How the NASCAR-like experience of new PCs hurts customer confidence | Hacker News Reader

How the NASCAR-like experience of new PCs hurts customer confidence

keepingitrural.com

6 pointsterrellm5 comments

All those decals are there on your windows pc for the same reason they are there on the racing cars. To subsidize the cost of the machine. You got your windows computer for $500. How much was your mac?

If I ever become obscenely wealthy, I'm going to buy a NASCAR team 100% myself. My car will be all white and on the hood, in large friendly black letters (Helvetica no doubt), it will say "Racecar". That ought to drive those red-staters nuts.

That would be awesome.

I like all that crap. It makes me feel smug as I scratch off the logos, remove the decals, and erase the stock OS.

If it was just a blank machine with nothing on it, I wouldn't get that feeling.

I do feel sorry for someone that thinks the default install on their laptop is suitable for actual use, however. Sometimes these techie jokes go a little too far...

The problem with PCs is not the existence of cheapo systems like this, but the absence of machines that compete with the Mac for industrial design and user experience. It doesn't seem to be possible to buy a PC that isn't butt-ugly and comes loaded with crapware, regardless of how much you're willing to pay.

My theory is that when Apple builds a computer, they know they're going to sell millions of a particular model, so it's worth spending the time to build it properly. PC makers have higher volume, but it's spread across thirty models with a dozen variants each, updated yearly, so they can't waste time making any of them particularly good.

I wonder how a Mac-like PC (no trialware, no excessive stickers, minimal blinking lights, etc) would sell. The kind of people who appreciate that and are willing to pay a premium buy Macs. The kind of people who don't or can't appreciate that save their money and go with a PC. It's almost a cultural issue.

I agree that when Apple can use a specific model design for years, simply changing out the internal components for several revisions, they can put more money into a solid design.

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