That figures up to spending that $100 every 5 years or so as last I checked you can get system builders Win7 HP for $104.
98 good, WinME suck, XP SP2/3 good, Vista royal suck, Windows 7 good, so Windows 8 will be a hoover vac o' suck. It's not all about raw performance.īut how often do you have to spend that $29? Because despite what MSFT wants you can be just fine in Windows only buying once every 5 years or so, and the way MSFT has been you are better off.
It wasn't the fastest, or the biggest HD, or the best GPU or the most RAM, but it was worth every pound I paid, even if I could buy an equally specced (in terms of just pure computer spec) PC for a lot less. My iMac cost me £1200 when I bought it, and it was totally worth the price *to me*. It is "good value" if you believe that the price you paid for something (anything you buy, not just computers) is worth the cost, regardless of what it is. I'm not going to "kid myself" that the parts inside it are like a Ferrari though - I mean, it only has a Radeon X1600 which was only a midrange GPU at the time I bought it, and a regular SATA HD that is the same as the one in a normal PC. I know I couldn't find anything in the PC world that matched the features of my iMac - the form factor, the weight, the portability, the ability to run OS X without making a hackintosh. The packaging of the components is what makes it cost more, and the price is at a point the market will bear.
Also, I've read in many forums (including Slashdot) that MS will provide a new activation code for OEM versions if you say you "had to replace the motherboard" on your PC.īecause if we say "the hardware is like a Ferrari" then you will come back with "no it s not, its just the same parts as in my PC just costs more!" - which is true.
However, since the OEM version is roughly half the price of the full retail (not upgrade) version, I don't think it's a big deal. To me, the only important limitation is the no-transfer limit. Windows Easy Transfer is available for those that want to easily transfer files, settings, and accounts.
No "in place upgrades" are allowed, which no sane techie would do anyway.
OEM users still get free windows updates, MS's support web site, knowledge base, and paid support options. Experienced computer users don't need that stuff, anyway.
any Dell monitor that somebody with a $3,000 desktop would purchase) but they will run into the problem that, because they are on a Mac Pro, their windows applications would run faster in a VM than they would on a cheap PC(and since cheap PCs rarely have graphics worth anything, even the notoriously virtualization-hostile task of gaming won't work better). Users of Mac Pros are ever so slightly better off particularly if they are using a third party monitor with multiple switchable inputs(ie. I haven't even dared to look at displayport KVMs. Standard 2 or 4 port VGA/PS2/USB KVMs are cheap but DVI/USB KVMs are kind of pricey. You'll also need another set of peripherals, and the desk space for them, or a KVM. With a cheap PC, you'll get VGA or DVI, which means that you'll need either another monitor, or an active converter. Suddenly, your HP box or Asus netbook or whatever it was you purchased for the cost of the OS it runs starts to look annoying.Įven if you have a Mac desktop, you are going to run into issues: iMacs can function as monitors but only if the input source is Displayport. If you are using a laptop, you are likely carrying it around at least sometimes. However, that probably won't be of too much use to your average mac user contemplating windows: The bulk of Macs sold are laptops. You definitely can get a fully functional, if not very exciting, wintel box for about the cost of a Windows licence. While I'm sure that they would all prefer that it be cheaper, I doubt VMware and company are much worried.