Figures you'd basically be fellating Steve Jobs in yet another of your so-called efforts at journalism.

I've been a PC person since 1993 and Windows 3.1. That "top of the line" Core 2 Duo in the MacBook Air is less powerful than what I've got in this desktop I paid $1500 for in 2006. A Mac is a shiny, useless piece of overpriced garbage that just offhand I can think of dozens of uses for which a PC is better-suited:

- Productivity. Yes, Mac runs Microsoft Office, but Windows runs OpenOffice better, faster, and free.

- Gaming. If this were GameFAQs, Kotaku, or the Escapist, I'd say "game, set, match", but here I understand it's just a basic point. Still, give me all my games on Steam, and even the games that Macs DO run (World of Warcraft, for example) they run poorly and mods give them fits.

- Internet. Does Firefox run on Macs? And if it does, is it anywhere near as good as Firefox for a PC (with Windows OR with Linux)? Where regards proprietary, as bad as IE is, I'd take over Safari every day and twice on Sunday.

- Upgrade ability. One other reason this 2006-issue PC is still able to run the newest, latest software (Empire: Total War, Fallout 3) at a pretty good level of detail is that all I have to do is pop the panel off the side, replace a card or a chip, and boom---my 2006 PC thinks it's a 2008 PC. All for under $500 thanks to some Google Fu and a little help from Newegg, eBay, and Craigslist. Could've done it cheaper too but for the fact that sometimes I like to spend the extra money at Best Buy so I can have the part right away rather than waiting for the UPS guy.

- Personal image. Here I'm hitting Mac geeks where it hurts. The economic and consumer climate is changing. What would you rather be known for? Being a self-righteous prick who buys gadgets because they "look cool" or being secure enough with yourself to know that saving money, choosing substance over style, and having the most feature-rich system for the money is the new cool?

Game, set, match, Mac heads. If you know anything about anything where regards computers, you can do infinitely more with a PC than you ever could with Apple's "Computer For Dummies". Let the flamewar commence.

Wow. Do you just have these bullet points saved in a Word document to cut and paste wherever you need them? You're far off-topic, but then again, you probably don't care.

No, you're just flailing wildly where you think someone might be weak. Project much?

bkharmony:

Wow. Do you just have these bullet points saved in a Word document to cut and paste wherever you need them? You're far off-topic, but then again, you probably don't care.

EditPad Classic, actually. Quality text editing since 1999.

Actually, I think what he's said is perfectly fair. Even people who like a product or service a great deal, I think, could see a really powerfully compromised sense of criticism in Manjoo's work. And even for Manjoo, this is an unhinged piece of work.

facepalm.jpg

Why are you comparing a desktop to a laptop specifically designed for minimum weight and size for the screen size? At least compare it to an iMac or something.

libertyforall:

Why are you comparing a desktop to a laptop specifically designed for minimum weight and size for the screen size? At least compare it to an iMac or something.

The desktop I'm using for comparison is three years old. My wife's got a fall 2008-issue $700 Toshiba laptop that outclasses my desktop in everything but the video card. For a $2700 MacBook to fall short for almost $2,000 more is just a disaster.

To respond:

OpenOffice is available for OSX.

An increasing nubmer of games are available for Mac and those that are not can be run on Boot Camp. (still your strongest point, though)

Firefox runs on OSX and its the program I use. I'd still prefer Safari to IE, but that's just my opinion.

All notebooks, whether Macs or Windows machines have very little uprgradeability. This is because almost all the components are soldered into the motherboard. The MacPro, a tower desktop, has an enourmous amount of space available for both upgrade and expansion.

The personal image thing is another opinion. Personally, I own a Mac because my family has been using them for about 15 years and I think it is a suppuriour product. I acknowledge all of the douchey people who have recently switched to Macs and they don't speak for me.

Well, openoffice runs on OSX, but the I/O operations are much much slower because OSX doesn't run java 1.6. Plus, you still have the propeitary object embedding issue that makes transporting a presentation from a mac to a linux or windows PC annoying.

Thanks for your well-written defense of a side issue to the article. The piece was about Microsoft's advertising about its computers, not the computers themselves. What are your thoughts on those?

Farhad Manjoo:

Thanks for your well-written defense of a side issue to the article. The piece was about Microsoft's advertising about its computers, not the computers themselves. What are your thoughts on those?

Microsoft's entire marketing strategy seems to be to stick its head as far up its own ass as possible and try to be hip when they should be crowing about the very advantages I provided at the top of this thread. I have never understood why Microsoft regards Apple as such a threat when all they really have to do is look at the market share, realize that the kinds of people Macs appeal to are the very sort of snobbish jerks that the ads point to, and also realize that the argument's old hat at this point and consumers are tired of it.

Crispin Porter & Bogusky's had their name show up in Slate more than a few times over the years, mostly in the form of Seth Stevenson's digs against them in Ad Report Card (I'd love to see Seth's take on those ads). They're exactly the sort of agency that can wake up a fading brand (as with Burger King) or really, REALLY screw up a strong brand (as with Volkswagen and now Microsoft.) I'd love to see MS fire CP&B and find an ad agency that knows how to play to the brand's strengths without caving to the obsessive desire to slag on the "cool kids". Market leaders aren't supposed to act scared of companies with 7% share. Vista was an unmitigated disaster precisely because it was trying too hard to be a Mac and it looks like Windows 7 is going to be Microsoft going back to making operating systems that work properly. They need to take that approach in their marketing.