Re: Is the New MacBook Expensive?

Alright, seriously. I just read this story, linked off of slashdot. This is probably the most biased, non-factual article I have ever read. So I decided to actually do the math myself and create a proper comparison, comparing things people really care about - mostly speed and price. Oh, and to calculate how much the "Mac tax" really is. MATHEMATICALLY.

I also want to point out that I will not be doing a comparison of the best laptop you can get for $1299, because the article was trying to find (for some reason) laptops with similar specs to the Macbook, and compare them (which equates to going to a store to buy some apples, and choosing one, then finding 4 others which are the most similar to it, then comparing just those).

I would also like to note that I reconfigured each of the laptops to get as much as I could pack in for $1299. I mean, there is just no logic in comparing two laptops at completely different price tiers.

So, back to me complaining - I find it hard to believe that a supposedly math-based article had no graphs, tables, charts, or really any numbers at all. So lets start things off with a table. (Best of category, if present = italic)

Laptops:	New Macbook	Dell Inspiron 13	Lenovo IdeaPad U330	Sony VAIO SR290
Price:	$1,299	$1,274	$1,299	$1,294
Processor:	Intel® Core™ 2 Duo P7350 (2.0GHz/1066Mhz FSB/3MB cache)	Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T8300 (2.4GHz/800 Mhz FSB/3MB cache)	Intel® Core™ 2 Duo P7350 (2.0GHz/1066MHz FSB/3MB cache)	Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T5800 (2.0GHz/800 Mhz FSB/2MB cache)
RAM:	2GB 1066MHz DDR 3	4GB 667MHz DDR 2	3GB 1066MHz DDR 3	2GB 800Mhz DDR 2
Graphics:	GeForce 9400M (3DMark06: 2027)	Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100 (3DMark06: 522)	ATI Radeon HD 3450 (3DMark06: 1912)	ATI Radeon HD 3470 (3DMark06: 1932)
Hard Drive:	160GB 5400RPM	320GB 5400RPM	320GB 5400RPM	160GB 5400RPM

And, well, everything else is pretty much the same. At least the things that matter - remember, we are comparing laptops, not business practices, packaging, loads of useless software, and such.

Ok onto my point. From what I can tell, the Lenovo is basically the same thing as the new Macbook. Except with an extra gig of RAM. And the hard drive is twice the size. The others are very very similar also. While you might say that all of Apple's design features give it an advantage, im also ignoring tons of similar features in the other laptops. You cannot compare these because well, for some people they are positive, others, they are negative. Personal opinion matters more than any review or complaint or whatever you would call this, so I am just not going to throw my personal views in.

Now for the fun part. MATH.

Lets give each of the specs a weight (W): (feel free to call me out on this - this is the most disputable part of what im writing)
(1st = 1W, 2nd = 1/2 W, 3rd = 1/4W, 4th = 1/8W)
CPU - 40
RAM - 20
Video - 30
Hard Drive - 10

That comes out to:
New Macbook:20+5+30+3.75 = 58.75 out of 100 possible
Dell Inspiron 13:40+10+3.75+7.5 = 61.25
Lenovo IdeaPad U330:20+20+7.5+7.5 = 55.00
Sony VAIO SR290:5+2.5+15+3.75 = 26.25

And, by my calculations, the "Mac Tax" is exactly $17.16. Dont ask me how I got there.