Mac peeps, what am I missing?

[Ghoulish Delight]

I wouldn't go that far. Our Dell has served us for 4 years, and it's still a good machine. I think the hard drive is getting a tad flakey, but otherwise, it's in good shape. I'd say it's only within the last year that software requirements (gaming, really) have finally completely outpaced it. And considering that it was mid to low end when we bought it, and that other than installing a second hard drive that I don't use, I haven't upgraded it at all, I'd say 4 years is a pretty good run. Had we spent a little more, investing in a slightly faster processor, a better graphics card, and more RAM, it could easily have served us for the forseeable future. But at this point, putting together those components would start to approach the price of replacing the thing outright, so it's just not worth it now.

So this time around, the plan was to make that investment. And since we were considering upping our price range, that put Macs on the radar. The fact is, I could STILL buy an equally powerful PC that would be just as far from obsolecense (maybe even with a little longer life seeing as I can get PCI-Express in a PC) as a Mac for far less. But Macs have other advantages that make that price difference worth it to me. To others, it's not worth it, and that's fine.

But the argument that one is technologically superior to the other is mostly anecdotal. Yes, PCs seem more unreliable and shorter lasting in the long run, but that's because they are commoditized and MOST people (myself included) get the cheapest one that will do the job. The mid to low end is the bulk of the PC market. Mac's the opposite, it's the mid to upper end that most Mac users go for. eMacs and iMacs and the Mac-mini are a relatively new phenomenon in the Mac world. And even much of that product line isn't truly low end. So you're going to see a different reliability and longevity profile in the market between the two, that doesn't really prove anything.