The price difference between Macs and PCs widens

For some time, Mac fans have argued that, feature-for-feature, Apple's computers aren't really that much more expensive than their PC competitors. When the processors, memory, hard drive and screens are all matched up, the price premium on a Mac was negligible, they insist, and sometimes non-existent. But eWeek's Joe Wilcox says that, while he wasn't looking, that has changed. Windows-based computers -- and particularly notebooks -- are now much more powerful than Macs, and a lot cheaper. He thinks Apple not only must lower prices, but is actually planning on it. On Saturday, Aug. 2, I got to wondering about Mac versus Windows PC pricing after seeing two HP notebooks on sale at the local Target. One of them, a 14-inch model, the HP DV2946NR, sold for $699.99 and packed 4GB of memory and a 320GB hard drive. Capacity for both... [read full story]