Microsoft's latest ad attacks Mac aesthetics, computing power - Page 3

Originally Posted by sequitur

Interesting. One of the things this article did was bring a lot of newbies out of the woodwork. How often has that happened?

Welcome to you new guys.

Originally Posted by AppleInsider

Continuing its advertising campaign which seeks to promote generic PCs running Windows as more attractive than Macs, Microsoft's latest spot plays up specifications over aesthetics as opposed to just suggesting that PCs are simply cheaper as the previous spot did. However, it ends up making the opposite point instead.

Following Lauren, the latest ad introduces Giampaolo, who says he's looking for portability, battery life, and power. "I'm technically savvy," he says, "I know what I want. I like a computer that allows me to customize." He's shown shopping at Fry's Electronics, where he picks up a unibody MacBook and says, "This is so sexy!"

Giampaolo then explains why he can't buy it, saying, "Macs to me are all about aesthetics more than they are the computing power. I don't want to pay for the brand, I want to pay for the computer."

Of course, it's really Microsoft that's paying for Giampaolo's computer, and Steve Ballmer is not going to pick up the tab for a MacBook. So instead, Giampaolo uses his $1500 budget to ultimately buy an HP Pavilion HDX 16t, which he says has everything he needs.

On HP's website, that model starts at $1000. At Fry's, the salesman in the ad points out its typical configuration of $1,100, although HP's "recommended configuration" is $1400, still within Giampaolo's budget. However, it's an odd choice for somebody who wants portability, as the 16" widescreen model he lugs out of Fry's weighs over 7.3 pounds naked, almost twice as much as the "sexy" MacBook that's "all about aesthetics."

HP certainly isn't "all about aesthetics." The cheap plastic body of the HP Pavilion HDX 16t is 1.7 inches thick, nearly twice as bulky as the MacBook. All that size surrounds a large 16" screen with a miserably low density 1366x768 screen resolution. Giampaolo could upgrade to the 1920x1080 option, but that would have bumped him over his artificial $1500 ad budget, even when applying a $200 instant rebate HP offers.

Battery life not so good

"What would have the best battery life, that could still accommodate my needs?" Giampaolo asked while shopping. It sure wasn't what he picked out.

HP rates its built-in battery for less than 3 hours, but reviewers gave it less than two. That's not very good at all for its category. HP also offers a $150 expansion battery that hangs off the back of the already large system to give it twice the battery life. The "sexy" MacBook is rated for 5 hours with a single battery.

"It's a pretty strong contender"

In terms of power, Giampaolo's third primary need, the "recommended configuration" of the HP Pavilion HDX 16t that he apparently purchased ships with a 2.13 GHz Core 2 Duo P7450 paired with 4GB of PC2-5300 DDR2 RAM, which is a slower memory architecture than Apple was shipping in early 2006 MacBooks three years ago.

The latest MacBooks that Giampaolo feared were "all about aesthetics" pair a Core 2 Duo P7350 or P8600 with PC3-8500 DDR3 RAM, delivering a peak transfer rate that's twice as fast as the HP machine Giampaolo selected.

So much for Macs being about "aesthetics more than they are the computing power," or Giampaolo being "technically savvy."

Hopefully, Giampaolo is at least technologically savvy enough to upgrade to the 64-bit version of Windows Vista (or downgrade to the 64-bit version of Windows XP) in order to actually take advantage of that 4GB of RAM, as the standard version of Windows can only actually use about 3GB of it, a technical problem he wouldn't face on the MacBook.

Given that only a fraction of the PC installed base runs a 64-bit version of Windows (Microsoft reported that less than 6% of users hitting its software update servers were running 64-bit Vista last June), there's lots of "technically savvy" PC users with loads of installed RAM their computer can't even use.

And while Giampaolo can upgrade to even more RAM, he can't upgrade his new system to use the faster DDR3 RAM specification used in the MacBook. That would make his system faster overall and allow it to take full advantage of the installed CPU's 1066MHz front side bus, which HP chose to cripple by pairing it with a 533MHz memory architecture to save money and deliver a cheap system for people who don't know what they're really buying as they shop at Fry's for good-sounding GB and MHz numbers rather than focusing on finding a computer that does the things they want it to do.

Giampaolo was distracted by marketing

Of course, with the scant money that he's saving (he could have bought the high end MacBook by matching Microsoft's money with his own $100), Giampaolo will now get to go shopping for software, where he can easily spend several hundred dollars just trying to match the features and usability of the free iLife and Mac OS X tools Apple bundles with the MacBook.
Giampaolo will also have to spend hours of his time installing and running antivirus and adware tools, and stay on the lookout for that Conficker computer worm that Microsoft is warning Windows PC users about on the front page of its corporate website.

The strangest point of this ad is that Giampaolo didn't get the portability, battery life, and power he was looking for, he just ended up with a cheap-appearing machine that obscured its real technical limitations under a flashy layer of misleading, specification-oriented marketing, the very thing he thought he was avoiding with HP: buying a brand rather than a computer. And that's exactly what Microsoft wants people to do: buy its brand rather than a computer that does what they want it to do.

Originally Posted by DiscoNomad

...Apple store is a different environment completely. At least you can actually get someone to help you. As always...no contest microsoft...keep trying.

Originally Posted by Quadra 610

Yecch, I wouldn't touch a Windows box with a ten-foot pole.

Originally Posted by randomdude

Why on earth would I want to spend nine hundred dollars extra to get identical specifications? What does a Macintosh have that could possibly justify this?

Originally Posted by mj93284

The equivalent of the MacBook is an HP DV3; they cost about $650-$1000, depending on configuration and weigh about 4.3 pounds.

Of course, the best way of running it is with Ubuntu: that way, you get inexpensive hardware, a great UI, and tons of free software. It beats both Apple and Microsoft hands down.

Originally Posted by abhin02

Hello all,
I recently switched over to Macs from PCs after several years of getting over the price hurdle, but bought two Mac Minis (new one for my parents, old Power PC one off eBay for myself). My main concern about buying any of the notebooks was the small displays except for the Macbook pro 17". Do the owners of the 13" usually use them with a large external monitor and use the laptop's display while only on the road, or is there some feature of OS X I'm missing that makes the small display a non-issue?

Thanks!

Originally Posted by razorpit

I wouldn't go that far. Out of the 15 or so people on the floor there is usually only 2 of them that know anything beyond iPhone, iPod, iLife, and OS X. The one person who could answer my program is always either on break, off for the day, or has a 2 hour line of people waiting to see him/her. I find most people there to be as equally annoying as at any CompUSA or BestBuy.

Originally Posted by abhin02

Hello all,
I recently switched over to Macs from PCs after several years of getting over the price hurdle, but bought two Mac Minis (new one for my parents, old Power PC one off eBay for myself). My main concern about buying any of the notebooks was the small displays except for the Macbook pro 17". Do the owners of the 13" usually use them with a large external monitor and use the laptop's display while only on the road, or is there some feature of OS X I'm missing that makes the small display a non-issue?

Thanks!

Originally Posted by Maxhomie

Welcome to a bunch of trolls that have turned this place into CNET? I don't post much, because I usually enjoy the exchanges between the more experienced and knowledgeable members.

However, you knew this was going to turn into flamebait. Just look at all the people who just signed up to give us their "wisdom"... a total infestation of people decrying "fanboys" and defending the honor of Microsoft and Linux and Ubuntu. (in fairness, some people who joined did so to defend Apple, but really -- this is the sort of thing that makes you want to contribute to a forum?)

I guess this site needed the traffic.


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Originally Posted by anantksundaram

What a great post (welcome yourself, newbie... )! I thought it was worthy of repeating, so I included the whole post in my reply.

Yeah, the level of trolling does seem to have gone up in proportion to AI's visibility. Too bad. I had found this forum to be such a sanctuary of largely like-minded Apple types who were not raging computing-bigots. I truly hope it doesn't end up like an engadget.com or cnet.com.

But what can you do.... ...

Originally Posted by the_steve

I hope Apple wakes up and realizes they don't need to extort such high prices for their hardware. Any company that has $18 billion in the bank has way too much profit margin!

Originally Posted by the_steve

I hope Apple wakes up and realizes they don't need to extort such high prices for their hardware. Any company that has $18 billion in the bank has way too much profit margin!

Originally Posted by kim chi

ok just to set the record straight on the macbook pro 15's battery ... it pretty much sucks. i get 3.5 hours out of it if i'm lucky, with almost everything shut down, the discrete graphics turned off, and the screen only illuminated to 2 bars. i've never gotten over 4 hours in this configuration, even when the machine was new.

Originally Posted by Virgil-TB2

Totally wrong dude.

Apple's profit margin on everything they sell is 32%.
Microsoft's profit margin on their stuff is 82%.

Microsoft is the one ripping you blind.

They are also the ones *forcing* the PC hardware manufacturers onto razor thin margins to compensate for the huge extra cost of their bloated OS.

Originally Posted by kenburg

But you know people are just going to look at a spec sheet and see faster processor, more RAM, bigger hard drive, bigger screen, dedicated graphics, less money and agree that he made the right choice.

Originally Posted by kenburg

Apple's hardware margin is 32%. You know they're making more than that on software sales - everyone does. Microsoft is a software company. HP is probably lucky to make 10% on their hardware.

Originally Posted by mj93284

The equivalent of the MacBook is an HP DV3; they cost about $650-$1000, depending on configuration and weigh about 4.3 pounds.

Of course, the best way of running it is with Ubuntu: that way, you get inexpensive hardware, a great UI, and tons of free software. It beats both Apple and Microsoft hands down.

Originally Posted by halfyearsun

that brings up a lot of interesting questions. would you touch it with an eleven foot pole? are there things that you would touch *only* with a ten foot pole? Like, I would touch that with a ten foot pole, but a nine foot pole would just be too close.

come back, demetri martin

Originally Posted by surferfromuk

If you can't tell then Mac's aren't for you - it's that simple.

Originally Posted by kenburg

Apple's hardware margin is 32%. You know they're making more than that on software sales - everyone does. Microsoft is a software company. HP is probably lucky to make 10% on their hardware.

Originally Posted by abhin02

Hello all,
Do the owners of the 13" usually use them with a large external monitor and use the laptop's display while only on the road

or is there some feature of OS X I'm missing that makes the small display a non-issue

Originally Posted by anantksundaram

What a great post (welcome yourself, newbie... )! I thought it was worthy of repeating, so I included the whole post in my reply.

Yeah, the level of trolling does seem to have gone up in proportion to AI's visibility. Too bad. I had found this forum to be such a sanctuary of largely like-minded Apple types who were not raging computing-bigots. I truly hope it doesn't end up like an engadget.com or cnet.com.

But what can you do.....

PS: Oops.... sorry for calling you a newbie! Although you had only 7 posts as of this one (hence my assumption), I noticed that you've been around since December 2007!

Originally Posted by randomdude

*sound of me repeatedly hitting my head on desk*
Okay, whoever made that ad needs to be fired. Now. What the hell is MS thinking? God.

Anyways, I saw a lot of people talking about benchmark comparisons between macs and PCs, so I decided to see for myself.

I looked at a computer on Apple.com and customized it a bit.
A 15-inch Macbook Pro with

• 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
• 4GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM (2 Dimms)
• 250GB Serial ATA HDD @ 5400rpm
• 8x optical disc drive (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
• NVIDIA GeForce 9400M + 9600M GT graphics card with 256MB dedicated video memory

costs $2099.00.

I then went to dell.com and looked at a computer there, and customized it a bit.

A 16-inch Dell Studio XPS 16 with

• Intel® Core 2 Duo T9800 (6MB cache/2.93GHz/1066Mhz FSB)
• Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium Edition SP1, 64-bit (yes, it really can handle the next entry...)
• 5GB DDR3 SDRAM at 1067MHz (2 Dimms)
• 320GB Serial ATA HDD @ 7200rpm
• 8X optical drive (DVD+/- R/RW CD-RW)
• ATI Mobility RADEON® HD 3670 graphics card with 512MB dedicated video memory

costs $1,949.00.

I am not certain about battery life. As far as I could tell, Apple's website did not mention anything about the computer's battery life, so I'm going to guess the at 3-5 hours from the people below. The Dell ships with a six-cell battery (whatever that means), with an option to add an additional 9-cell battery for $80. (The computer has one battery port, so you would have to switch batteries to change them). In the past, Dell called the 9-cell battery an "85whr" and I think the the 6-cell was a "65whr". They did not elaborate on what "whr" is, so maybe someone can tell me?

The rest of the specifications (such as backlit keyboard, webcam, physical dimensions, weight, included software/accessories, etc.) were either not easily comparable, or merely matters of personal preference, so I purposely did not include them.

Essentially, my point is, for $150.00 less, you are getting

• A processor that is 0.5GHz faster
• An extra GB of RAM (and the same type of RAM as the Macbook, too, so you have nothing there like you did with MS's shitty commercial)
• HDD that is 70GB larger and 1.5 times as fast
• Graphics card which has twice as much memory.

A computer with comparable specifications (actually, essentially identical) to the Macbook mentioned above is a (very slightly modified) Studio XPS 13. If the graphics card is upgraded to the GeForce 9500M, comparable to the one that the Macbook has, this model costs $1,229. (the processor and RAM are the same by default; the Dell has a slightly (inconsequentially, IMHO) larger HDD)

Why on earth would I want to spend nine hundred dollars extra to get identical specifications? What does a Macintosh have that could possibly justify this? And don't tell me that Macs are more reliable. They may be, but I have had a Dell laptop for three and a half years, and I have had zero problems with the hardware.

Originally Posted by italiankid

It means Microsoft has a fan base lol

Apple ain't so lucky now.

I like both companies... Both for different reasons. You can thank Microsoft for the good Mac OS X. Apple had to make it that much better to keep alive. So because of this, we got a good system. Microsoft rocks in everything they do. I love them.

Originally Posted by OldMacGuy

OK. If someone gave you , say, 18 grand and told you to buy a car that could go from A to B at the speed limit all day, and you could keep the change, you'd end up with... a Kia? That Beemer's just too fancy, man. You don't need it. The Honda is all frills. Both have engines, right? and 4 tires. and a gas cap.... Hell, why spend more for what you don't "need" (we'll tell you what you need, buddy.)

Originally Posted by SmilinGoat

that BMW is going to AT LEAST cost you 35 large. that Honda has no frills (like a toyota, chevy, ford, or anything else mid range) and that Kia is going to bread down on you in 2 years and be worth less than half its original price.

this doesnt even make any sense, sorry for picking you out while there are 100 examples of ill informed posts on this site...

this is more like if someone was given $25k, went to a buick dealership because they wanted a reliable car (tied with lexus for the most reliable company in the world) they look at the SUV, and it looks GOOD, nice wood trim interior, leather seats, a little gleam on the outside, they love it. then they find out that it costs $35k and decide to go across the street to the chevy dealership, and low and behold they find the new Chevy Traverse. They look inside and it has a different interior, not as nice, but still does everything they need, and feels good. they look on the outside to find that there is no gleam that the buick offers, but its got solid construction, and its overall still attractive in a lower budget kind of way.

the best part is they find out that its selling for $25k. they get it.

just so you know, the reason mine works and yours does not is because the Buick and the Chevy are the same car underneath, they use the same engine, platform, everything, they are just different on material, and design, all the same mechanical components are the same.

in this economy, which would you pick?

Originally Posted by Maxhomie

Welcome to a bunch of trolls that have turned this place into CNET? I don't post much, because I usually enjoy the exchanges between the more experienced and knowledgeable members.

However, you knew this was going to turn into flamebait. Just look at all the people who just signed up to give us their "wisdom"... a total infestation of people decrying "fanboys" and defending the honor of Microsoft and Linux and Ubuntu. (in fairness, some people who joined did so to defend Apple, but really -- this is the sort of thing that makes you want to contribute to a forum?)

I guess this site needed the traffic.


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Originally Posted by jegs

With a 10% market share arguing that a Mac is better than a PC is a pretty lame argument.

Originally Posted by the_steve

I hope Apple wakes up and realizes they don't need to extort such high prices for their hardware. Any company that has $18 billion in the bank has way too much profit margin!

Originally Posted by GMHut

If one needed Windows and the other OS X to function, I'd pick the one that ran OS X (it has the better OS AND runs Windows).