Price Comarison: MacBook Pro vs. Dell Inspiron

Saturday, Jan. 14 2006 | Author: jeremy

This guy too a MacBook Pro and configured a Dell Inspiron E1705 to match it to see what the price difference was. He had to make slight changes to both to get the to match closer, such as 2 512mb DIMMs on the MacBook and add a bigger hard drive and a DVD burner to the Dell. What was the price difference?

Final Price:
MacBook Pro: $2,399
Inspiron E1705: $2,341

When you hear people complaining about how expensive a Mac is compared to the PC, they are usually thinking about those deals they see on TV where you can get a complete system for well under $1000. They don’t stop to think that those PCs could not even come close to competeing with a Mac on performance.

It is nice to see that the higher-end PCs are stacking up well against the Macs and making it more of a preference issue rather than a money issue for those who are going for the higher quality machines.

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8 Responses for "Price Comarison: MacBook Pro vs. Dell Inspiron"

cliche

January 16th, 2006 at 7:17 pm
1

Except Apple never has those crazy 30%-40% off deals like Dell. Don’t get me wrong: new apples are still a hell of a deal.
Darian

January 17th, 2006 at 11:02 am
2

Yeah, but that Dell configuration can do more than that MacBook pro….

For instance, the dell has a dual layer DVD-+R/RW, and has a much better video card, 17″ screen…

So.. yeah. The mac is still more than the dell. Considering you are comparing a 15″ to a 17″…
fuquapi

January 17th, 2006 at 10:24 pm
3

dell is shit. plain an simple. i would never throw that kind of money at a dell or a mac
pffft
evilkat

January 19th, 2006 at 1:41 pm
4

I hate laptops in general. Far too expensive and customized just for portability’s sake. As slick as the Crapple might look, Cliche and Darian both bring out very valid points.
Nick

January 20th, 2006 at 12:01 pm
5

Better video card? are you serious? look at the specs of the MacBook again. The videocard for what it’s worth is pretty amazing.
Romane

January 26th, 2006 at 10:31 am
6

Macs are the Mercedes Benz of the laptops. The OS is more stable. You won’t get the blue screen of deaf on a mac. The graphics are un-comparable. All graphic intensive movies, sound intensive audio, and printing applications all use a MAC. I used to love windows, but it crashed way too many times and they are to vunerable to veruses. I now have a MAC, and it did everything my old pc did and more. Windows dream of having specs and features like a MAC.
Nu Sogaya

March 23rd, 2006 at 10:15 am
7

MacBook Pro - Default but 2-DIMM

15.4-inch TFT display with 1440×900 resolution
2.0GHz Intel Core Duo - 2MB Cache/2GHz/667MHz FSB
1GB 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM
100GB 5400rpm Serial ATA hard drive
Slot-load SuperDrive DVDÂ±RW/CD-RW
ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 with 256MB GDDR3 memory

$2,399.00

Dell Inspiron E1505

15.4 inch Ultra SharpTM WSXGA+ with TrueLife 1680 x 1050 pixels
IntelÂ® Coreâ¢ Duo processor T2500 (2MB Cache/2GHz/667MHz FSB)
1GB DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz
100GB 5400rpm SATA Hard Drive
8X CD/DVD Burner (DVD+/-RW) with double-layer DVD+R write capability
Remote Control for Windows XP Media Center Edition
Intel PRO/Wireless 3945 802.11a/g (54Mbps)
Dell Wireless 350 Bluetooth Internal (2.0 + Enhanced Data Rate)
85 WHr 9-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery

$1,703

I added some stuff to the dell to ‘try’ to compensate for
stuff that’s not available. It made the dell more expense
but all in all it should make for a similiar ‘experience’
for both. Again, I could have saved a bundle by not adding
extra stuff to the dell.(Better battery, better screen etc)
Now, having said that the Mac comes
with build-in webcam and back-lit keys. Both are pretty cool.
It aslo has a ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 vs Dell on this model
only offers built-in card(Up to 256 MB shared). But lets get
real. The ATI isn’t all that and both are NOT meant to be a gaming
machine so it is more than adequate. Another point. If we start
to add to the Mac(HD/Memory) the Mac easily becomes even more expensive
compared to the same upgrades for the dell.

So, you DO pay for the MAC experience. For some that’s great. But
lets lay to rest the arguement that the MAC isn’t more expensive. It
clearly is.

Both models build on 03/19/2006
Lisa

May 23rd, 2006 at 11:32 am
8

I just bought the Inspiron for 1,067.00 with free shipping without any coupons and that’s with 100 gig of memory and 1G of ram. I’m a graphics designer and needed something to replace my desktop. I haven’t had crashing problems with PC’s in the last five or more years so I think that the systems are more stable these days. I have worked on both Mac and PC but still prefer the functionality of the touchpad, accessiblity to files, and mouse functions on pcs. Being a designer I require more of my machine than the average user so I needed something that would get the job done and the main fact is that I can’t get a 17″ Mac anywhere near that price. I don’t need to add in all the unnecessary things into the pc to make it come out to 3000, which is what everybody seems do to make it seem equal. I just wish Mac would give you options to buy something for 1000.