iMac? $1601.37 reasons I will not switch anytime soon!

Filed under: technology — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — sohum on October 20, 2009 at 11:10 pm

Anyone who knows me will know that I’m not the biggest fan of Macs. I’ve had the pleasure of using an Apple iMac quite consistently during my time working in the Marketing & Communications department at Rice University IT and thoroughly enjoyed using it for web-design and graphics development, two of my responsibilities that were made easy by iMacs. I always knew Macs were a bit pricey, but only when I actually began setting about building my own computer did I get an idea of how much.

As many of you may know, Apple released their new line of Mac computers today. They released MacBook Pros, the good old iMac and a Mac Mini or two. Among their new offerings were two iMacs built on the latest Intel quad-core chipset–the Nehalem architecture’s LGA 1156 offerings (the Core i5 and i7). These babies start at a price of, wait for it, $1999! This is daylight robbery, in my opinion, and I’ll take it upon myself to prove exactly that.

First, to gain even ground, let’s look at a spec-down of the two computers at hand. I’m going to compare the price of the components of the computer I build with an equally spec’d out iMac. Here we go:

iSohummm Edition

Processor: Core i7-860 2.8 GHz
Motherboard: ASRock P55D Pro
RAM: Corsair XMS3 2×2GB 1600 MHz DDR3 SDRAM
Graphics Card: Gigabyte GV-R467ZL ATI Radeon HD4670 1GB
Hard Drive: 1TB Western Digital Caviar Black (7200RPM)
Optical Drive: 22x Samsung DVD+R 8x DVD+RW 16x DVD-ROM 48x CD-ROM
PSU: Corsair TX650W
Case: Antec Three Hundred Illusion
Keyboard-Mouse: Microsoft Wireless Desktop 6000 v2
PRICE AFTER TAXES AND DELIVERY: $779.05

Apple iMac 27-inch

Processor: Intel Core i7-860 2.8 GHz
Motherboard: UNKNOWN
RAM: UNKNOWN 2×2GB 1066 MHz DDR3 SDRAM
Graphics Card: UNKNOWN ATI Radeon HD4850 512MB
Hard Drive: 1TB UNKNOWN (7200RPM)
Optical Drive: 8x DVD±R 8x DVD+RW 6x DVD-RW 8x DVD-ROM 24x CD-ROM SuperDrive
PSU: UNKNOWN (but apparently >365W)
Case: Apple 27″ IPS-enabled Monitor
Keyboard Mouse: Apple Magic Mouse + Wireless Keyboard Bundle
PRICE AFTER TAXES AND DELIVERY: $2380.42

A total difference of $2380.42 – $779.05 = $1601.37. Hence the title of this post. “But what about your display!” you scream. Well, I’m going to be using my HDTV as my primary output for a while (until a decent LCD offer comes around). That cost me ~$854 after taxes and a 3-year warranty from Fry’s. And it has S-IPS (that’s Super IPS, for those who’re wondering) technology, supposedly. And it’s about $15 inches bigger (only diagonally, though) than the iMac computer. So the question is… is the all-in-one functionality+magic mouse+a slightly better gfx card worth a whopping $800? Or is Apple taking its dedicated user community on a ride (again)?

To better answer this question, I want to highlight a few details I picked up on while customizing my cart:

  1. Upgrading from the Core i5-750 (2.66 GHz) to the Core i7-860 (2.8 GHz) costs $200 on the Apple store, before taxes. The retail price of an i5-750 on Newegg is $199 and that of the i7-860 is $289. The difference is $90. Apple is charging its customers $110 extra to make this upgrade (remember, the mobo+everything else does NOT need to change to enable this since both are on the LGA 1156 socket), over the retail cost, before taxes.
  2. Upgrading from one 2×2GB memory kit to a 2 (in essence, buying another 2×2GB memory kit) costs $200 on the Apple store, before taxes. The retail price of the most expensive 2×2GB DDR3 SDRAM kit at the 1066 MHz clock speed on Newegg costs $87.49. The price difference is a whopping $112.51 extra that Apple is making from its consumers. Unless their original mobo only has 2 memory slots (which is kinda scary to begin with) and they need to do a mobo upgrade to support the second kit (did not appear true for any of the P55 boards on Newegg).
  3. And here’s the kicker–Apple charges an upgrade price of $250 for a 2TB hard-drive from a 1TB offering. That’s $70 more than the most expensive 2TB 7200RPM SATA drive on Newegg! And that is to upgrade from a 1TB, which usually retails for around $90. So, Apple is charging consumers an extra $160 approximately, to upgrade their HDD from 1TB to 2TB than it should cost.

What does this mean? It means that Apple is not only charging a ludicrous premium on their i7 offering, but they are at the same time charging HUGE premiums on upgrades. I’m going to be in the market for another TB and another 2×2GB kit of RAM come Black Friday, and I don’t expect to spend more than a total of $150 on that (did I mention that my mobo also has onboard RAID support?). That’s more than Apple is charging than market to upgrade from a 1TB to 2TB.

It’s crazy. I’ve not been making many friends with Mac fans over the last couple of days (especially on a certain CNET article) but the fact remains that these prices are heavily, heavily inflated. The iMac, I understand, is targeted towards home and home business users, compared to the Mac Pro, which is targeted towards business users and professionals. I shudder to think how much one of those will cost, after being loaded by one of the higher end i7 chips. Probably well into the $4000’s as a base price.

I’ll admit it here and once. If that Mac was available for around $1500, I’d seriously consider getting it. The cost would be just about $700 more than what I’ve spent currently to get into a seriously hard-to-upgrade, all-in-one machine with a sexy display. The best part would be I could use bootcamp and run Windows 7 off of it. But at this price, it would make more sense for me to upgrade all my components to their max (getting a 58xx video card, getting the $999 i7 chip) and I reckon I’d still just about break even.

22X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-ROM

inefficient dizzle

Filed under: life — Tags: , , , , , , , , — sohum on May 05, 2009 at 4:05 pm

I had great hopes that today would be a very productive day for me. I woke up at around 6.15am to get ready for my driving test, which I was hoping to take pretty early after getting to the DPS at around 7.30am. I was at the Zipcar by 7am and drove along with TGJ to the DPS only to find a pretty decent line outside already. Luckily we only had to chill for about 15 minutes and then were let in. I stood in the main line, not realizing that since I have my instruction permit, I don’t need to apply again for a driving license (apparently–this may still change, of course, because of the way bureaucracy works). After standing in that main line for about 15 more minutes I went up to the counter and was told I had to go to station 10 to schedule my road test and I did not actually have to apply for a DL.

So I went to that station and of course there were no spots available today. So I scheduled an appointment for tomorrow at 9am. On the way back there was a lot of traffic on main so I suppose in retrospect the result was good because I didn’t have to pay a late fee. Now I have one more day to worry about my road test! Humph. Came back today and could have started packing and stuff but instead I just bummed around on the internet, checking results from last night’s game (the Rockets won!!). By around lunch time I started feeling sick and coughing regularly. I hope I didn’t catch something at the DPS. :( I was already a little sickly with coughs over the last couple of days. I decided to take a 30-minute nap after lunch to sleep it off but that ended up becoming more like a 90 minute nap. And I didn’t feel much better when I woke up either. So I popped another Alerid Cold (I had one in the morning) and decided to take off work and nap again.

Now I feel a bit better but still not 100%. I’m thinking of going and working out so that I don’t feel completely sedated. I may even catch a bit of the baseball game after that. Let’s see…

So something else interesting happened today. At around 11am there were huge roars of helicopters going around. I didn’t think much of it but then Paul came in and told me that apparently a shooting had happened on the Outer Loop (the jogging track that surrounds the Rice campus). At that point news was bare but it is a little clearer now. You can read up on various articles on Google News. The gist of it was that some guy with a knife attacked a woman at the Light Rail station across from Rice and that officers followed this man. They then attempted to taser him without much success and as he approached them with a knife, they started shooting at him. He was dead on the spot, but apparently a bullet went through/ricocheted off of him and hit a bystander. There is no news about the status of the other guys.

Yesterday, I had a pretty awesome day, as well. I woke up around 10.30am and bummed around till lunch. I then worked from 1-4pm and worked out afterwards till about 5.30pm. Then, Alice and I went to dark room at the Rice Gallery since I was interested in seeing how the process of developing photos is. It’s pretty intense. And dark. There was a glow-in-the-dark clock in the room that developers are supposed to use to count the time in the various different liquids. After about 5 minutes of staring at the clock, the numbers start disappearing… But it was a cool insight into how exactly that process works.

After that we had dinner at South Servery and then we went over to her place to celebrate our shared love for tiramisu. Yup, we tried to make it. I don’t know yet how it turned out since it had to be chilled, but it was definitely not the 25-minute preparation time that was speculated by the recipe off of Food Network! You live and you learn, I suppose, and I guess the next time either of us have to make tiramisu we will have learned something (don’t know what yet, though, haha). I then came back on campus and managed to catch the last quarter of the Rockets-Lakers game.

Everyone and their grandmom has written off the Rockets in this series but Houston played great basketball yesterday (with a brave game from Yao Ming) to “upset” the Lakers and wrest away homecourt advantage. Kobe drilled in 32 points but he took some very bad shots and was not at all in rhythm (at least in the fourth quarter). Let’s hope him and Gasol stay in that groove!

That’s all for now.

senior gala-ing

Filed under: life — Tags: , , , , — sohum on April 29, 2009 at 5:04 pm

Well it’s that time of year. Finals week has officially ended and now we have about a week and a half to do… nothing, really. Tonight is the annual Senior Gala, which is essentially a dress-up event held at a swanky venue. This year the party will take place at Hotel Derek, and the budget is supposedly $22,000. That’s more than a semester’s tuition at Rice, so let’s see if it can live up to expectations.

Beer Bus yesterday was quite a lot of fun. We went first to the Stag’s Head where we had Baker alumnis pick up our tab. The next location was the Marquis II where I played a couple of rounds of pool with those who were willing to challenge me (and sponsor a game). I was able to get away with an unbeaten run in about 3 games. Finally, we headed to the Boondocks and ended the night of bar-hopping. However, we did stop by at Whataburger on the way back and grabbed some chicken biscuits for the road. It was quite a delicious night.

Today, I enjoyed the freedom of not having an ounce of work to do by sleeping in till about 12pm. I then had lunch and spent the rest of the day staring at the television. There is a pretty nifty show on called The Phone on MTV which actually seems interesting and is not entirely (or even at all) trashy. The show is kind of a combination of Who Dares Wins and the Amazing Race. Contestants communicate with the host (complete with some British accent) with their cellphones and receive instructions as to what to do. Pretty intense show and one I may be following for the next week that I am here and maybe even online if my internet connection in India is good enough.

Anyways, that’s all for now. Time to grab some sushi and get my Gala on.

ready, set and go (again)

Filed under: life — Tags: , , , , , , — sohum on April 28, 2009 at 1:04 am

I have finally gone ahead and restarted my blog–this time using actual blog software (also known as WordPress). Being done with classes (all that shiznazz will be covered momentarily) is what actually allowed me to achieve this since I could dedicate something like a day to developing my custom WP theme, testing it and installing it, instead of doing all sorts of other things that I probably should been doing. Oh wells, I’m not one to complain especially since at the end of it all I can now blog again.

Unfortunately… there isn’t a lot to say. My career as a Rice student is now officially over as far as coursework is concerned. All the fun stuff (graduation, senior parties and the like) do remain; if only college was all that it was without courses! Maybe some day someone will come up with a way to address this dissatisfaction. I must add, as well, that this web-based WYSIWYG editor that WP provides is miles better than using a phpMyAdmin screen.

Anyhow, I have a few things to do tomorrow, namely go do my drug test for National Instruments and go to work. In the evening we have our final edition of Baker Beer Bus, wherein members of Baker College hop on a chartered bus and visit a few bars around Houston. It’s one of the few events that brings together all the different seniors at Baker together. I’m definitely looking forward to that.

In other news, I finally purchased my cap and gown from the bookstore. So I will be graduating in non-shirt-and-t-shirt attire (hopefully… depending on how I ended up doing in Comp 421). Other remaining things to do range from backing up all my stuff on Rice storage (including email and Owlnet files) to doing my driving test. Since I’m practicing driving in about 8 hours, this is probably a good time to end this entry and get some rest. Let’s see how v5 (or maybe v6) of this blogging affair progresses.