I have been known as a bit of an Apple fan boy in the past, as I am a massive fan of the software, which I think is hands down better than anything on the Windows platform. Now I am working, I thought it was time to buy myself a new laptop, as my current Macbook has seen better days. But when I looked at the newly released Macbook, it made me think. The newly released white Macbook, has gone up from £700 to £800, which is a bold move to make as we are in the middle of a recession and seeing that average prices on laptops have gone down from £600 to £300 in recent years.
This overpricing of hardware, is known as the Apple Tax. Apple tries to make it impossible to install their OS (OSX) onto other vendor’s hardware. But there are groups that are working on hacking the software to work on any hardware. These computers are called Hackintoshes. The first main stream hackintosh device, was the Dell Mini 9, which I know friends have successfully installed Mac OSX on. Since then a number of netbooks have been hacked to run Mac OSX. In my research for this post, I found an impressively detailed compatibility chart for hackintoshs. With this number of netbooks being able to run Mac OSX, the question has to be asked, how does the Macbook shape up to other laptops. Below is a table comparing the Macbook to one of the more expensive netbooks in the compatibility charts.
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 |
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|---|---|---|
| Name | ASUS EEE PC 1000HA | Apple MacBook |
| Price | £250 | £800 |
| Processor | Intel® Atom™ N270, 1.6GHz | Intel Core 2 Duo 2.26GHz |
| Hard Drive | 160GB | 250GB |
| RAM | 1GB DDR2 SO-DIMM | 2GB DDR3 SDRAM |
| Screen | 13.3-inch – 1280 x 800 pixels | 10.1-inch – 1024 x 800 pixels |
| WIFI | b/g/n | a/b/g/n |
| Network | 10/100 Ethernet | 10/100/1000 Ethernet |
| Bluetooth | Built-in Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR | Built-in Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR |
| USB | £250 | £800 |
| Mouse | Multi-Touch trackpad | Multi-Touch trackpad |
| Optical Drive | None | DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW |
| SD Card Reader | Yes | No |
| Audio | Head Phone & Mic-in | Single input/output jack |
| WebCam | 1.3* megapixel | 1.3* megapixel |
| Colours | White, Black, Pink, Blue | White |
| Weight | 1.27Kg | 2.13 kg |
Admittedly this is a bit like comparing apples to oranges (mind the pun) as the speed of the Macbook is far in a way better than the netbook, but as for features, I think the 1000HA stands up pretty well. For many the £550 difference, could be a months rent and for me, it is a large percentage of my monthly wage. I think personally that I may end up getting a Macbook Pro, but I am not sure that I could talk others into doing the same.
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2 Responses to “MacBook vs EEE PC”
November 8th, 2009 at 8:42 pm
But that is the thing, I think that Windows 7 is much better than any other Windows yet, I am still a massive fan of Mac OSX as a designer. As someone that has never used it, you may not understand, but it is just a better platform for applications.
Your right Mark, it has got to a point where the Macbook is just not shaping up compared to other laptops anymore.
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November 8th, 2009 at 4:16 pm
I wouldn’t get either. The Eee is only good because it is small, but for me that is the least important thing. An optical drive is a must, and so is Windows 7. And I would NEVER get an Apple crap because you are paying a huge premium for OS X which limits the platform and is only asthetics. The brand to me is also a big put off. But seeing as the Mac uses pentium processors and standard Laptop components, and Windows 7 is now much better than Vista, Apple is charging a huge price for a name and an image. As the basics are now VERY simular. For £800 you can get a much better laptop than the Mac such as http://www.ebuyer.com/product/177472 as just an example.