"Nothing wrong with shooting...as long as the right people get shot"

Another Dirty Harry quote? Yup....what I'm referring to is buying computers and Macs. I just experience Mac buying firsthand on behalf of a client (more correctly her daughter) who had to have a Mac. I've been accused of being anti-Mac at various times, but that is simply not true. I like them just fine, and I've bought a number of them over time, so let me take a little time and explain the "Frugal Propellerhead" philosophy as related to Macs.

Here are my points to consider:

• What do you do with a computer?
• What's your budget?
• How important are the intangibles (eg. build quality, design, cachet)?

If your main purpose is say Photography (professionally, or serious amateur), Music creation, Graphic Design or any of several tasks that the premier or industry standard software is Mac; by all means....go Mac. If you have a high-end budget (although, I'd be confused as to why you'd be reading this blog), then go ahead, "make my day". Or if you're an equipment snob (I'll admit that I'm kind of one myself), then there's lots to like about them as well.....but....there's always one of those isn't there.

What this post is about, is my recent experience with a machine identical to the above. As I said earlier, I needed to find a MacBook for the daughter of a client who had bought a Dell from me previously. She needed a replacement computer for college and had a budget between $500-700. Normally, in that situation, I'd have recommended a ThinkPad or Dell Latitude in the $250-350 range equipped with an Intel Core2Duo CPU, 14" screen, combo drive and a hard drive in the 100-200Gb range. From a usability standpoint, we'd be talking about the same thing as the "early '09, 13" MacBook that I found for them. This machine was built very well, it was in good shape, and spec'd nicely with a 160Gb HDD, and 4Gb of RAM, plus 6 more months of AppleCare warranty left.

So, what's the problem? $200-300, that's the problem! The Dell D630s that I've been doing lately are spec'd almost identically to that Mac and I've been able to get them into a client's hands for between $225 and $275! They'll be just as functional as that MacBook and last pretty much just as long.

So, if you are OK to double your cost for those intangibles, then that's your call. ".....as long as the right people get shot"