Look, to the people defending this article, there is one and only one bottom line: Manjoo's entire argument is "Mac's have higher resale value, therefore they are cheaper."

That is about as dishonest an argument you are ever going to find. If I said a Lamborghini was cheaper than a Buick, I'd be lying. It is not accurate to say that a more expensive product is in fact cheaper than a less expensive product because of its resale value. When, in discussing any other product, do you say something similar? Never. Manjoo wants to leverage his anti-PC diatribes, so he comes up with a dishonest, specious argument. This isn't worthy of a high school newspaper.

On top of that is the fact that a tiny percentage of computer owners-- yes, even Mac owners-- will ever sell their old computers. The computer resale market is tiny, tiny, tiny. And one reason for that is that people can reprocess their old PC parts into a new PC. Unlike with a Mac, I can reuse my old hard drives, optical drives, RAM, PCI cards.... I don't have to resell my PC. It retains value through my use of old parts.

In general, the debate of Mac vs. PC rages on. More power to everyone who wants to fight it. But there's no debating the fact that this post by Manjoo showed a startling lack of integrity.

After just a year or two of use, a Windows machine gets so gummed up with spyware, viruses and other nasty stuff that it seems malicious to ask anybody for money for the thing.

That's hardly the reason for the poor resale value of a PC. In fact, anyone who knows anything about reselling machines knows they should wipe the system (and hopefully reinstall the OS) before selling it; the alternative is sending a machine full of your private data to the new buyer. (If Mac owners don't do this, they're even less tech-savvy than I'm giving them credit for being.)

In general, PCs have poor resale value for two reasons:

• Parts are commonly available for custom upgrades.
• Widespread vendor competition drives down the price of PCs and parts. Macs, being proprietary and a tiny fraction of the total market, are rarer and thus worth more in the aftermarket; PCs are commodities.

It's worth noting that many PC enthusiasts actually do something similar to what you're doing now; they buy the latest and greatest parts for their machines every few months, then sell them on eBay for around 75% of the original price to fund their next acquisition. Like buying a Mac, this still reflects a certain diminishing return -- but it's a price they pay for their lifestyle choice.

...Because of their resale value. It has nothing to do with the sticker price. The only TRUE way to judge value is to assume that the thing being bought will be sold again, in a year, at ebay.

After just a year or two of use, a Windows machine gets so gummed up with spyware, viruses and other nasty stuff that it seems malicious to ask anybody for money for the thing.

That's right. Just throw it out. Don't format the disk. Don't reinstall the OS. Really, I'd expect more nous, even from an Apple user.

How many times have I heard people say that their kids "downloaded some porn" which "used up all teh memory" and "makes the computer slow" so they "had to buy a new computer" even though it was barely a year old. I've got a few decent PCs for free that way, so I just can't buy into the "Macs are cheaper" argument.

Yes, I know a Benz is cheaper than a Ford if you buy new and upgrade regularly, but my Ford cost me $650. Plus spare parts are cheap and plentiful!

Farhad, your math doesn't add up. You did not consider 8% opportunity cost per month for the additional upfront investment. That comes to $8 per month, $96 per year... so the "initial" investment is in fact $200 more and not $100.

If you have ever skimmed through the CDs/DVDs that come with a computer, there is usually a "Restore" DVD/CD included. So you just pop that in and bring your computer back to "Factory Default", and you are ready to sell with a swiped HDD. So this is not a factor for a resale decision. (For people with critical data on their drive, you'll need to run DoD grade hard disk sweeper, no matter if it is a Mac or Windows PC).

Most people use the computer until it is either EOL (end of life) or is passed down. Of the 320 million computers in use in the U.S., how many do actually end in the "resale" chain? I just checked on eBay, there are about 2500 PCs and just under 1500 notebooks listed (and they might not sell on first try).

About 60 million new computers, desktops and PCs, are sold in the U.S. per year. That's over 164,000 PCs a day, that means about 2.4% are in the eBay resale channel. How many cars sold end up at some point in the "used car" channel? (If anybody knows, I don't, but I'm sure it is more like say 50% to 70% or even more).

Are you trying to sell us that it is the best solution for us and the environment to buy a less powerful Mac and getting a new one every year?

The goal should be to increase a computers life cycle, reduce shipping costs, etc. 80% of a computers lifetime energy is used during manufacturing and only 20% while you and I use it. Extending the life by 1 year, saves about 20% of a computers lifetime energy.

I don't get your column. Sorry.

I still have every computer I have ever bought (most of the Macs) and still use most of them (primarily for video encoding). I still get good service from Macs bought in 2001.

apple has become as bad as if not worse then Microsoft. A closed hardware and OS platform as well as tie-ins to other revenue sources (iTunes) is not acceptable behavior. Apple is also potentially more handicapped hostile than Microsoft. The flashy slidey gui would present extra difficulties to blind users and unlike Windows, they don't have any speech recognition worth using for mobility impaired users.

it may seem like moving to Apple is a good choice in the face of the Microsoft empire but changing from one monopolist to another is simply trading one jail for another.