One for Slim....

[Tokyo Slim]

Originally Posted by Brian278

The posts you've made criticizing Apple computers' hardware, OS, pricing, etc. Come on, you knew that.
The "huh?" was in reference to this:

some of what you rail on against about

Is that supposed to be a on/against/about or is there supposed to be some sort of concept in between those words that went AWOL?

I would wager a lot of money that your sample is not representative of the average car owner by a long shot, and that you know it.

I think that the number of people who have EVER changed their own oil v.s. those who have EVER upgraded anything in their own PC is about the same. And I think its a much higher percentage of people than you're trying to make us think you believe. Have you ever changed your own oil?

Adding labor to the cost mitigates the savings of upgrading vs. buying new, not counting the fact that buying new often comes with other perks (tech support, updated design, new software, new peripherals, etc.).

Not going to argue tech support issue with you, but I disagree with the labor costs mitigating the savings of upgrading. Look at the example given between the Mac Mini and the HP. Add $100 to the cost of the HP that you are putting the processor and video card in for labor (which is HIGHER than damn near anyone will charge you. Even Geek Squad is less! Yes, I checked.) The HP after that upgrade is literally 2x the computer the Mini is. What is the cost for a comparatively specced out Mac Mini with a 2.4Ghz Processor, 250GB of HDD space, 2GB of RAM, and a halfway decent graphics card? Oh... wait... you can't have one. You have to step up to the iMac. The low end 20" 2.0Ghz, 2GB, 250GB HDD, with an 8x optical drive... for $1300, and STILL doesn't have as fast a processor or nearly as good a graphics card. But hey, at least they are making you buy a new monitor you probably don't need, since the one you were using for your Mini is still fine. So... you are at around $1600 for a comparable Mac system to our PC upgrade system and around $1200 for the HP, which still has a better processor. If you wanted to be fair about it, you could go out and get a Dell Ultrasharp 20 inch widescreen LCD for your HP. They are available for about $200 - 300 You STILL have $100 left in your pocket. I can do this all day.

In addition, ten minutes (assuming you intended it as an example of the time it take to replace a CPU or other component while you were taking my analogy out of context) doesn't take into account the time it takes to accumulate the knowledge to do so, or which to purchase, or at what price point to upgrade to, etc. You appear to be taking these things for granted, most people have no concept of them, or a desire to understand such things. It may all seem so simple to you, but most people either A) value their time enough to spend money on buying new rather than learning enough to comfortably upgrade themselves or B) don't realize it's even an option. It's not realistic for Apple to educate B, and A knows what they're getting into.

This is probably fair, but as I said earlier, even if you have the biggest pricing scam artists I could think of (Hi Geek Squad!) do everything for you, its STILL not as expensive as buying a new Mac.

Why not? Clearly you must have a better alternative for the average person who needs to surf the internet, email, and use Word than "build it yourself, it's easy!".

Why would the "average person" need a mac for that? Here we are falling into another classic trap. You can get a computer that does web surfing, email, and word for less than $300. Hell, Wal Mart has been selling Ubuntu/Lindows PC's for under $200 for YEARS. If you are seriously not doing anything more than those three things, you have no need for a new computer. Get your "green" on and go down to PC recycle and get one of their package specials. Keep heavy metals, lead, and plastics out of the landfills by recycling stuff!