[Adam Shapiro]

Originally Posted by KenWittlief

I asked my son, it was a G4 dual processor desktop (tower). $2400, lasted 18 months, that comes out to $133 a month for the honor of owning a Mac!

That definitely does hurt to have it die on you so early on. I won't try to say that that isn't really unfortunate and unfair, it is and I totally agree with you that it is too much money to lose like that.

Originally Posted by KenWittlief

BTW, as I understood it, we could not buy a new motherboard, we could only exchange it for a new one for $350. Macs are so overpriced that Apple is scared to death someone will buy the motherboard and build their own.

That is correct, you cannot purchase a 3rd party motherboard for an Apple computer. A large part of this is that Apple is very much a hardware company, as well as a software company. The reason you can buy 3rd party hardware for a PC system is that Microsoft is not such a company. Microsoft focus only on the software aspect of the system, leaving it to the hardware manufacturers and retailers to do the rest. Apple tries to encompass both aspects, so as to give a system truly designed to work as one. They do this so they can optimize the performance of the machine for the aspects that it is designed for, a good chunk of which is multimedia. It's not that Apple is entirely afraid of people taking over their hardware business (though I won't deny the thought has crossed their minds), but that part of the experience of owning a Mac is its full compatibility, and the ability to have Apple overseeing both hardware and software so as to ensure a well-working machine (though it does sometimes fail as is your case).

I definitely wouldn't argue with you on the price of the Apple high-end desktop systems, which it seems to me is the machine your son purchased. I don't own one myself, though I would like to, as they are certainly very expensive. The iMac, however, is actually relatively low-priced, especially considering the hardware capabilities of the machine, as well as the large amount of bundled software that you get. A good portion of the cost of a Mac goes into the really amazing and powerful software bundles, and the operating system itself. Also, unlike the professional-geared desktop systems, the laptop prices are well within reason. My system actually cost me a little bit less than a number of those of my friends at school who all own powerful new PCs. I don't have a MacBook unfortunately so I can't run Windows to do a full comparison, but my G4 PowerBook matches their computers pretty well for most applications.

I hope I don't sound like I'm trying to convert people, I'm just a Mac enthusiast.