New Microsoft ad finally hits Apple where it hurts: customers’ wallets
We’ve been wondering how long it would take Microsoft to kick things up a notch with its responses to Apple’s I’m a Mac smear series. Times are tough these days and it looks like Microsoft is finally starting to target cost with its latest TV ad. Titled Windows Laptop Hunters, the spot features a young woman named Lauren tasked with finding a laptop that meets her requirements — “speed, a comfortable keyboard and a 17-inch screen” — for under $1,000. If she finds one, be it a Mac or a PC, Microsoft will buy it for her. You know as well as we do that the only way anyone is scoring a new Mac laptop with a 17-inch for under $1,000 is armed robbery, so you can imagine how the commercial plays out. Forgetting the fact that the Best Buy she was shopping in apparently doesn’t charge a sales tax, Lauren ends up with an HP Pavilion for $699.99; a price even the most modest MacBook can’t come close to touching. The model she walked with features a 2.1GHz AMD Turion X2 with 4GB of DDR2 RAM, 320GB hard drive, DVD-RW drive and of course a 1440×900 17-inch display — definitely a solid system.
No, we haven’t quite stooped to the level of a local politician’s attack campaign quite yet, but it’s good to see Microsoft finally showing a little spunk with its response ads. Considering the times, we imagine there are plenty more value-centric ads from Redmond on the way; at least, we hope there are. Hit the jump to watch the full commercial.
Thanks, Don!
@Justin and other Window apologizers – learn to use a Mac and see the light. The unix command line alone to me is worth everything. No virus issues, and no crapware, no spyware, elegance, no annoying popups, are some other niceties that come with it. OS X stays out of my way and lets me do my work with minimum fuss. Search works, too.
I fix other people’s Windows machines, and I have been using both Windows and OS X for over 10 years. Windows is garbage, plain and simple. Now because most people have to live with it for one reason or another, they are trying to justify that. I was actually OK with XP – it was nothing to write home about, but it did its job, and didn’t crash too much with a bit of TLC. Vista, on the other hand was a frak-up of gigantic proportions.
All that said: Those new MS ads are perfect, and exactly what they should have done. I think that PC makers will now hate MS because what they want is to sell _expensive_ Windows machines, not the $699 ones. But the reality is, people buy PCs because they are cheap, and re-enforcing that idea is a very good move.
Intel is going to be pissed off too because Intel is looking for ways to sell more expensive processors not more cheap ones. Then again Microsoft has never been afraid to make new enemies.
Macs cost more, I think, partly because Apple thinks it can.
The other part has to be the pile of royalty arrangments they had to make to have a version of Unix, build in Adobe’s stuff, throw on a bunch of other software that an OEM would bundle in on a PC etc, etc. (Yeah, Apple makes most of that software, but it “adds value” I guess…)
But I dunno… I have both Macs and PC’s, and I use the Macs for the everyday stuff, and the PC’s for the other stuff. To me the macs are just easier to use.
One thing that Windows users apparently have in spades is time. Time to install the OS, to re-install the OS, to install apps, to fix things when things go wrong, or to get somebody to do it for them, to find and maintain a backup program, to maintain their anti-virus programs. And to wait for their OS when its performance is half to what it was a year ago because of that Windows-rot in the registry.
I’ll tell you what my time is worth more than $100/hour.I just bought a $3000 MacBook Pro 17″, how long did it take to get back to work? 2 hours total – as long as it takes the migration assistant to copy over everything from my old Mac, all 100+ GB of it. After that, I have all my programs back, my desktop is back to where it was including the wallpaper, all my preferences are the same they were, including in all my applications. I am ready.
On Windows, it takes me at least 2 days with a fast internet connection to reinstall all my apps and set everything the way I want it to. Oh, I just saved over $1400 of my time by choosing a Mac. And that’s just in the first 2 days.
I waived AppleCare. No problem. I bought it for my iPhone, though.
Now that macs can run windows i actually like them, but $2000 starting for a Pro??? freakin get real Steve.
Microsoft only needs to worry when mac prices come down to earth and as long as the “I like to be different” idiot crowd keeps shelling out twice the cash they need to for a good system that will never happen.
Umm normally I wouldn’t comment, but to the guy who said macs perform BETTER with time, how do you figure? If you had to choose between a three year-old mac or a brand new mac which would you choose? At bare minimum you lose battery life with time, unless you believe that mac batteries magically gain capacity with time.
Of course the real geek buys the hardware one likes the best for the money AND then runs whatever operating system he/she wants on it.
Including OS X.
The best thing: that kicks BOTH Apple and MS in the junk at the same time.
You win. They lose.
Microsoft does know they don’t sell computers, right?
I have a very similar HP PC (although I bought it a while ago and paid $899 for it…) and I can report that it is a fine machine hardware-wise.
Unfortunately, it came with Vista Home Premium, which somehow manages to make this machine slower than my 4-year old Dell notebook running XP. Ugghh. 4 Gigs of RAM, slow as a dog, and boot-up takes about 10 minutes?? I ended up disabling all fancy Vista features, which sped things up a little, but also makes the desktop look like… XP.
So now I have a new PC, with an OS that looks like XP, but is slower and less compatible with all sorts of hardware.
Now working on getting Ubuntu to run on it.
Wow, you can tell this ad is effective based on how it is hitting a nerve with the Apple fanboys. I think MS has a hit on their hands.
@Justin
“@Eric W
Wow, you simply have no idea what you’re talking about.
I want to see you find a MacBook Pro equivalent to my HP HDX18 laptop. 18″ 1920×1080p screen, 4 GB RAM, nVidia 9600M, Intel C2D @ 2.26 GHz (Oh you got me beat by 200MHz) , 250GB HDD, 802.11n, HDMI out, and a BluRay/DVDRW drive. ”
Yeah, because it’s a desktop replacement, not a laptop. Over 10lb! only 2 hours battery life! It also uses a much cheaper non-mobile CPU.
I never said you couldn’t find a different system from a different OEM that was less expensive, I said take an Apple system and try to buy something equal from any OEM and tell me if it’s significantly cheaper ( hint, it’s not ).
you wanna know why there are so few viruses for Macs?? People who create viruses want to disrupt the flow of everyday digital life and wreak havoc on either private of corporate systems that ACTUALLY handle important information. Windows systems DOMINATE the market anywhere in the world you go. Doesnt matter where. So why would a hacker want to waste his time writing malicious software for a platform that only college students, tech trendy idiots, and bono use??? ask yourself that.
Macs are NOT superior to windows in virus prevention. Every year at platform hacker conferences both windows and apple machines are broken into equally as fast.
so the only reason your macs dont get viruses is cuz serious computer hardware and software guys dont give a rats @ss bout apple.
think about it…
Stupid ad. You’re better off with a used Mac than a $699 POS Vista laptop.
Let me say this, have had a mac for over 3 yrs. the OS was great until i had tiger. the moment i installed Leopard, the reliability dropped a few hundred points. still better than my XP but it annoying. too many unresponsive desktop and reboots. reinstalled OS at least a couple of times.
again.. still better than XP and waaaaay better than Vista. but truly overrated for the price tag.
Why the hell am I seeing people spell necessity/necessities wrong… Jeez(y).
Apple is the luxury brand of the computer world. While Microsoft is just what everyone can afford.
It’s kind of like Saks Fifth Avenue vs. WalMart.
I’ve had my MBP 15″ just little over a year now. Yeah it’s been great however I have Win 7 on the other side (bootcamp)and I find myself using and enjoying the Win7 a lot more. I’ll be trading my MBP in for a Win7 laptop once they are out.
I’ve been using PC’s since the 80’s and have used every OS that microsoft has produced and with no small amount of aggravation over the years.When MS came out with Vista, I trashed my PC and bought first a MacBook Pro, then a 24″ iMac, and now another new MacBook for travelling. It’s a pleasure to have a machine and an OS that does what it’s supposed to, when it’s supposed to and without crashing or annoying me with “security” popups. MS has a lot of catching up to do. Windows is the MacDonalds of the Computing world. There is a market for it no doubt but I want full table service and steak!!
Anyone who has to reinstall their Vista OS as often as people claim they have to in these comments need to learn the basics of using a computer on the Internet. They’re probably the same nitwits that click on the “Your computer is infected click here to clean it” pop-ups. I’m an IT Admin responsible for hundreds of PCs (most running Vista) and my users have no issues like the ones people have described here. Besides, if she doesn’t like Vista she can always install a Linux flavor she does like, for free! Macs are nice but for the price they’re asking TOTALLY not worth it unless you have money to burn needlessly.
“groundhog_day Said:
so the only reason your macs dont get viruses is cuz serious computer hardware and software guys dont give a rats @ss bout apple.”
Exactly! If Mac users got their wish of having the market share PCs have than they would be the ones getting attacked more often. Same goes for Linux. Virus creators are risking getting arrested and incurring HUGE fines. They’re not going to waste their effort on a smaller target.
@Justin
“Yeah, because it’s a desktop replacement, not a laptop. Over 10lb! only 2 hours battery life! It also uses a much cheaper non-mobile CPU”
The HP you commented on weighs about 8.8 lbs and the equivalent Mac I spec’d out came in around 6.6 lbs. As far as battery life is concerned, for the extra $1200 (again from what I spec’d out) you can get the 12 cell model of HP laptops still much cheaper or get extra batteries, again much cheaper than a Mac. And as far as the processor is concerned, you do know they use the same Intel processors don’t you? Except that for the HP’s you have more choices. For the ones I spec’d out you have a choice of:
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo Processor P8700 2.53GHz
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo Processor T9550 2.66GHz
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad Processor Q9000 2.00Ghz
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo Processor T9600 2.80GHz
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad Processor Q9100 2.26GHz
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad Processor QX9300 2.53GHz
All are “mobile” processors.
So if 1.8 lbs are important enough for you to shell out more than $1000 extra, knock yourself out. God I hate defending HP. I prefer Dells, but there is no way in hell I’d be stupid enough to shell out $3000 for a Mac when I can spend a little over half that for a better non-Mac.
That’s soo funny they have this commercial… I’m looking to buy a new machine… and I considered apple (i do like apple) but I would have to sell an organ to afford it.
I think I’m just going to buy a Dell… and install Linux on it.
I use both PC’s and MAC’s everyday so I’m not a fan of either or maybe I’m a fan of both….but anyway. What is the actual percentage of PC sales compared to MAC sales. I’ve always wanted to know that. Is there a big difference in the number? If so, why?
because it’s not windows, dimwit.
you get more for your money…..yeah, like every virus known to man.