Apparently sick and tired of Apple’s pretentious “I’m a Mac. And I’m a PC,” ads, Microsoft has recently struck back with a series of “Joe the Plumber”-esque ads where different everyday people proclaim what they use their computers for and say proudly “I’m a PC.” The most recent ad has taken a new stab at an old argument: PCs are cheaper than Macs.
This is actually entirely true. There is nothing unfounded stated in the new Microsoft commercial. The girl named Lauren is given a chance to find a laptop for under $1000, and if she does they will pay for it and she can keep it. She first goes to the Apple store, and comes out later to tell us what we already know: there’s only one Mac laptop for under $1000 (actually it’s more if you include tax and any upgrades) and it doesn’t have a big enough screen. She’s looking for at least a 17″ screen, a comfortable keyboard, and a speedy computer. She states that she “must not be cool enough to be a Mac person.” Touché, Microsoft. She ends up going to what can only be a slightly-disguised Best Buy and walking up and down the laptop aisle, she is stuck between an HP and “this other one,” but ends up buying the HP for $799. And of course it runs Microsoft’s Windows Vista.
Normally I’m an Apple fan, but I have to give Microsoft their due on this one – PCs are cheaper than Macs. Perhaps if these new commercials convince purchases on the line about shelling out the extra for an Apple or sticking to the cheaper PCs, Apple will consider either lowering the price point on new Macs to make them more affordable (rumor is that a lower-price point Mac laptop or netbook will hit the market soon) OR do what we’ve been asking them for years: release a non-hacked version of Apple OS X that will run on native x86 non-Apple hardware. Release Apple hardware that doesn’t come with the OS. Stop making those humorous but slightly pretentious “I’m a Mac. And I’m a PC,” advertisements. There are PC users out there who aren’t complete dorks. And there are plenty of Mac users out there who ARE dorks.