Microsoft's latest, subtly anti-Apple ads are all over the Web and broadcast TV. The new Microsoft "Laptop Hunters-Lauren" commercial suggests that there is only one Apple laptop under $1,000 and it has a 13-inch screen. For the same money, it claims, you can get a better Windows-based laptop with a 17-inch screen. True? It is, but that isn't the whole story.
In the 60-second ad, Lauren is looking for a new laptop, one that has "speed, has a comfortable keyboard, and a 17-inch screen" for under $1,000. An on-screen card and the voiceover drives home the point that Microsoft is giving her the money to buy the system: "You find it, you keep it." She goes shopping, first to a "Mac Store," where she can find only one computer for under $1,000, a MacBook with a 13-inch screen. Is this possible? Fraid so.
The only MacBook you can afford for under $1,000 at the Apple Store is the 13-inch MacBook for $999. New MacBook Pro 17-inch models are way over Lauren's budget starting at $2,799, and pre-owned 17-inchers are still going for over $1,000 at places like smalldog.com, powermax.com and usedmac.com. You can get a used PowerBook G4 17-inch for under $1,000, but you wouldn't necessarily want that when those PowerBooks have less than 2GB of RAM and small hard drives. Sure, she could get a Mac mini for $599, keyboard, mouse, and an external 20-inch display for under $300, but somehow I don't think she would be interested, since it's not portable.
Back to the ad: Lauren then goes to a Best Buy, where she quickly dismisses ultraportables. She checks out various laptops, including a $949.99 model from Sony (looks like the Sony VAIO VGN-FW351J/H to me), and a Gateway FX laptop that's above her budget, before honing in on two 17-inch laptops—a $749.99Dell Studio 17 laptop and an HP Pavilion. Cue stereotypical shopping decision squeal, and she decides on the HP. The balance due is shown on screen as $699.99.
The online version of the ad has a direct link to the model in question; it's a HP Pavilion dv7-1245dx. It comes with an AMD Turion X2 RM-72 processor, 4GB of memory, 320GB hard drive, ATI Radeon HD 3200 integrated graphics, DVD burner, and the all-important 17-inch WXGA+ (1,440 x 900) screen. I wanted to check this system out so I asked PCMag's laptop lead analyst, Cisco Cheng, if we have a HP Pavilion dv7 on the shelf somewhere. He said "DV7? That's an old laptop.
"What is Microsoft getting at?
If Microsoft's point is to stick it to Apple and claim that there's only one Mac laptop for under $1,000 and it's got a small 13-inch screen, they're absolutely correct. You can't walk out of an Apple Store with (any) laptop for under $1,000 after tax. Certainly you can't walk out of an Apple Store with a 17-inch laptop for under $1,000. Apple's 17-inch MacBook Pro is a professional product for people like pro photographers and videographers and is marketed and priced as such.
So should the Mac faithful get in a tizzy over this imagined slight? Nope. Apple's strategy has never been about taking a majority of market share over Windows. It's been about increasing profit margins ever since the second coming of Steve, when they cleaned out all the "cheap" Macs they were selling at Sears. At the prices Apple charges for Macs (and iPods, and iPhones), Apple is making a healthy profit margin on every product they sell (and they still sell a lot). Apple's control over its ecosystem, innovation, and design are its hallmarks, not its cheap prices.
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