E1501 on Sale

Dell has placed the e1501 in the business section on sale again. This is the fabled $499 notebook computer that has a dual core processor. Here is the Link.

A quick run down of the stats:

AMD Turion™ 64 X2 Dual-Core Mobile Technology TL-50
15.4 inch Wide Screen XGA Display with TrueLife™(glossy)
1GB DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz, 2 Dimm
60GB SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM)
8X CD/DVD Burner (DVD+/-RW) with double-layer DVD+R write capability
ATI RADEON® Xpress1150 256MB HyperMemory™ (Integrated)
Dell Wireless 1390 802.11g Mini Card (54Mbps)

This is a great deal on a notebook, so good in fact you should buy 2 of them and then send the extra one to me! Hey one can dream right?

Smart Values

If you are not using any kind of a coupon at Dell, or even if you are for that matter, make sure to check out the Smart values section of Dell's site. This section can be found by hovering over either the desktop or notebook menu options and is listed close to the bottom of the pop-up menu. In this section you can find some advertised systems and most of the time the tend to have slightly better deals. Dell will always offer several different deals to target certain segments of their customers. The mainstream deals are always the homepage deals, and these are almost always the deals with the least value. Next are the as advertised deals and smart values. These take some digging but are targeted to the customer that is price shopping, as they add the little extra memory or other feature to try and tip the scale in Dell's favor. Last are the coupons and 3rd party deals. These are not advertised on Dell's site at all and have to be found through 3rd parties, like parade magazine, and are targeted towards EPS, extreme price shoppers. These are going to be the best deals possible, like a $499 loaded notebook.

PC Dominates Mac, Despite Recent Ads

Recently there have been several commercials released comparing Mac's and PC's. If you have not seen them do a search on youtube mac vs pc and you will be able to watch them all. There are about 4 official Mac commercials. I would like to address some of the accusations made by mac in these commercials.

Surgery for Vista Upgrade

The new ads suggest that to upgrade to vista, a PC needs to undergo "surgery", seeing as it is a huge under taking. This is not true, most PC's no matter how old will be perfectly fine running widows vista, some may need a graphics card upgrade, but that is a 30 sec upgrade.

PC are Plagued with Error Messages

If a PC has error messages it is likely due to one of two problems, either a virus or user error. Thats it. If you are getting tons of error messages on a PC, you would be getting the same on a Mac.

PCs come stuffed with stuff you don't need

This one is true for most users, PCs come with a lot of free trail that let you sample a variety of software of various types, some that you may never need. However, Macs are just as guilty in this area. A mac from Apple has a 15gb install of Mac OS on it, but if you do a fresh install it reduces down to 5gb. That means that from the factory two thirds of you computer is stuff piled on that you may or may not wanted. That seems pretty stuffed to me.

I would say that the biggest issue I have with these ads are that they are not comparing Macs to PCs at all. What they are doing is comparing Macs to Windows in very miss leading ways. Apple has continued to try establish themselves as a creative brand of computer. My question to Apple is this, what makes a Mac more creative than a PC? Is it the styling? Because it is not multimedia performance, PCs have always and will always be better at handling demanding multimedia. Macs can't even handle beginner 3d graphics. It can't be software either because Macs have no advantage with that. Macs have Photoshop CS, Premiere, and Final Cut Pro; all of which are either directly available on a PC or an equivalent is. Did I mention Macs are much more expensive than a PC?

Top 10 Reasons Why Macs Underpreform

I am getting tired of all this Mac vs PC commercialized bull. Here are the top 10 reasons why Macs will never, never, be as good as a PC.

10. Macs are way over priced. It's ridiculous looking at Apples prices. It shows through the whole product line, for example iPods. Why pay $149 for something you can get a $99, or depending on the sale $69.

9. MACS DO NOT LOOK COOL. I don't understand why people think that a white box is the single coolest thing in the world. Plain and simple, it's not.

8. Macs are so stinking slow. I have never in my life used a $3000 dollar machine that ran so freaking slow.

7. They crash all the time. When I would work in photoshop it was almost a game to load a file. Oh, will it crash this time while loading, or will it wait till I click something.

6. Once you buy it, thats it. There is no going out and upgrading your mac. If you want an upgrade you can take the machine back and get a PC.

5. The programs that come preloaded on a Mac suck. I can't even put it into words. They suck.

4. There are no programs other than the ones that come with the Mac. No developers want to invest time or money making something for ~5% of the computer users out there.

3. There are now entertainment programs (i.e. Games) written for Macs. Sure they can play music, but so can my cell phone. You know what, my cell phone has better games also.

2. Nothing other than what Apple makes is compatible with Macs. Once again nobody wants to invest the time or the money. So, once you buy in to a Mac, you start a long over priced love affair that you are so ashamed of you try to act proud. Common fanboys, we know you hate yourself on the inside.

1. The OS is a completely dumbed down, make it so easy to use that you can't use it, piece of trash. Why do people go out and pay extra money for professional grade products? Better customizations, fine tuning, features. That applies to everything from programs to tools, and even electronics. Leave it to Apple to charge more for an OS that prevents you from doing more. Thats like going to buy a meal and saying, " I'm sorry sir, but you will have to pay extra if you don't want a drink with that." Just doesn't make sense.