Musings from Mars » Consumer Class Laptop: Dell Inspiron vs. Apple iBook

Consumer Class Laptop: Dell Inspiron vs. Apple iBook

Features	Apple	Dell	Inequalities (any worth noting)
Processor	1.33 GHz G4	Pentium M 1.5 GHz* * Corrected for equivalency as calculated at SystemShootouts.org . The 2.0 GHz Pentium M selected originally was a $350 upgrade.	¬†
Operating System	Mac OS X 10.3	Windows XP Professional	¬†
Display	Built-in 14.1" TFT XGA	Built-in 14.1" TFT XGA	¬†
Graphics	ATI Mobility Radeon w/32mb	Dedicated 32mb video card	¬†
Hard Drive	60GB Ultra ATA	60GB Ultra ATA	¬†
Optical Drive	24X CD-RW/DVD Combo	24X CD-RW/DVD Combo	¬†
Wireless Options	802.11 b/g card	802.11 b/g card	¬†
Ports	1 Firewire 400 port 2 USB 2.0 ports S-Video and VGA video out	2 USB 2.0 ports S-Video and VGA video out	The Dell has no option for a firewire port, but it has legacy parallel and serial ports
Support option	1-year limited warranty	1-year limited warranty	¬†
Software options	The iBook comes with the following free software that doesn't have equivalents in Windows XP:¬† iLife ‚Äô05 (includes iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie HD, iDVD and GarageBand) AppleWorks, Quicken 2005 for Mac, World Book 2004 Edition, Nanosaur 2, Marble Blast Gold, Setup Assistant--Transfer data and settings, Sherlock	The following software options Dell provided during checkout were selected to achieve rough parity in software:¬† McAfee Security Center 15-month subscription WordPerfect Office 12 PaintShop Pro Studio Microsoft Money Deluxe (Note: Quicken was not offered as an option) Microsoft Encarta Deluxe Dell Family Games Detto IntelliMover	Even with these add-ons, the Dell as configured still lacks the following software functionality that comes with the Apple system. The retail cost of this software is not huge, but it's probably $100 or so. Also, note that the software cost of the Dell increases because of the need to purchase antivirus subscription services.¬† Digital video creation and management (Microsoft's MovieMaker app is not equivalent to iMovie!) DVD creation Music creation and editing Desktop web services (like Sherlock)
Total Cost	$1,299	$1,422	¬†
Note: Both of these systems were configured with the default 256mb of equal-speed RAM.