So as many of you know, I’m unfortunately in the market for an ultralight laptop to replace my faithful x23. After speaking with a vendor today who’s running my distro of choice, Gentoo, on an iBook I thought I’d take another look at some of the Apple hardware. What I found was startling.
Apple’s hardware, I’m finding, is nearly the reverse of what I’ve been led to believe. Its virtue, I’m often told, is craftsmanship because they have full control over the manufacturing process. Well, my brother just bought a brand new iMac, and about an hour after opening it had fried his motherboard. Verdict? Bad power supply. And he’s far from alone: a quick troll through many different forums reveals posts like this one:
My only advice is don’t buy a Mac. I have an iBook, and yesterday it broke for the 5’th time with the same problem. Apple keeps fixing it for free, but it is a major hassle.
Now to be sure, every vendor is going to have their share of these types of comments, because nobody’s perfect. But it’s also true that Apple’s had its share of manufacturing issues over the years – anybody remember that cube thing that cracked prematurely? But just as my expectations for the hardware quality probably need to be reset, my expectations on price definitely did.
Pricing off a Thinkpad x40 versus a Powerbook G4 12″, what do you think I found? Given these specs (TP: 1.4Ghz, 1.25GB, 40GB / PB: 1.5Ghz, 1.25GB, 100GB), anyone care to guess at respective prices (and yes, the Apple does have a higher clock speed than the Thinkpad)? How about $2881 for the Thinkpad vs $2074 for the Powerbook? I don’t know about you guys, but that surprised the hell out of me. Even more because the Apple comes with a CD-RW drive and the Thinkpad comes with no drives of any sort. In the Thinkpad’s favor is weight, it’s sub 3 pounds to the near 5 of the Powerbook. But overall, pricing – the last area I expected Apple to be competitive on – was pretty compelling. Before anyone asks, yes I’m aware there are far cheaper x86 options than the Thinkpad, but it’s pretty much the best x86 hardware available, IMO.
But how can I use Apple’s gear without having to learn OS X? Linux. From what I can find in the Gentoo package database, application availability for Linux on Power’s pretty damn good. No Skype ebuild, and no Ximian-Connector – yet – but overall I can get X, Gnome, Open Office, Evolution, Firefox, Gaim, even Tomboy. Everything I need to do my job, in other words. Not bad at all. Not sure about the hardware yet, particularly the wireless, but am waiting on some feedback from the Gentoo crowd on that score. Somewhere, right about now, Coté is smiling 😉
Saving $800 may come in handy, too, because it would appear that my desktop Windows box is on its last legs; it appears to have cooked an older 45GB IBM hard drive I had in the second bay (more on that minor disaster later). I’ll probably be getting a workstation to replace that, so that I can run some of the heavier duty trial Windows applications I have laying around (like Workplace Service Express). Unless some friendly vendor out there wants to give me some free trial gear (wink wink).
Anyway, the lesson in all of this? Bill James is right; we should all question our assumptions, because as often as not, they’ll prove to be incorrect.
Update: Apparently I shouldn’t hold my breath for wireless support, nor can I swap out the Airport Extreme for a more Linux-friendly Airport. This may be the end of my Powerbook lust, unless I can figure out an alternative like Bluetooth to Verizon to wireless. Either way, it’s a great illustration of how hardware vendors can forgo entire markets for their product; seriously, there probably aren’t any Linux advocates out there that would buy your stuff Broadcom. Or maybe there are 10,000 of them.
Update 2: Looks like I’m not the only one eyeing Mac hardware. Via /., it would seem that Linus has already made the transition.
