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"Consider this example: Last Thanksgiving, you could have purchased a fairly well-outfitted Windows desktop -- the HP Pavilion Media Center A1640n -- on sale from some retail outlets for $699.
Around the same time, you might instead have picked up Apple's top-of-the-line Mac Mini, ... The Mac Mini would have set you back $799, or $100 more than the HP."
The HP system includes a monitor, keyboard and mouse for the $699 price. The Mac Mini doesn't. By the time the buyer adds those components, the price disparity becomes significantly more than your $100 figure.
Look, I just bought a MacBook Pro, but I'm not fooling myself into believing it is cheaper than a comparably equipped PC laptop. And, as others have already pointed out, resale value plays no role in my purchase decisions. I keep all my consumer electronics equipment as long as they work. And when they fail, they'll have no market value.
