OSNews

I agree the whole Apple vs. Microsoft thing is more a matter of sensationalist journalism than fact - Apple doesn't want to compete with Microsoft, this is evident by the fact that as mentioned Microsoft doesn't care what you run it on for hardware, while Apple has a their way or the highway approach to it. So far as Apple is concerned 3rd party ANYTHING is the ultimate evil - particularly where hardware is concerned. (which I suspect is the REAL reason behind the lack of expansion slots on anything less than $3K in price)

But I REALLY have to take issue with the repeated reference to them catering to the 'high end' of the market, since the ONLY thing high end about their product line is the price. I would say they cater more to the people with more money than brains.

Seriously, when the best system they offer below the Mac Pro is $3300 for a 24" display, 3ghz Core 2, 8 gigs RAM and a crappy HD 4850 video card and a single 1tb hard drive, they are overcharging. Of course, most of that is the COMPLETELY ABSURD grand you end up spending on RAM since it only takes laptop form factor... but even so drop that to 4 gigs of ram and we're still talking $2300 for the equivalent of sub grand HP or Dell... What are you getting for that extra $1300? An art *** form factor and glossy white plastic. (That has all the style of a recently sanitized hospital ward)... and if you REALLY need that artsy all in one, look at a Dell XPS Studio "All in One" (which is around $1400 and nets you a quad core).

Let's look at the cheapest iMac, shall we?
2.66ghz Core 2 duo
2 gigs RAM
320 gig hard drive
Ge9400m video
20" display at 1680x1050
$1199.00

Let's see... Acer Aspire AX1700?
2.66ghz Core 2 Duo E7300 (holy ****, they tell you WHICH processor)
4 gigs RAM
750 gig hard drive
nVidia G100 video (g100==9400m==7600GT for all intents and purposes)
$419.99 @ newegg.... leaving enough left over to buy damned near any 24" LCD you wanted. (Samsung B24?)

CyberpowerPC Gamer Ultra 7212
Athlon II X2 245 (2.9ghz)
4 gigs RAM
500gb hard drive
Ge9500GT
$539.99 @ newegg, again leaving enough left over for any 24" display you could ever want.

Acer Aspire AM5800
2.5ghz Core 2 Quad Q8300
6 gigs RAM
640gb hard drive
ATI HD 4650
$609.99... Hmm, see a trend here on what's left over for display?

Oh, but it's all about the high end

Is that why their high end uses overpriced outdated (by todays standard) Xeons, and at $2500 only comes with 3 gigs of RAM and a 640 gig hard drive, and good **** luck getting a decent video card for it since they condsider the GT120 'high end'... the best they offer being a 512 meg HD4870? ***** PLEASE. Maybe it's because they have the balls to charge $150 to go FROM 3 gigs to 6 gigs? I know, maybe there's some magical Kooality (with a captial K) that makes adding a second 640 gig hard drive worth $200 or a second 1tb $300? I know, how about $100 to go from a 640 primary to a 1tb - more than the street price of the drive itself? (Must be that Apple magic convincing you a **** drive like a Hibachi Deathstar is worth money)

When for under $1500 I can go out and build a whitebox (or have built for me by a local mom & pop) i7920 with a GTX260 and more RAM and disk storage than three iMacs? Apple products as "High end" my tuckus.

Seriously, every time I hear about someone buying an Apple, ESPECIALLY today now that it's the same hardware base, all I can think is "Christ, are people out there REALLY that ***** STUPID?!?" -- which is doubly funny coming from an agnostic AND a former Apple tech.

But maybe that's the Apple tech in me having seen Apple products at their worst - in other words the insides... where they put insulating foam instead of heat sinks and underclock the CPU on the G3 iBooks until it burns a hole clear through the dialup adapter - where they intentionally avoid anything resembling airflow just for aesthetic reasons - where they issue warnings that iBooks and macBooks aren't laptops and should not be used on your lap - where they sell displays advertised as 16.7 million color when in fact they were only 262K color (almost ALL the first gen intel iMacs) making them unsuitable for the artists who are their alleged target group - from magnetic connectors that cause disk corruption, fray and have even caught fire - intentionally nuetering PCMCIA slots so only broadcom chipset wireless cards can be plugged in and work - intentionally crossing two wires so that 3rd party optical drives cannot be connected internally - using the parity bit on RAM slots NOT for parity but so you have to buy memory from them (that's going back to the 68030/68040 days)

Given their sleazeball business practices, over the top absurd markup, and completele lack of anything approaching what I would call style or quiality on their recent products, I really do wonder what the **** is in the kool aid.