It’s been years ago, but the newspaper where I worked had a couple hundred PCs — mostly lower-cost Gateways and Dells — in addition to a few Macs. We bought a new pagination system that ran on Macs, so we placed a bulk order for somewhere around 150 iMacs.
Before making this commitment, we looked into simply buying better PCs that would last longer (they were averaging three years whereas we were getting around four years out of the Macs), but the price of the better PCs pushed them up closer to the cost of the old Bondi Blue iMacs. Just based on our previous Macs, the overall maintenance, networking, servicing, and repair costs were significantly lower for the Macs than the PCs. When it was all said and done, the Macs turned out to have a lower lifetime cost with less downtime than the PCs, so the paper made the switch based partly on cost savings.
I think this whole issue wasn’t so much a Mac vs Windows issue as it was with us having previously purchased poorly made PCs to save money. Also, at the time, networking all the PCs together with all the various peripherals and output devices needing various drivers and updates required more IT expertise than did the Macs.
Windows has changed a lot since then and become a whole lot more intuitive for non-technical users. PC manufacturers are putting more effort into making better-built machines. The cheap boxes are still out there, but it basically boils down to getting what one pays for. Shopping around can lead to some pretty good deals on well-built PCs that you’ll never find with new Macs.
I think a lot of longtime Mac users have this bias against Windows machines based on things that were true 20-some years ago. I still like the Mac OS better, but its mostly because I’m used to it. I don’t think there’s been a significant difference in capabilities or intuitiveness for at least 15 years. As Windows has become more intuitive, Macs seem to have gotten less so. As it stands right now, which is best seems to be a moot question and entirely dependent on the situation and personal preference.
We narrowed the choices down to two systems: CCI out of Denmark and DTI conveniently based here in Utah. The CCI system would have required buying NT workstations for everyone. The DTI system only required iMacs. The NT workstations were considerably more expensive than the iMacs.
It costs money to run a metro newspaper. Have you ever priced a new 6-color newspaper web press?
I was talking about personally. Still ticked off that it’s gonna cost close to $3K to replace my personal laptop and well over $6K to replace my work desktop unit. They’re talking about switching to iMacs instead of towers, and while I’ll admit a new tower is probably overkill for the work I do, the concept of using an all-in-one doesn’t sit well with me.
Ahhh, OK. Last summer I needed a new computer for home and freelance work. I couldn’t justify the cost of a new Mac laptop either, so I opted for a Mac Mini. It sacrifices easy portability, but I don’t really need that for home. It works just fine and gets the job done for what I need.
I too would rather keep the display separate from the computer. A desktop option somewhere between the Mini and the way-too-expensive Mac desktop is needed, and the combination display/computer iMac isn’t it.
Mac Minis are weird things to me. I only ever see them as the guts to an interactive kiosk we might be building. We buy those almost by the case. They don’t seem like real computers to me. Just obedient little devices to be programmed and do their thing.
That’s likely because you use them for that purpose, but they’re actually full-fledged Macintoshes that do a pretty good job. In a sense, they’re sort of the equivalent of iMacs without the built-in displays.
Undoubtedly? I’m assuming you’re saying that tongue-in-cheek since, as many of the above posts indicate, there’s plenty of room for doubt. I personally like Macintoshes the best — and have done since the mid '80s — but for someone who feels comfortable on a Windows machine, I don’t see any inherent downside in using Windows.
My £1,750ish iMac has a 27-inch 5120 x 2880 pixel 5k screen - to buy the screen separately you are going to spend around £750 so the question is, can you build a PC to match the iMac specs for £1,000?
No worries - that’s the i5-8500 in the iMac 27 inch 2019 (3.0ghz)
note there are plenty of configurations this is just an example
Here’s a comparable PC for less than £1000
Case is pickable
Other things are customizable - but going on CPU/RAM/Graphics Card
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i5 Six Core Processor i5-10500 (3.1GHz) 12MB Cache
Benchmark vs the iMac (i5-8500)
Memory (RAM)
16GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 2666MHz (2 x 8GB)
As I suspected there is very little difference in price /performance, but you can get away with a lower spec desktop PC for a lot less money that does the job nearly as well.
Well this is not the case really. This is todays prices vs prices from 3 or 4 years ago. Markets are different.
This is a slightly better spec desktop PC than the iMac.
Of course this also has a 1TB hard drive - and to add that to an iMac these days costs an extra arm and a leg.
As it happens - I looked up the current iMac 27 inch basic model
It has the same processor I have picked for the desktop - the i5-10500
Customise your 27‑inch iMac with Retina 5K display.
Standard glass
3.1GHz 6-core 10th-generation Intel Core i5 processor, Turbo Boost up to 4.5GHz
16GB 2666MHz DDR4 memory
Radeon Pro 5300 with 4GB of GDDR6 memory
256GB SSD storage
Gigabit Ethernet
Magic Mouse 2
Magic Keyboard - British
£1,999.00
(which is just over double the price of the PC I put together that has extra storage and better graphics card).
On the basic line iMac - there isn’t an option to increase the hard drive space.
It’s 256gb and that’s all you get.
No option to improve the graphics card.
The Desktop I put together comes in half the price than the current line of basic iMac.
.
.
On the most expensive third choice Mac on the Mac site
iMac 27 inch (keeping as close to the desktop build posted below)
Standard glass
3.8GHz 8-core 10th-generation Intel Core i7 processor, Turbo Boost up to 5.0GHz
16GB 2666MHz DDR4 memory
Radeon Pro 5700 XT with 16GB of GDDR6 memory
1TB SSD storage £3,199.00
NEW Desktop build (as close to the iMac build above)
