Quote:
Originally Posted by
PXT 
My friend is a well-paid freelance consultant. He pointed out that with the time he had spent trying to get his Vista laptop to work properly, he could have bought a Macbook - and a Mercedes.
The value of a Mac increases with the value you put on your time and frustration - whether you measure that financially or, more importantly, as time to spend doing something else with your life.
I think this is a good point that many people here who base their purchases on price alone just do not get.
For example, I use a Mac in the office where everyone else uses Windows. Every day there is drama with the Windows machines where if it's not the physical machine being unstable, they have problems with system stability, crashes, freezing, BSD, viruses, etc.. So much productivity is lost that people do not factor in. It's irrelevant that they use many common parts, it's the entire package which includes the parts, build-quality, OS, user-experience, product-support, etc. Things the critics never really take into consideration.
My Mac on the other hand, never had anything go wrong with it and I spend all my time using my Mac as the tool it should be as opposed to a Windows machines that is like a patient on life-support.
I bill by the hour and my clients expect results. The money I would lose on lost productivity due to those problems more than surpasses the extra money spent up-front on a Mac.
The Wallmart documentary says it best: "The high cost of low prices".
I'm not against low prices. Even in this economy, it would be ridiculous to waste money that does not need to be spent. But one gets what they pay for.
But those defenders of low prices must have had their head stuck in the sand for so long that their backs are permanently stuck in that position. So sad.