One of the reasons I built a PC this time around was the price. The machine I built cost $1300 or so. The Mac Pro I could have bought would have cost at least $2000 (though with better specs).
But if you have the similar specs, the price ends up being pretty similar. Sure, I don’t need fully buffered ECC RAM, or even quad core.
But I have this nagging thought: Is there some value in the fact that if I were to buy a Mac Pro, I’d stop worrying about what I could buy otherwise?
It’s clear to me that my previous Powerbook was an incorrect purchase. My usage pattern doesn’t fit the “big laptop” use case. I’m more of a “big desktop and small laptop” kind of person. And the PB was just too behind on the performance curve. But if someone handed me a Mac Pro, I’m fairly certain I’d be happy with it. Especially with the advent of virtualization on the Mac, I won’t have any of the software annoyances that I had before.
I look at my recent HHK purchases. Though these things cost over $200 a piece, I’ve all but stopped looking at keyboards since I bought them. They were expensive, but given the amount of time I spent looking for the best inexpensive keyboard, could the time I “saved” from not having to continue searching have been worth the extra cost?
Does the guarantee of quality in product have value that’s separate from the quality of the product itself?
Of course it’s also crucial that you believe in the quality of the product. After using these HHK’s for a month or so, I’m convinced that if you care about the feel of your keyboard, then they’re certainly worth it. Likewise, the Mac Pro seems like a pretty good value for the price.