Originally posted on AppleTellby Ed McKell on Sep 7, 2009 at 04:19 PM
Labor Day picnics are in full swing. Amusement parks and water parks are shutting down or shortening their hours. Traffic is slowing down in school zones all across the world. What do these things mean? It’s back to school, and that means it’s time to make sure you have all of your school necessities like pencils, paper and a backpack big enough for a MacBook Pro.
As students head back to school, many have dreams of computers dancing in their heads. Let’s be honest up front here, it’s hard to justify a new computer for your average high school student, but it’s definitely becoming a must-have for most college students. Let’s put the cards on the table here; in my experience, the best tool for the job is Apple’s Macbook or MacBook Pro line. There are a lot of options from a lot of other manufacturers, but the only one that can run Mac OSX is the genuine article directly from Apple, and that makes all the difference. With that said, is the Mac really worth the premium price it seems to command?
Price vs. Value
At first glance, Apple’s computers seem to be more expensive, and if you compare their price with the price of the low-end models from other manufacturers, that would definitely be true. But let’s make sure we are comparing apples to Apples because there are a lot of lemons out there. If price were the only factor, then that first glance at low-end models from other manufacturers would be hard to beat, and Macs could only be justified by those who had money to burn. Price, however, is not the only factor. While price can tell you a lot, keep in mind the lowest price rarely equals the best value. Value should be determined by initial price, total cost of ownership (long term price), longevity and usefulness/satisfaction.
When we look at price, Apple is frequently as expensive as comparable manufacturers like Dell, HP or Toshiba. Because laptops are the largest seller amongst students in the PC and Mac arenas, we can explore this specific area. Jumping to Dell’s site, you are quickly hit with laptops as low as $499, but when you hit Apple’s Education Store, the lowest laptop you will find there is $949. But comparing the options and specifications of both, you quickly realize you are comparing two different levels of laptops. After adjusting the PC product to have comparable specifications, they often come within $100-$200 of each other. While $100 is significant savings, that is just one part of our value formula. But to be fair, Apple usually loses on the initial price comparison.
So, next we jump to our long term price, or what companies refer to as TCO (Total Cost of Ownership). TCO is a great concept, and one people should use when buying a lot of high priced items, not just computers. TCO starts with initial price and then adds on what it takes to be able to use that machine over its lifetime. Software is a big part of that, and the most obvious piece is anti-virus software. Let’s start with a disclaimer here, all computer owners should be running some sort of anti-virus/malware software. That includes Mac users. WIth that said, most of them don’t use anti-virus software because they really don’t feel the need since there is very little malware that exists for the Mac, and currently no signifigant worms or virus are on the loose. To extend the honesty here, I don’t run active ant-virus software and I have been using Macs since 1989. I did see an infected file or two, but they were all Microsoft Word or Excel files that were infected with Macro viruses. However, I haven’t even seen any of those this century. I do run some free anti-malware and anti-virus scans about twice a year, just to be sure. PC users do not have this luxury. Anti-virus software is a necessity, and a way of life for any that uses any variation of Windows. Although there are free options, most will end up paying for a subscription service at an average of $30/year. Over a four year college career, that is an easy $120 added to our TCO. That eats up a lot of those initial price savings, and we haven’t even gone to the next two items in our value proposition: longevity.
Longevity is not necessarily a question of reliability, even though that can be an important factor. Longevity is reliability plus usability/satisfaction over time. Longevity is an area where Apple tends to shine. The initial price tends to buy you a very high quality computer that will meet your needs for some time to come. This area is actually improving across the board and is the reason why we are seeing $449 laptops from PC manufacturers. The hardware requirements for many things people want to do today are not increasing at the pace that it used to, meaning “yesterday’s” technology is still useful today. Therefore, the cheap PC is cheap because it is still a useful version of “yesterday’s” technology. If you are using technology that is already two or three years old, the usability of your device over time is likely to be reduced by a year or more. Apple tends to sell current technology, and does very well at making sure it comes with the things people tend to use currently and for some time to come. Generally, providing cutting edge without being bleeding edge is something Apple does very well. This tends to increase longevity for Apple’s products, and to to get the same level of longevity from a PC, you will be buying the middle or top of the line products, impacting your initial price.
Our final factor in the value formula is usefulness and satisfaction. Again, this is an area where Apple excels. Not only does Apple get some of the highest user satisfaction ratings in the industry, they also have a reputation for having a computer that “just works.” A lot of this comes from the advantage that Apple makes both the hardware and software (operating system) that runs their computers. No other major consumer computer has that advantage. This allows them to make sure that both work together very well. You combine this with a Mac community and mindset that has created a very high expectation for Mac developers to create comparably high quality software that has a high usability factor, and you get a system that consistently works very well. However, the Mac is not perfect. It is possible to have problems and need help with things, but the Mac community tends to be very helpful and Apple provides Genius bar services in all of their stores where you can schedule an appointment with a Mac Genius to help you and answer your questions. All of this combines to give Apple a high usefulness and satisfaction rating. This may seem small at first, but it tends to greatly increase your longevity, affecting your value factor greatly.
The proof is in the pudding
When you look at our value formula, you discover that Apple can score very highly. But much of what we discussed above is subjective, and different parts of the value formula will be weighted differently depending on your circumstances. For example, if your up front budget is $800 and you cannot wait to save more, the initial price will become a very important factor. However, if you have saved for a long time and therefore you want to make sure it lasts for a long time, then the last two factors of longevity and usefulness/satisfaction will be more important for you. There also may be other external factors that effect your purchase, such as software or hardware requirements from the school your children will be attending.
I’d like to inject some anecdotal evidence in here from my own experience. I’ve spent a lot of time working with older high school and college students over the years, and helped a lot of them evaluate these factors in their own life. When they tend to make their purchases, they obviously fall into two groups: half buying PCs and half buying Macs. Of those who buy PCs, I have found that about half wish they had bought or could have bought a Mac, and many of them did so before the end of their time in college. Many of those who stayed happily with the PC still ended up replacing quickly it with something better. However, as far as I’m aware, every single student who purchased a Mac never regretted the decision, and most managed to make that initial purchase last their entire time at collage (and frequently beyond that). For those who did buy another, they upgraded to another Mac.
So what is the right back-to-school computer for you? I’m afraid you will have to discover that yourself. However, I would recommend you try to use the formula above and consider a Mac if your circumstances allow. If you are buying for college, I would recommend you use the online Apple Store for Education and check to see if they are running any specials. Apple doesn’t tend to do sales, but they will frequently have promotions. For example, until Sept. 8, you can receive a free iPod Touch when you buy a qualifying Mac. That will certainly help your value proposition.
Originally posted on AppleTell by Ed McKell on Sep 7, 2009 at 04:19 PM
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