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'the point of comparison is not just "it has a higher resale value" but that "the total cost of owning it for X years is less because the difference between purchase price and resale price is less".'
An interesting note here is that the answer changes depending on the value of X- the graph of resale price vs. time is not necessarily a straight line. For example, if X is one year, a Mac is "cheaper" than a PC, but a BMW is not "cheaper" than a Ford. If X is 7 years, they might be reversed, since neither computer has much resale value at that point, but the difference between the resale value of the BMW and the Ford might be more than the difference between the new values of the cars, or at least close enough to make the BMW worth it. If X is 20 years, the BMW might still have some resale value depending on its condition, but the Ford probably won't run, and neither computer would even exist, so the analogy breaks down somewhat.
The other consideration, as many people have pointed out, is that reselling recently purchased personal computers, Mac or PC, is probably not nearly as common as Farhad has assumed it is.
