthday present to myself and was comparing the Sony Vaio and MacBook Pro. I really want the Mac, but wasn't 100% convinced the price tag was worth it. The more I read about it the more I think it is though...this thread being no exception. lol.
Re: Macbook Pro/ Sony Vaio/ Gateway Netbook Your opinion
Originally Posted by WarriorPrincess90
Boy am I glad you posted this thread! lol. I am looking to purchase a new computer in October for a birthday present to myself and was comparing the Sony Vaio and MacBook Pro. I really want the Mac, but wasn't 100% convinced the price tag was worth it. The more I read about it the more I think it is though...this thread being no exception. lol.
When people say that Macs are more expensive than PC's they aren't looking at the whole picture. Spec for spec they are usually on par with their PC counterparts (not including custom built as custom built rigs don't have manufacturer costs included) Apple simply does not make super low end products. To get a PC with the same processing power as a MBP you will be paying almost the same.
I will say though Apple charges far too much for RAM upgrades and internal storage (hard drives/solid state drives) but most of the time those can be upgraded by the user at a lower cost (but some of their products cannot Unfortunatly)
Re: Macbook Pro/ Sony Vaio/ Gateway Netbook Your opinion
Originally Posted by The Serpent Merchant
When people say that Macs are more expensive than PC's they aren't looking at the whole picture. Spec for spec they are usually on par with their PC counterparts (not including custom built as custom built rigs don't have manufacturer costs included) Apple simply does not make super low end products. To get a PC with the same processing power as a MBP you will be paying almost the same.
I will say though Apple charges far too much for RAM upgrades and internal storage (hard drives/solid state drives) but most of the time those can be upgraded by the user at a lower cost (but some of their products cannot Unfortunatly)
Good point. I really want the Mac, and in all honesty will probably be purchasing that. I'm upgrading from 4GB of memory to 8GB of memory though. I really didn't want a computer with less than 6GB. The upgrade is relatively inexpensive actually. I was impressed. It's only an additional $100 if you order through the Apple store. It won't have the 2.6 GHz of processing speed that the slightly more expensive one has, but with 2.3 GHz the difference is negligible. Or at least in my opinion.
The only real downside would be the cost of repairs after AppleCare coverage ends. My mother used to build and fix PCs as her career a few years ago...so it was always really convenient to have a PC. If anything went wrong, she could fix it in a few hours. (Usually.) If I get a Mac, I'm out of luck on that one.
I think it really depends on what you need to use it for and your preferences in terms of durability.
Sony doesn't compare if you need a computer for music or graphic design.
I run a lab with 20 mac pro towers not really on topic but as to security, in my experience they are far more secure. We have basically no anti virus software and no scanner at all. Each machine runs its own firewall but that is it. We have never had a virus hacked computer or Trojan in 18 years. My counter part whom runs the PC lab is constantly updating and jumping through hoops to keep the computers running well and virus free. In fact they re load the whole shooting match every week. It has proved to be the only way. I am just over two years and just updates have been loaded in fact I only do maintenance to the system every 14 weeks. This is with 2200 students using them. (most of my time is cleaning keyboards...) They are super stable and free from problems usually.
Price wise you need to compare power to power (geekbench). The mac pros (5.1) we are running are just over 4000$ a computer. The nearest PC speed wise is just under 11000 dollars (Dell Inc. PowerEdge R720) It is such a silly statement macs are more expensive... Macs are faster speed comes atr a price. Heck the old mac pro on my desk 2008 is only slightly slower than a Acer amd FX8120 new. It is crazy comparing a four year old computer to new off the shelf but ... I think the Acer is a bit faster but not by much.
Re: Macbook Pro/ Sony Vaio/ Gateway Netbook Your opinion
Originally Posted by kitedemon
Price wise you need to compare power to power (geekbench). The mac pros (5.1) we are running are just over 4000$ a computer. The nearest PC speed wise is just under 11000 dollars (Dell Inc. PowerEdge R720) It is such a silly statement macs are more expensive... Macs are faster speed comes atr a price. Heck the old mac pro on my desk 2008 is only slightly slower than a Acer amd FX8120 new. It is crazy comparing a four year old computer to new off the shelf but ... I think the Acer is a bit faster but not by much.
This is why I'm running a Mac pro lol I triple boot Mac OS X, Windows 7 Professional, and Red Hat Linux on it... and it is a beast.
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by WarriorPrincess90
I'm upgrading from 4GB of memory to 8GB of memory though. I really didn't want a computer with less than 6GB. The upgrade is relatively inexpensive actually. I was impressed. It's only an additional $100 if you order through the Apple store. It won't have the 2.6 GHz of processing speed that the slightly more expensive one has, but with 2.3 GHz the difference is negligible. Or at least in my opinion. 
