Specific to video hardware, no, they certainly don't offer the latest space heater targeted at the jerk and twitch crowd the second it hits the market. But then, they also don't market computers to those people.

To paint everything they make with the "obsolete hardware" brush, however, is complete nonsense.

 

Not even that. They are years behind with regard to the MBPs.


I did not, but the majority of their stuff is painfully dated compared to the mainstream. I am not even talking about boutique computers, just off the shelf Dells and HPs. There shouldn't be a price premium for lesser tech.

 

You're really reaching to be calling a current Macbook "dated". By what metric, exactly? Proc? They're using the same 2.5-3Ghz Core 2 Duo as everyone else in the high end laptop market. Bus speed? Same. Memory? Same. Video hardware? This I'll grant you, though, again, Apple isn't building computers for the jerk and twitch crowd.

Apple is well in line with comparable PC laptops in terms of performance and price.

Is there a slight price premium? Sure. But then, if you're buying the thing to run Windows, you're doing it wrong, and there are more than a few intrinsic benefits to Macs that those actively seeking to discredit them are wont to ignore as though they don't matter.

If design elegance, total-widget stability and uniformity, the best end-user OS in the world, and resale value matter nought-- by all means, buy a Dell.

 

Almost every single high end pc maker has switched to i5/i7 processors.

 

Which are marginally faster than the Core 2's with considerably higher power consumption.

Will they eventually use them? Yes, probably, when it makes sense to do so and they're able to overcome the design issues across the line. Is the average user going to notice the difference, or care? No, generally not.

Regardless, to summarize--

1) Apple does not make boutique computers targeted at gamers.

2) Apple makes machines that are targeted to people who consider the intrinsic benefits of the hardware and software to be worth the slight price premium.

3) To suggest that Apple uses "outdated" hardware simply because they ignore the jerk and twitch market is disingenuous.

4) The machines they do build in the markets they do care about are easily comparable to PC alternatives, though offer the aforementioned intrinsic benefits of the platform.