In recent months, I’ve come to believe that most people finally understand that Macs and PCs are comparably priced when comparably equipped. That is, until I read some more of that silly fiction that attempts to convey precisely the reverse, that Apple is the BMW, and the PC is the Ford, and that the former is priced accordingly when compared to the latter.

I suppose this is a highly frustrating argument that will never end, because a simple change of the terms and conditions is enough to deliver different results. Indeed, I know some of you will argue that I’m wrong and provide very detailed reasons why. So let me put my cards on the table: Take a Mac and a PC from a brand name company and not a home-built model. Equip both with the same options in terms of equipment as much as possible. Then make sure that the software bundle is also similar, which means that Windows Vista Basic isn’t part of the picture.. Only Ultimate is the proper equivalent to Mac OS X, and that can represent a fairly stiff price hike on what’s otherwise a low-cost computer.

Indeed, it appears that recent articles from CNET and editor/writer Joe Wilcox have implied they are going on fair shopping excursions, but they repeat the long-voiced fiction that you can buy a regular Windows computer for hundreds less than the competing Apple product.

Now I have to tell you that I am quickly losing patience over such shenanigans, because I can see a great degree of intellectual dishonesty in these comparisons. More to the point, when I do match-ups using the criteria I’ve mentioned over and over again, the results I achieve continue to verify my statement that the Mac and PC, when comparably equipped, are closely priced. On the high-end, the Mac Pro, in reality a workstation and not a simple personal computer, comes out way ahead.

Story continued in this week’s Tech Night Owl Newsletter.

This article was posted on Sunday, August 10th, 2008 at 6:30 PM and is filed under News and tagged with: Apple, Bmw, Cnet, Commentator, Dell, Dell Inspiron, Design Decisions, Desktop Publishing, Feature Enhancements, flagship, Graphic Artist, Graphic Designers, Ilife, interface changes, Iphone, Joe Wilcox, Mac, Mac Os, Mac Pro, Macbook, Macworld, Microsoft, Night Owl, Panasonic, Progenitor, Security Issues, Special Correspondent, Windows, Windows Vista, Windows Xp, xpress.