Here is a very interesting read from Roger Kay of Endpoint Technologies. It’s a whitepaper (sponsored by Microsoft) that explains and analyzes the so called “Apple-Tax” or what I would call the “Paying-for-cool bandwagon”
Here’s an excerpt from the the report:
For example, a low-end MacBook costs $1,000, while a similarly spec’ed Dell Inspiron 15 costs $700 and an HP dv4 in the same class also costs $700. The $300 premium gets you, ah, what was that again? Oh, less memory, smaller hard drive, smaller screen, no keyboard or mouse, and no card reader. Way cool