Industry watchers have noticed a "halo" surrounding Apple's iPod: The popular music player is helping to bring new users to the company's Macintosh line of computers. However, could the uncertainty surrounding the Mac's upcoming switch from PowerPC to Intel processors take the shine off that halo?
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Member since:2005-06-29
but you can't sit there and tell us that Apples use all the same cheap materials that other companies use, and that they're simply getting a higher profit off their products.
I'm sorry, but in what sense is the plastic of my iBook of higher-quality than the plastics used by for instance my Canon scanner, or the plastic on the front bezel of my Sun machine? Where is the plastic in my iBook different than the plastic front vezel on my off-the-shelf x86 case, or the casing of my 7 year old Compaq laptop? They're all scratched, you know!
Really, I like my iBook and Apple's hardware, but claiming that they're using higher quality raw materials than Dell, Sun or whatever is complete nonsense.
Member since:1997-10-01
"Really, I like my iBook and Apple's hardware, but claiming that they're using higher quality raw materials than Dell, Sun or whatever is complete nonsense."
It's interesting that you used Dell and Sun in the same breath there. Sun, a maker of higher-margin servers and workstations, spends a lot more effort and money on both industrial design and case material quality than a low-margin volume manufacturer like Dell.
There's probably more variation in the cost of a computer case than just about any other component. Dell probably spends less than ten dollars on their cases, while Sun and Apple's cases probably cost them somewhere between fifty and a hundred dollars to manufacture. I don't think Apple is spending much more than Sun or Alienware, or another maker of more high-end boxes, but they're certainly spending more, and using better industrial design and materials than Dell or another volume manufacturer.
And if you don't see how the plastic on your iBook is better, then that tells me you haven't held a Dell Latitude laptop in your hands lately. Apple uses a thicker, higher quality, more expensive plastic than Dell does, and you can tell just by touching it.
Now, people have often claimed that Apple uses better components inside its computers, and in this case I think that it's not always true. Things like video cards and hard drives are generally of the same quality as components in their competitor's products. Obviously, the components in a new G5 tower are better across the board than those in a bargain basement $300 econobox PC, but if you compare what's inside a high end, $1500+ Dell workstation, you'll find components of comparable quality: hard drives, video cards, RAM. A real hardware geek migh find that the Apple motherboards and its onboard components are more elegantly designed, but that's probably more subjective than anything else.
Member since:2005-07-27
"I'm sorry, but in what sense is the plastic of my iBook of higher-quality than the plastics used by for instance my Canon scanner, or the plastic on the front bezel of my Sun machine?"
I think the origional poster confused the issue. Its not necesseraslly the plastics and metals... though it has been in the past, the quality components are quality ram, or better hard drives etc.
Member since:
"Exactly. It's not like the plastics and silicon that Apple uses is somehow magically of better quality than the plastics and silicon used by Dell."
Where Dell would use cheap plastic or steel for their case, Apple uses much higher quality materials, such as acrylic or aluminium (even titanium or magnesium!). Yes, the actual "meat and potatoes" so to speak, the internals, they may be nearly identical to the stuff inside a Dell, but the whole package is of much, MUCH higher quality than anything Dell puts out right now.
Whether this higher quality case etc materials are really worth the premium one pays remains in question, but you can't sit there and tell us that Apples use all the same cheap materials that other companies use, and that they're simply getting a higher profit off their products.