Firm says Macs cost only slightly more than PCs
After forming a comparison of Apple Computer's new iMac and MacBook Pro computers against several PCs from Dell and HP, analysts for PiperJaffray found that the average difference in price for comparable components on a desktop is only 13 percent lower for a Windows PC, while for notebooks the price difference is a mere 10 percent.
"We believe both consumers and investors tend to believe that purchasing a Mac will cost 20 percent to 30 percent more than a PC," analyst Gene Munster explained to clients in a research note issued early Tuesday morning.
The analyst also took a look at the cost of an iMac and MacBook Pro running both the Windows and Mac OS operating systems via Apple's Boot Camp software. He found that, on average, an iMac running Boot Camp with both operating systems is 22 percent more expensive than a comparable PC running only Windows. Meanwhile, PC notebooks cost, on average, 16 percent less than a dual operating system MacBook Pro.
However, Munster notes that the cost of running dual operating systems on Apple's new Macs may be negligible for most PC users.
"While many Mac buyers will go out and buy Windows Home Editionfor $199 [in order to run Windows on their Mac], those who have recently purchased a PC, or will be buying a PC in the near term, should be able to take advantage of the fact that PC manufacturers, such as Dell and HP, will provide customers with Windows re-install discs for free or for a $10 fee," he wrote. "We believe this will make the move to a Boot Camp-enabled Mac more feasible for many potential buyers."
(PC vs Mac desktop price comparison performed by PiperJaffray)
For users who don't need to drop the added $199 for a copy of Windows, the price premium required to purchase a Mac over a PC is less considerable, the analyst indicated.
While PiperJaffray sees Apple's domination in digital music as a critical piece to the its story, it does not believe the iPod is the only growth avenue for the company.
(PC vs Mac notebook price comparison performed by PiperJaffray)
"Indirectly, we expect the iPod to continue to be a foundation for growth in other parts of Apple's business, and we expect that by the end of CY06 more than 85m iPods will have shipped, providing Apple with a greater scope of awareness for various products," the firm said.
PiperJaffray maintains an Outperform rating on shares of Apple with a price target of $99.
"We believe both consumers and investors tend to believe that purchasing a Mac will cost 20 percent to 30 percent more than a PC," analyst Gene Munster explained to clients in a research note issued early Tuesday morning.
The analyst also took a look at the cost of an iMac and MacBook Pro running both the Windows and Mac OS operating systems via Apple's Boot Camp software. He found that, on average, an iMac running Boot Camp with both operating systems is 22 percent more expensive than a comparable PC running only Windows. Meanwhile, PC notebooks cost, on average, 16 percent less than a dual operating system MacBook Pro.
However, Munster notes that the cost of running dual operating systems on Apple's new Macs may be negligible for most PC users.
"While many Mac buyers will go out and buy Windows Home Editionfor $199 [in order to run Windows on their Mac], those who have recently purchased a PC, or will be buying a PC in the near term, should be able to take advantage of the fact that PC manufacturers, such as Dell and HP, will provide customers with Windows re-install discs for free or for a $10 fee," he wrote. "We believe this will make the move to a Boot Camp-enabled Mac more feasible for many potential buyers."
(PC vs Mac desktop price comparison performed by PiperJaffray)
For users who don't need to drop the added $199 for a copy of Windows, the price premium required to purchase a Mac over a PC is less considerable, the analyst indicated.
While PiperJaffray sees Apple's domination in digital music as a critical piece to the its story, it does not believe the iPod is the only growth avenue for the company.
(PC vs Mac notebook price comparison performed by PiperJaffray)
"Indirectly, we expect the iPod to continue to be a foundation for growth in other parts of Apple's business, and we expect that by the end of CY06 more than 85m iPods will have shipped, providing Apple with a greater scope of awareness for various products," the firm said.
PiperJaffray maintains an Outperform rating on shares of Apple with a price target of $99.
Comments
It matches inches, Ghz, and GB, and considers the machines equal without looking at ALL the specs.
Expansion ports (express card, DIV spanning, digital optical audio I/O)?
Slot-load drive?
Lighted keys?
Bundled software?
Camera, remote, magsafe, sudden motion sensor?
THINNESS and WEIGHT?
That PC that matches the "first-glance specs" will often not match the rest... unless you move to a price that costs more than the Mac.
Assuming you're dumping the old PC, is that legal? Not that I really care, as far as I'm concerned if you own a windows box you own a copy of windows.
Originally posted by minderbinder
Interesting that they say that users will just install the copy of windoze from their PC.
Assuming you're dumping the old PC, is that legal? Not that I really care, as far as I'm concerned if you own a windows box you own a copy of windows.
i believe you cant do that. for an example the version that comes with Dell computers is on a CD that will only work on that specific computer (part of the recovery CD)...but i might be wrong
We've all heard of the utter hell PC owners have to go through when it comes to system maintenance. A friend of mine, who owns some crappy HP desktop, bought a new printer 2 weeks ago. The installation of the driver caused an issue...which led to a combined 20 hours of being on the phone with HP support techs. just to get his fricking printer working! Along the way, he had to completely reinstall the OS &, thus, lost all his data.
What Mac owner has ever had to be on the phone that long, let alone had a printer drive cause a melt down?
As they say, time is money.
Also I don't like this article as it doesn't take into account special deals Dell offers from time to time which can dramatically reduce the cost of a computer. Right after the Core Duo's came out that had a fire sale on a 15 inch laptop with a core duo in it for 600 bucks.
Admittedly, there's no built-in camera, and Windows isn't as "cool" as Mac OS X, but saying that there's no price difference is simply a lie.
Plus, I'm VERY disappointed in their choice for integrated video cards for the Mac Mini and the MacBook. It's a nice way to force people into iMacs and MacBook Pros, but seriously degrades the value of the Apple brand for most of the computer enthusiasts I know.
Originally posted by nagromme
That analysis is useful, BUT it does repeat a common mistake when people say Macs are (even just 10%) more expensive.
It matches inches, Ghz, and GB, and considers the machines equal without looking at ALL the specs.
Expansion ports (express card, DIV spanning, digital optical audio I/O)?
Slot-load drive?
Lighted keys?
Bundled software?
Camera, remote, magsafe, sudden motion sensor?
THINNESS and WEIGHT?
That PC that matches the "first-glance specs" will often not match the rest... unless you move to a price that costs more than the Mac.
Thinness and Weight, sudden motion Sensor? Are you kidding. Just curious but what is the value of those items?
Those are nice features i am sure but really come on!!!.. thinness and weight cost 0 cents. Sudden motion sensor cost 10 cents (those chinese people can do wonders to pricing when making stuff in bulk). lighted keys cost another 10 cents additional (in addition to regular keyboard cost).
slot load drive is not an extra feature, just a feature..
PC laptops have bundled software too.. the value of bundled software is subjective. Saying that a computer has $200 dollars worth of bundled software is very misleading. $200 to who?.. the consumer or the manufacturer?. It does not cost apple anything to include bundled software and if they do price it, it is considerably less than retail (a significant discount).. same with PC laptops. Also if you look at bundled software, would you compare the operating systems?.. which cost more, MacOSX or windows?.
Originally posted by wnurse
Thinness and Weight, sudden motion Sensor? Are you kidding. Just curious but what is the value of those items?
Those are nice features i am sure but really come on!!!.. thinness and weight cost 0 cents. Sudden motion sensor cost 10 cents (those chinese people can do wonders to pricing when making stuff in bulk). lighted keys cost another 10 cents additional (in addition to regular keyboard cost).
slot load drive is not an extra feature, just a feature..
PC laptops have bundled software too.. the value of bundled software is subjective. Saying that a computer has $200 dollars worth of bundled software is very misleading. $200 to who?.. the consumer or the manufacturer?. It does not cost apple anything to include bundled software and if they do price it, it is considerably less than retail (a significant discount).. same with PC laptops. Also if you look at bundled software, would you compare the operating systems?.. which cost more, MacOSX or windows?.
Yes all those items cost pennies for the chinese to produce, but they cost a heckuva lot more for Apple to design, engineer, and patent than "10 cents each"
The same goes for software, obviously the incremental cost of including the software in the computer is very little, but the cost of developing that software is much higher.
We don't just pay cost for this stuff, we have to pay someone to design superior hardware and software, that's why we are all here with Apple/Mac in the first place.
Originally posted by lhvide
Yes all those items cost pennies for the chinese to produce, but they cost a heckuva lot more for Apple to design, engineer, and patent than "10 cents each"
The same goes for software, obviously the incremental cost of including the software in the computer is very little, but the cost of developing that software is much higher.
We don't just pay cost for this stuff, we have to pay someone to design superior hardware and software, that's why we are all here with Apple/Mac in the first place.
Yes but if you are gonna compare software, compare operating systems too. Windows cost more than MacOSX.. do you ever hear any mac person saying that windows users get more value in operating system? Is there a mac person that even thinks this?. Secondly, mac people just assume all pc laptops come with zero software installed. Of course that is not true. Some hardware come with manufacturor specific software.. example, Dells come with a dell software utility to configure laptop. Is that value included in the comparison?. When you go down that road of comparing software, you gotta be carefull. I think my point is that when mac users make that bundled software comeback to any review they don't like, they too are being disingenius. I have yet to see someone truly compare the cost of ALL software on a machine (be it apple or PC).
Originally posted by deanklear
The comparison is wrong. I bought an e1705 (with a coupon) for $1300 that is half the price of the MacBook Pro 17, and has a much better video card, higher resolution, and more USB ports.
Admittedly, there's no built-in camera, and Windows isn't as "cool" as Mac OS X, but saying that there's no price difference is simply a lie.
You bought an Inspiron?
May the force be with you.
Originally posted by wnurse
Thinness and Weight, sudden motion Sensor? Are you kidding. Just curious but what is the value of those items?
Those are nice features i am sure but really come on!!!.. thinness and weight cost 0 cents.
Thinness and weight take some pretty heavy R&D $$$ to make happen. If everyone wasn't willing to pay more for something thinner and lighter, cell phone would still weigh 10 lbs and require a motorcycle battery to run.
Originally posted by wnurse
Yes but if you are gonna compare software, compare operating systems too. Windows cost more than MacOSX.. do you ever hear any mac person saying that windows users get more value in operating system? Is there a mac person that even thinks this?. Secondly, mac people just assume all pc laptops come with zero software installed. Of course that is not true. Some hardware come with manufacturor specific software.. example, Dells come with a dell software utility to configure laptop. Is that value included in the comparison?. When you go down that road of comparing software, you gotta be carefull. I think my point is that when mac users make that bundled software comeback to any review they don't like, they too are being disingenius. I have yet to see someone truly compare the cost of ALL software on a machine (be it apple or PC).
Dell computers need software utilities to configure because the piece of sh$tboxes need it or they would never run. That's not added value, its a necessity
Originally posted by lhvide
Thinness and weight take some pretty heavy R&D $$$ to make happen. If everyone wasn't willing to pay more for something thinner and lighter, cell phone would still weigh 10 lbs and require a motorcycle battery to run.
Ok, what is the value of them then?.. if you gonna compare them, what is the value?. It cost dell some money to figure out how to make their laptops at whatever dimensions they are (regardless of whether they are thicker than apples or not). Are you saying that dell laptops are the size they are due to absolutely no research and cost of doing so?. Yeah, apple is better at it.. but that does not make the cost zero for dell. The comparison is still invalid because the both apple and pc manufactorer has to incur some cost to make the laptops at whatever dimension they produce them at.