I think Macs are great and I don't necessarily need convincing that involces relatively speculative analysis of resale value. The problem is that, as a graduate student who needs a pretty good notebook computer, it remains much cheapter for me to go with a Dell up fraont. Even if a MacBook Pro (which is not available in the 12 or 13 inch size I want) will sell for more eventually, the money I have available NOW is the real issue. Grad school doesn't pay well.

Also: The "slightly slower processor" and the "much smaller hard drive" are significant differences.

The question becomes: who are you talking to? Giving blanket advice is of questionable value.

And hello--if you have to resort to voodoo economics, you are probably wrong.

I have used lots of Macs and PCs over the years. But currently I'm all PCs. The Macs are pretty but they are ultimately more useless because of their limited (and more expensive!) software and hardware, limited peripheral compatibility, and limited ability to interface (or even easily transfer files!) into business networks that are PC-based.

A friend recently lent me his new iMac for a while, in an attempt to convert me once again towards a Mac. Yes, it's a very nice machine, very pretty. But I ended up not being able to use it for much.

My kids' computer games are all PC-based. My ipod is already formatted for the PC. And I need a home computer that I can use for work too--I do not need to make crappy Win-Mac files at home that when you open them on PCs (assuming that you or your recipient can figure out how to add the file extension) give great big X's where the graphs should be. And I need my home computer to be able "talk" to my work network so I can check my work calendars when I am at home.

I ended up having to constantly power up my PC laptop to do things when I was at home, while the iMac with it's big beautiful screen just sat there.

I suppose if all I did with a computer at home was surf the net and watch movies, and if I didn't already have a PC formatted ipod and tons of PC computer games for my kids, and if my only use of a computer for work was limited to email and text files, and if my work network supported Macs, then I guess I could get a Mac at home.

But even then getting a Mac wouldn't really make sense because it is much more expensive than a PC--and why spend that much money when you can get something that will do everything you want for much less?

This article simply ignores basic economics - the purchase price of an item is fixed, hence the cost of a computer is "sunk" once the transaction is completed. You can't say that the cost of an item changes based on resale value, but you could say that the overall value or benefit of the computer is better for people who sell their computers after a year.

But who does this? Its not a smart strategy, since you'll have to dish out even more cash for the next computer. New computers won't cost less than what you just sold your old computer for, so you've got a net loss on the transaction (new computer purchase price minus cash received from the sale of the old computer). Its far more relevant to note that computers are not an investment. They don't gain in value or appreciate over time - selling used computers is just a way to salvage some of the original expenditure.

The author didn't even attempt to compare similar computers or bother to discuss peripherals. What about repair costs? What about software? What about all of the other differences between Mac and PC systems? What about the transaction costs associated with scrapping your system after a year and restarting on a new machine? You simply can't say that the costs of ownership are limited to the purchase price of the main unit - any computer owner knows this to be false! A better article would examine true costs over the expected life/use of the machine, not some artificial construct dreamed up by the author in an attempt to prove a point.

'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.

We buy them to meet our computing needs. And we've never resold them; we use them until they croak. We got 8 productive years out of our 1996-vintage PC and still would be running Linux on it except that the motherboard went south. The monitor from this PC lasted 11 years. Our 2000-vintage PC is still going strong with memory, DVD RW drive and hard disk upgrades. Same goes for our 2004-vintage PC; we recently put an additional 2 GIG of memory and a new hard drive in it and it runs just fine.