I've never owned a Mac but I see a lot of college kids with them. My two nephews both had Macs that fucked up shortly after a year of them buying them. They had to make appointments with the Apple Store just to look at them. Meanwhile my Dell laptop with Win XP just keeps on chooglin'
Macs are not hand-made personalized status symbols like a rolls versus a production car. The better analogy is an $11,000 Kia Rio "sedan" and a $33,000 Acura. Many folks would rather pay more for a better car. And who needs three Chevy's?
I bet you don't lug it around in your backpack or lashed to your bicycle, drop it 100 times, use it 90% on battery power, and get it rained on a lot. Trust me , I see a lot of student computer abuse. Mac and PCs and tablets of all kinds, they all get hard use from college kids. Old duffers want to keep a steam-powered XP laptop running as long as they can, sitting there pugged in on the desk with an occasional jaunt to another office in a padded briefcase. But college kids think a laptop is a big smartphone with a handy keyboard and a screen big enough to multi-task. They don't expect them to last long, they love 'em and leave 'em fast. 90% of them upgrade to a newer faster model long before damaging them, just like a cellphone.
Mine runs on gasoline I don't think @COTiger wants one to put in his backpack and ride in the rain. Or throw it at his girlfriend
My Asus has all of that for $700 less than the equivalent Mac. I know. I did a lot of comparison shopping before I bought it and I couldn't convince myself to get the prettier laptop, which is the only advantage the Asus had over the Mac. Ease of use? How much easier does it get that the most widely used OS in North America? Computing power? I doubled the memory with a processor almost a full Ghz faster for almost half the price. Ruggedness? It's a laptop. I carry it in a bag. How rugged does it need to be? (Although it has survived several falls). Ergonomics? WTF? Again, it's a laptop. With hands as large as mine, you're pretty much constricted to the standard dimensions of a portable computer. Apple doesn't own those characteristics of a laptop, none of which were what the OP was looking for. I don't overpay for shoes, cars or computers under the guise that more money spent = better product.
its something you cant get until you drive a lexus or bmw. i give red shit for apple fanboyism but the macbooks have a quality and aesthetics you cant compare to a cheap laptop. odds are you buy one, youre a fan for life. until something better comes along.
