A visit to Apple.com reveals that the company's professional-level desktop, the G5, retails for US$1,799. A comparable PC, the Dell Dimension 8300, with monitor and keyboard (not included with the Mac), retails for $1,050.

A similar price disparity exists in lower-performance machines. An Apple eMac, a home computer with monitor built in, retails for $799. A Dell Dimension 2400, with monitor and keyboard, sells for $499.

To compare notebooks, a Mac Titanium laptop with a 15-inch screen fetches $1,999. An Inspiron 600m laptop with a 14-inch screen goes for $1,349.

So the answer as to whether Mac or PC is less expensive is crystal clear.

Or is it?

Performance and Cost

It is one of the great truths of computer ownership that base cost is just part of the total cost of ownership (TCO). Issues like long-term maintenance costs, security and reliability also come into play.

Further complicating the issue is the "Cadillac vs. Mercedes Benz" analogy. A Cadillac is less expensive, but a Cadillac cannot go from 0 to 60 in 8.5 seconds. A similar computer platform may be cheaper, but does it really offer the same performance as its higher-priced competitor?

"Clearly, the price tags for PCs are lower -- at least at the low end," says Macworld editor-in-chief Jason Snell.

"However, we recently tested the speed of high-end Macs and PCs, and they're comparable -- for comparable prices -- in many areas. So, it's probably most realistic to say that while the cheapest PCs cost less than the cheapest Macs, the cheapest Macs are probably comparable with PCs that cost a similar amount," he told NewsFactor.

"In other words, as usual, you get what you pay for."

Dueling Companies

Winning the TCO prize is a competition that has spawned serious rivalry. "Both Apple and Microsoft have approached us with the idea that we would prove that they're lower in terms of cost of ownership than the other platform," IDC analyst Roger Kay told NewsFactor.

"The interesting thing is, both had very convincing arguments that they were in fact the lower-cost platform. "Apple's view is basically: "Our stuff doesn't break -- and therefore it costs less to keep it going,"" he said. "And they have some merit in that."

The Windows proponents offer this argument, Kay says: ""Ours is made out of industry-standard stuff, so it's cheaper overall. And so everything, including replacement cost, [is] lower -- so therefore we're cheaper."" (continued...)

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