Come on Microsoft – that ad doesn’t even make sense (aka: Why I just bought a Macbook)
The Windows vs. Mac discussion never stops to amaze me. That’s probably because I’m pretty agnostic when it comes to my operating systems. I’ve used Windows 3.1 to 7, Ubuntu was the main OS on my laptop for the last three years, I wrote some of my best stuff on an LC 630 Macintosh back in the day, and last weekend I bought a Macbook to replace my dead Dell laptop.
But Microsoft’s latest ad campaign, which made its debut today, just rubs me the wrong way because it simply doesn’t make much sense. Here is the ad, in case you haven’t seen it yet:
Please forgive me the unoriginality of this, but Microsoft is simply comparing apples and oranges here. Lauren, our bubbly college grad, is looking for a laptop with a 17-inch screen – and this is what she buys in the end. 8 pounds and 2:30hrs of battery life…
Aside: I love a big screen as much as the next geek, but from a laptop, I want portability – I have a desktop for my day-to-day work.
Apple simply doesn’t make low-end desktop-replacement machines – end of story. You can’t get a cheap 17-inch Macbook or Macbook Pro. It’s not the market Apple is in – so sending Lauren to the Apple store is simply a fool’s errant.
Implicitly, the ad compares the 17-inch HP machine Lauren buys to the $999 13-inch white Macbook. If she had been looking for a 13-inch machine, then the Macbook would probably have been slightly more expensive than the comparable option like an Inspiron 13 or XPS1330 from Dell (in terms of price and design, the XPS is probably the best comparison – and its price is similar to the Macbook).
Also, isn’t it somewhat odd that Microsoft – which is in the OS business and not in the hardware business after all – doesn’t even mention the OS?
Why I just bought a Macbook
When my laptop broke a few weeks back, I was mostly looking at Dell machines to replace it, simply because I generally had pretty good luck with my last couple of laptops from there – but in the end, the Macbook won out because even though the base prices on the Dells are pretty good, once you add all the necessary options, the price difference dwindles quickly (not the least because I also get a pretty nice discount at the Apple store courtesy of my wife’s job). In the end, I paid about $100 more for the Mac than I would have paid for the Windows machine. However, the specs I was looking for were different from Lauren’s – I wanted a portable machine – preferably with a 12-inch screen, like my old laptop, but somehow these have become ridiculously expensive luxury machines now, or, like Dell’s Mini12, they are underpowered for what I want to do with them. I also wanted to be able to get at least 4hrs of battery life from the machine – which is pretty close to what the Macbook does.
Sure – the Apple brand played a role in my decision – no denying it – and so did the excellent customer service I have experience at the Apple store – but also the fact that I’ve always wanted to spend some more time with OSX and that I just want my laptop to work out of the box (I’ve built my own desktops for the last 10 years or so). Because a large part of my work is done on the Net anyway, the only piece of software that I miss on OSX so far is Windows Live Writer.
Time will tell if it was worth it or not, but so far, I’m loving the Mac and OSX (and note – I also love Windows 7 on my desktop machine).
If I have some time this weekend, I’ll write a longer story about what switching between Win 7 and OSX is like.
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