Apples with Apples - are Macs really worth it?

You'd think I'd be sick of this debate, since it has been going on for the 20 years that I've used Macs: why are they 'so' expensive?

But it basically comes down to this: once someone pays the perceived 'Mac Premium,' very few go back to cheaper PCs.

In the old days the price disparity was easy to explain - Macs were shipped a long way and marketed by only one company. They were stored, advertised, administered and transported by that vendor, and there was still a reasonable margin in Apple products back then. All of that added up to quite an overhead on an already expensive computer.

But a few years ago Apple not only cut the margins retailers could make on Apple-branded equipment, it then took a closer hand in direct retailing in New Zealand.

Apple set up its own online sale site administered from Australia and, as one result, NZ Macs were put on Apple's international pricing structure.

Now, just a few months ago, a NZ dollar bought you US80¢. Now it buys you just 50¢; that's a huge change. So four months ago was especially good for buying products from US companies.

Nevertheless, lets look at a few base Mac models head to head, going on today's exchange rates, as being bought at the NZ online Apple store, then bought from the Australian then US Apple Stores all translated into NZ dollars:

Mac Mini in NZ$1398; from Australia $1342; from the US $1200

20-inch iMac in NZ$2599; from Australia $2560; from the US $2401

Mac Pro in NZ$5599; from Australia $5761; from the US $5005

From that you can see we're paying a bit extra for the Mini on both counts, although we get the Mac Pro cheaper than the Australians. If you think about shipping and distance, the price points kinda make sense in that we're further away from shippers than Australia, although the mini does still seem a bit steep.

In the US, though, they seem pretty happy with the pricing of the 20-inch iMac. As Reuters reports, "The new line includes a flagship 24-inch iMac with twice the memory size and twice the storage of the previous generation 20-inch iMac, but is priced at the same $1499."

Since Apple is a US firm, all it's base prices are affected by exchange rate changes with its primary suppliers (ie, Chinese factories) whereas we pay the difference between the US and here.

In the US, the new Mac Pro is actually cheaper than the model it replaced, costing $300 less for twice the performance. For the record, the Mac Mini didn't change price in the States - we seem to be suffering from the exchange rate, in that case. I'd be surprised if many will buy the new Mini here, despite all those USB ports. After all, if you're prepared to pay that much, it's not much of a stretch up to a MacBook - similar specs but complete with screen and keyboard.

But what about comparing Apples to, um, pears? (It's coincidental that I hate pears, OK? But they are similar fruit.)

Let's look at a couple of all-in-ones from other manufacturers. The HP Touchsmart IQ515a is billed as "The computer is personal again." It's a PC aimed at home users. Apart from its NZ site sending me round in circles, trying to find the specs, I eventually figured it out by looking at Dick Smith's site.

It has an Intel Core 2 Duo 2.16GHz Processor, 4GB RAM, 320GB Hard Drive, Slot-load DVD Burner, Bluetooth, Wireless Networking, 15-in-1 Card Reader and comes with Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium for an OS. Its clearance price (from the Dick Smith site) was $2799 when I looked.

It has an inferior graphics card (an integrated Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100) compared to an iMac's NVIDIA, but it has a 22-screen and a built-in card reader. Oh, and that's a touch screen.

For that price, the closest Mac is the 20-inch. It's cheaper at $2599 but the screen is two inches smaller. While it runs the same Intel Core Two Duo it's faster, at 2.66GHz. It only has half the RAM, true, but the same 320GB hard drive and a better video card (NVIDIA GeForce 9400M).

The next 24-inch iMac will set you back $500 more than the HP. For that you get two inches more screen than the HP, the better video, the same 4GB RAM, faster (2.66GHz) processor and much bigger hd (640GB).

Dell makes an XPS One 20 and XPS One 24, all-in-one desktops with 20 and 24-inch monitors respectively, but they don't appear to be available in New Zealand.

The 20-inch starts at $1800 (US$899) with 2GB RAM and a 250GB drive, integrated video etc but it's configurable when you buy it, pushing the price up.

If I 'build' it on the site to be similar to the iMac (ironically, I couldn't do this on the Dell US site using Safari) I added in the anti-virus software (as, ahem, you know Macs don't need virus software still), some software that might do a few of the iLife things (like Adobe Elements in place of iPhoto) etcetera, and I also added in a wireless router cos, you know, Macs have wireless built in ... it came to NZ$2136. Cheap, yes, but I couldn't get a better option on the processor. In fact, the site wouldn't even tell me how fast the processor was. Anyway, you get the picture.

Of course, there's the elephant in the room: aesthetics. And the elephant is definitely facing away from you, in my opinion, in the case of the Dell and the HP. Frankly, who could anyone live with anything so ugly in their house?

- Mark Webster mac.nz