A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.
- Winston Churchill
Two weeks ago, I was faced with a decision. The time had come to buy a new laptop, to replace my beloved three-year-old MacBook. I'd wrestled with the decision for quite some time, and until the very last minute I was waffling. I'm one of those loons who would by a toaster oven if it had an Apple logo on it. For the longest time there was no question: I'm a Mac...so of course I would buy a new Mac. Simple, eh?
Except there was one nagging problem. The more research I did, the more disturbed I became. My needs are pretty simple: I write and surf da Interweb. Beyond that, not much happens. The more I looked, the harder it was for me to escape one very simple reality: buying a Mac meant paying between 2-3 times as much for a PC that would do exactly what I needed. Being that I'm currently unemployed, cost was no abstract consideration. No matter how hard I tried to parse it, I couldn't justify paying far more for a Mac when I could have a PC that would do what I need it to do. And so I did what had seemed heretical not so very long ago: I bought a Toshiba laptop with a 16" monitor. To my surprise, I am LOVING it.
This has been my first exposure to Windows 7, but so far I'll have to admit to be very favorably impressed. It's fast, it's stable, it boots up and shuts down quickly...and it seems to be (BURN THE WITCH!!!) every bit as good, if not perhaps a shade better, than the Mac OS I so loved. The fact that I paid less than $600 for it only cemented my satisfaction. A similarly configured MacBook Pro would have cost me close to three times the cost for my PC.
Memo to Steve Jobs: I don't know how many like me there are out there, and I can only speak for myself, but if you refuse to compete on price you're destined to lose. Cachet and image will take you only so far. Eventually, people are going to wise up and realize that you've been brainwashing them. I wanted to buy a Mac. I really did. Your refusal to compete on price left me no option, and so I bought a PC...and so far I'm quite pleased that I did. Your loss....
