MacBore.com

Apple Needs a budget entry-level system.
...if it did, I wouldn't have spent Friday night ordering a Dell on behalf of my Mother-in-Law.
I'm sorry to say that she will be upgrading from a G3 iMac to a Dell Dimension C521. She came over on Friday night and we got talking about her computer upgrade. The sad thing is, she would have preferred a Mac if there was one cheap enough.
The plan was to get online and look up the price of refurbed Mac minis on Cancom's website. She was amazed that her iMac had given up the ghost so soon! (It's a G3 for pity's sake). The cheapest available was a Apple Mac mini G4 1.25GHz (512MB/40GB/ComboDrive/ENet/56K inc OS X 10.4). Now for someone who expects a computer to last as long as she did, I was feeling a bit guilty for even suggesting something that didn't even have an Intel Processor. Also including a cheap-as-chips 15" display, it would have totted up to about £500. I recommended that it would be better to buy brand new. Cancom offer a Mac mini/17" display bundle for just under £590 (remember - she's living on a pension).
That's when, deep inside, I knew the battle was lost. It would be very wrong to let her spend that much on something that she'll only use for email and the internet. I paid Dell a visit.
I was annoyed to find that she could purchase a small Dell Dimension with a 19" flat panel (bigger than my iMac's), 512MB Ram, a 320GB(!) SATA hard drive, with a CD-RW/DVD-ROM for less than £450. OK, it did only have an AMD Sempron processor inside, but most of the spec pisses on that of a Mac mini. And as Steve Jobs has spent the last year telling us that Windows Vista is a carbon copy of Mac OS X, then she should have no problem figuring out where everything is (if I set it up correctly). It'll be with her in two weeks. She also signed up for an exclusive £12.99, Tiscali broadband 1MB Unlimited deal.
'But there's no iLife' I hear you say. Mothers-in-Law don't want to make webpages, lay down some funky tracks or edit home movies. She can make do with free copy of Photoshop Elements (that came with her scanner) and iTunes? No problem. (It runs a lot quicker on my Dell at work that it does on my G4 iMac).
The main point of difference comes down to wonga. £450 or £590?
I guess Mitchell & Webb will never be comparing price. No wonder Mr Dell is smiling.
Come on Apple. You're not making it easy for me, are you?
(Shit, I sound like one of those fake marketing bloggers.)