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Apple vs. Dell

Dell vs. Apple

More and more of us are using Apple Macs. The MacBook Pro is proving a popular laptop here and the new iMac is appearing on a few desks. The rest of the building is Dell of course and they have been good machines though lacking in a bit of style.

Typically you think Dell cheap, Apple expensive. And up till a year or to ago you would be dead right. A year ago I wouldn’t bother doing a comparison and didn’t dream of defending Apple. 2007 is different though.

So I did a comparison between our companies official Dell approved Precision 390 desktop and the Apple iMac. The specs of both are roughly:

  • Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz CPU
  • 300GB hard-drive (320GB for the iMac)
  • 2GB RAM
  • 256MB graphics card
  • 19″ monitor (20″ for the iMac)

The iMac comes in at €1589 inclusive of VAT and shipping while the Dell comes in at €1756 exclusive of VAT and shipping. With 21% VAT and shipping the Dell would cost €2184.

Luckily Dell often gives us up to a 30% discount which makes the Dell cost €1548. It took a whole 30% discount to beat the iMac. And that ignores the fact that we order all our desktop Dells with a second monitor costing €409 while we are happy with just one monitor for the iMacs. That 20″ iMac screen is a beauty, the 24″ is a monster.

For home users who don’t get 30% discounts and aren’t going to buy the el cheapo Dells, the iMac offers a whole lot more value. You can get Windows XP on it if you really want. If you don’t mind a cheap Dell then you can save a few hundred over an iMac. I just wouldn’t recommend a cheap Dell.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 22nd, 2007 at 4:30 pm and is filed under Post. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Viewing 3 Comments

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    Hmm… That’s a bit deceptive. Its easy to love the Apple product line as its quite small (in comparison) and all the products are no doubt great. Dell is more like the Ford of the computer industry. It has an endless line of products apparently targeting different audiences but really just creating confusion.

    On the other hand, you can get some great deals from Dell for terrific computing power for quite a bit less than what you can get from Apple. The challenge is sifting through the wide range of models to find those gems. The Precision range is very nice but overpriced business computers. Dell is trying to push higher end products. Same goes for the XPS systems geared for home users. The last desktop I got from Dell was a Dimension 9200. Internally it has much the same hardware as the higher end XPS desktops but for a fraction of the price. Its an incredible system and way way cheaper than any Apple. Unfortunately Dell doesn’t sell that particular model anymore so you’d have to find the equivalent good-value-for-money model today.

    Its tempting to just buy an Apple as you’re almost guaranteed that it will be a great desktop but if you need to count your pennies its just not practical. On the other hand you can do your homework and get a Dell and save.
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    At work we can't, they only approve the Dell Precision 390. So the Apple is the winner and using educational discounts and, as we buy more, further discounts it will be even cheaper.

    We've had cheap Dells at work before and they've simply not been good. Some have survived a good long while and given good service but others haven't and I'm not that keen on relying on cheap Dells anymore when you have work to do.
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    Well I’d love to work there – those are both fine computers! :)

    I agree, Dell does make a few lemons. The new Vostro business notebooks suck. They replace the Latitude notebooks just when they finally perfected the latter.
 

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