What does $699 buy you in a 17-inch PC notebook?

Just goes to show that to some girls size does matter...

All she kept going on about was 17 inches... obviously a real geekette (not!)

Maybe Microsoft should film another video where she is swearing at vista and eventually throws the whole thing out of here apartment window, killing an innocent pedestrian in the process

So, like some have noticed, what some call a premium price, I call quality parts. Now let put as the price comparison of price which I will address in the end. Anyone knows that Apple's laptops start with a determined decision in matching user experience (user desired features, reliability, weight, style, etc.) with cost effectiveness. Now let look at a laptop from Apple. For this purpose I will use the base models of the 13in Macbook and the 17in Macbook Pro to show how cheaper is not better and what she has decided to give-up by putting price over quality. The woman in the video buys the 699 HP Pavilion Laptop with AMD Turion X2 RM-72 Dual Core Mobile Processor-with a Bronze/Chrome finish because nothing say stay like bronze and shiny chrome. It looks meh. Both Mac's look way better. Anyone can see that.

In terms of mobility, I don't know of anyone that would consider any 17in laptop portable. I have always thought of them as mobile desktops because of battery life concerns running hardware too heavy for it to be useable. That said, she choose a bulky (11.2"x15.6"x1.7") and heavy(7.8lbs) computer compared to the MB (8.94"X12.78"x0.95") and 4.5lbs and MBP's (10.51"x15.47"x0.98") and 6.6lbs. I think that anyone without good reason should avoid 17 laptops, but she insisted. I don't think her back will be happy after a few trips.

She has an AMD processor. AMD is a bit behind the time in terms of performance per watt. I wonder if see noticed that? Apple stacks top of the line processors sometimes being the premiere system featuring new processors. Releases of new systems can normally be planned around Intel's release schedule. Intel is ahead of AMD in terms of processors. If Apple wanted to compete in that market, they could use last years technology. 2 and 3 year old processors could shave off those dollars. Use old system cards with low bus speeds and tiny caches. Processor speed sounds impressive until your look at the things surrounding it. Her system has 2.1GHz, with 1MB of L2 cache with 4GB DDR2. The MB 2.0GHz, 3MB L2 cache, 2GB DDR3 and MBP 2.66GHz, 6MB L2 cache with 4GB of DDR3. Good enough for today verses prepared for tomorrow.

Hard drive are another matter. HP uses the cheapest large hard drives out there. Apple provides the best hard drives with sudden drop sensors with 8MB cache buffers on disk sets with faster throughput.

Media card reader are like nice to have but never necessary. If you need one on you at all times, then that is a plus, otherwise it is added tech that you won't use often. Video cards make the system sound way outdated. ATI doesn't even bother listing the HD3200 on their site it is so old. Apple uses MB 256MB GDDR3 Nvidia GP, and the MPB uses 2 different GPUs for battery verse performance concerns, and both are GDDR3 256MB verses the 512MB.

She wanted a 17 in screen, but seemed to ignore screen resolution. Her HP has 1280X800 verse the MB(1280x800) and MBP 1920x1200 (thats true HD capable and much more screen usage). I'll take this time to point out that the 15in MBP has better resolution than her 17in HP. Note, the Best Buy site is listing the external monitor size as the internal monitor size, a little deceptive if you ask me. What she can see on her 17in screen she could view all the same content on a 13in MB and more on larger screens.

HP has a modem. Anyone using a modem... well it is upsetting to say the least if someone must suffer like that. It also does not have a Gb ethernet jacks and only supports wireless B and G. I am convinced she enjoys living in life 3 years ago... Macs comes standard with Gb ethernet, access to A/B/G/N networks. The MBP comes with a firewire 800 and a PCI-expansion slot for additional versatility.

Battery life which is a major point of a laptop. The HP has 2.5 hours. The MB 5 hrs and MBP 8 hrs. The Mac has a multi-touch trackpad. It comes with OSX which is better protected against viruses and malware for average users that can slow or corrupt a system. In addition to the OS being way better and faster than Vista's resource hog, the added software of iLife is celebrated for its ease of use and power. There is no comparing iMovie, iPhoto, or Garageband to anything out there in the consumer range.

The woman should also know that her HP will probably die after her one year warranty is up or a year from then. She will wonder in 2 years why her computer is so much slower than the rest of the computers out there. When she goes to throw out her computer, she will be hurting the environment, because her computer contains so many harmful components. The Mac is design with carbon footprint in mind, from the packaging, battery disposal, recycling, having LED backlit screens. I mean look at the size of the box for her computer.

I will close with this little nugget of explanation. In January of 2007 I bought a 15in MBP. It has a 2.16GHz core 2 Duo Intel processor, 4MB L2 cache support for Wireless A/B/G/N, 3GB of DDR2 SDRAM, 1440x900 Native display, a PCI-X expansion slot, Firewire 400 and 800, and a backlit keyboard along with other features. I am willing to say that a computer that came out in late 2006 is better than what that woman bought in 2009. On Craigslist, one person is listing theirs for 1100 and the other person is listing theirs for 1200. Mac maintain their value better than other brands. What I am saying is that when the time come for her to get a new computer, it is likely that hers will either no longer work or it will be close to worthless.

Back at my university everyone tells me i fall for Apple's marketing campaign, that I overpay... and suddenly, they are out of things to mess with me about. The reason? Well... deep inside they wish their Windows machines (XP or Vista) could have the same "safeness" that my MB has.

What if I fall for Apple's marketing campaign? I love Apple ads... Muuuch better than watching a girl who has ZERO knowledge of what a laptop should be... and only wants a giant brick with the resolution of my MB. I rather see the Mac guy... than 90's Seinfeld and Bill trying to be funny...

The ONLY thing that Apple haters can use against Apple users is price... but once they've used that one they're out of bullets.

What if I pay a couple of hundred bucks more for MY Macbook? are THEY going to be using it?? NO! They are stuck with their shitty Vista issues, millions of viruses, crashes every time... plus, I get to enjoy everytime they loose some Word article because their computer crashed. One of my absolutely favorite phrases are... "you should get a Mac", and... "really? PCs STILL have THAT problem?"

Even when she did have to buy twice, she'd have $1401 left. So for the same money as an Apple 17", she could actually buy four crapbooks.

Just wait untill Atom-based 17" laptops get to market: $350...

Remember that most people will not need more power than is in an Atom; they are as fast as a 1.5Ghz G4. That was plenty fast a couple of years ago and still is way plenty for surfing, emailing, video and excel.
Just play games on a console and fold your proteins on it too. For photoshop or like, you go to niche products, like MacBook Pro, or, in the near future, stream your home-workstation over vnc or something to your netbook, like OnLive.

And your point being what? That it is worth it to grab an extra 2 gigs of memory and HDMI out? No because it won't be a Mac.
The Hyundai commercials from a while back crack me up because they compared one model to a Mercedes or BMW (I can't remember exactly). They talked about how it was comparable and even beat out the luxury car in many ways. But the fact is at the end of the day you still drive a Hyundai. If that's what makes you happy then you probably never even wanted a BMW in the first place. There is a reason why they are called luxury, and yes Fanboys know our computers are luxury computers.
So you know what, I think I will go ahead and keep my luxury computer and you can keep your Dell. Oh by the way make sure to pick up a copy of A Walk to Remember, I heard they just released it in Blu-Ray!

Right well interesting specs but you'd better load in the overheads of running anti-spyware and virus checking

Plus - who the f**k can you compare Vista to Mac OS X you knuckle grazing moron - you've clearly never used it - Vista is absolute crap - you need some kind of Cray supercomputer to actually get it to run at any reasonable speed.

Don't get me wrong - XP was good, in fact it was very good - but notice how few XP owners are trading up to Vista? Notice how many Vista owners are downgrading to XP? Notice how many businesses are avoiding Vista like the plague.

Look at the evidence before making statements - otherwise you look like a dick.

Microsoft compared the two first. 9to5 just finished the comparison. Pay attention.