HP TouchSmart IQ820

This has a comparable spec to the above systems and is £400 cheaper!
With that £400 you can buy yourself a very compentent Windows laptop or spash out on a PS3 and still have cash left over for a few games.

What the third option also brings to the deal is a 25.5″ Touch Screen. This is going to be a very exciting bit of technology when Windows 7 arrives. Until then, HP bundle it with their own touch interface.

If you go to the “Tier 2″ manufacturers, then you can really snap up a bargain check out the Zoostorm ONE. Now this doesn’t compare very closely to the specs above, but it’s still a competent machine and comes in a whole £1000 cheaper than the first two examples. With that extra £1000 you could buy three entry level Windows laptops or an aboloute kick ass Dell XPS system for some serious power! (or one entry level Mac Laptop)

I’m aware Mac/Win apps work well with dual core CPU’s, but that is not the same for quad core, hence my argument that the quad core is not very well utilised in the XPS.

“You have managed to compare two similarly priced machines, but with completely different specifications (which is possibly the point you are trying to make), but you could easily find 20 different PCs, all for the same price with different specifications.”

Well no my point is that they are not ‘different’ specs. My point is the iMac has much ‘better’ specs for everything that is important to me, and any sane person

Also, with regard to running OSX on a PC…. http://www.osx86project.org/ if you’re at all interested (legal issues aside).

Vista happily supports multiple cores (http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=130) however, as you mention, it is always down to the software you run on it as to whether the CPUs are actually taken advantage of. Much of the software famed for being great on a Mac (eg. Photoshop) work equally as well with dual core CPUs on both types of machines.

You have managed to compare two similarly priced machines, but with completely different specifications (which is possibly the point you are trying to make), but you could easily find 20 different PCs, all for the same price with different specifications.

http://www.parallels.com/uk/products/desktop/

Looks like a safer option than the other way around. And all the other technical stuff sure

I have to argue that I included a ‘throw away’ comment that ‘OSX runs substantially better and faster’ since I did link to an impartial website which has gone to great lengths to compare OSX and Windows, with Windows coming off much worse. You do admit that Windows is not as as stable as OSX, and as as a power user I find that one point alone of great benefit, regardless of whether it runs on any ‘Frankenstein’ machine or not.

I need a 1Tb drive as I have a lot of data, including DVD’s and music (which I stream wirelessly downstairs to the HiFi and flat screen) and a lot of work related stuff. Admittedly, Blu Ray would be a nice feature, but it’s not a show stopper for me, nor is a TV tuner.

Games-wise, well thanks for introducing another reason to get a Mac. Bootcamp; native Windows on the Mac is available should I ever feel the need. Or then again I can virtualise Windows inside VMMare as a second option. Running OSX on the Dell in any form, is nigh on impossible and not nearly as stable.

In terms of quad-core, most of Apple’s Pro apps actually do make use of quad core’s. But that was not really my point. The point is that the Dell ships with a chip that is barely supported within the Window’s framework and as such you are getting something that you’ll never make use of, and that doesn’t even look likely to change with Windows 7.

Yes, you can compare the machine’s operating systems, and use throw-away comments like “or that it runs a substationally better and faster operating system” – just stick Linux on the PC, or Mac OSX for that matter! – or simply admit that Windows (although not as stable – but then that’s another argument about Mac only having to build an operating system for their own hardware since they took all the licenses back) is more widely used, and will ALWAYS have a place.

It has to be said that Apple have been doing this for a fair while too, so their costs are bound to have been reduced. Since Dell are only really “the new kids”, it should be expected that their system is slightly lower spec’d I’d thought. Plus, you mention that you don’t need blu-ray, and you watch movies infront of your TV – why exactly do you need a 1tb hard-drive? Plus, you can’t play that many new games on a Mac, so why do you need the cutting edge graphics card (unless you’re using WIINE, and that negates your argument about a better OS).

Also the comment that “(quad core is meaningless without applications that can make use of the architecture)” can be levied against the Mac with Dual Core also.

.

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=593249&page=3

Well, I’ve noticed Dell and Apple working in perfect harmony side by side – where you might ask? Why the completely factual world of 24 of course! (can’t find any images but if you watch Season 6 they are in there!).

I’m going to totally disregard Dom’s careful spec comparison and say the Apple looks much nicer