June 02, 2006
The illusion of price still haunts the Mac
Authored by Scott Silverman at 9:06 AM
Category | Hardware » My First Mac
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While the majority of MacUser readers will be those people very familiar with the Mac, its pricing structure, and its performance, we mustn’t forget there are many users out there who aren’t.
Many of my friends are in the process of discernment: they are choosing a new computer for college. Being the biggest technology buff of all my friends, I am often the one they turn to for advice, and am also one who judges their computer decisions most frequently. And being a Mac fan brings serious implications to this process.
I have run into numerous people who were either in one of two situations: 1) they assumed they were getting a PC from the beginning, or 2) they dismissed the possibility of a Mac because of price. Luckily for them, I was here. I showed them the ins and outs of Apple.com, highlighting most of all the price tag of the MacBook and its impressive features/OS (also duly noted was Boot Camp). When they saw the $1049 (academic) price tag of the MacBook, things rapidly changed: a Mac was now in their future. I converted 4 or 5 people through this method.
While I’m not preaching the converting of PC users, I am noting an illusion which still plagues the majority of PC users. Those poor little fellows are still living back in 2000 when Macs were expensive, and are thus missing out on one of the greatest computing experiences present in the world today. So next time you hear someone talking of a new PC, do your part and inform them of the affordable price and great features of a Mac.
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Comments
You're exactly right, Macs biggest downfall now is the pricetag. It's gotten a lot better, and has almost evened out, but there is still some difference.
Posted by: Austen | June 2, 2006 03:53 PM
Me and my friends are supposed to have laptops for our junior year at my school. Most of my friends turned to me, and I recommended them a mac. It's a little bit hard to convince them about boot camp and all those stuff since I can't carry my iMac to school and demonstrate. So I turned to YouTube. I showed them the MacSaber video, the SmackBook video, iAlertU video, and many more....oh yeah, the Parallels one too where the guy switched between mac os x, windows, and red hat linux. I switched about 20 of my friends......more of them are considering too!
PS If I were a salesman on commission, I'd be rich by now!
Posted by: wackybit | June 2, 2006 08:54 PM
Right on! I love converting people. Not just to Mac, but to simple things like Firefox over IE and gmail over any other webmail service. I'm lucky enough to have a ton of relatives who are jaded Windoz users and since they know I know a lot about computers, they turn to me. I'm guessing when I see my Aunt and Uncle over this next week, I will make them Mac zealots aswell. At this rate, no one will be interested in Windows XP or the upcoming Vista. Speaking of Vista, I hope everyone has checked out that video on google, where a Microsoft rep is talking about thier new OS while someone has taken the demonstration away and replaced it with somebody using Mac OS X, showing where Micro$oft is getting all their "innovative ideas." Just go here. Really funny;)
Keep converting people, Scott and so will I.
Posted by: Nate | June 2, 2006 09:59 PM
Macs or bust...
Posted by: Dan | June 3, 2006 11:17 PM