Saturday, January 14, 2006

I took the configuration of the MacBook Pro (1.67GHz dual-core Intel Core Duo chip, 80GB hard drive, 512MB of memory at 667MHz, 1400 x 900 15.4-inch screen, a DVD burner and an ATI graphics chip) and replicated it on Gateway's configurator.

The base configuration of the Gateway notebook starts at $1,149. Then I upgraded the memory from 512MB at 533MHz to 512MB at 667MHz ($20), upped the drive to 80GB ($100), shifted from an integrated chipset to an ATI graphics chip ($100), upgraded from a CD burner to a DVD burner ($75) and upped the 15.4-inch screen resolution from 1280 x 800 to 1440 x 990 ($100).

That brings the total price of the Gateway to $1,544, a difference of $455.

The exercise brought up an interesting nuance. With Gateway, you can tweak the configuration a lot of ways. By knocking back the features a bit--lowering the resolution on the screen, sticking with an integrated graphics chip, rolling back a bit on the hard drive--you can drop the price to $1,149. That's $850 less, enough to buy a second budget notebook as a companion, or a desktop with a flat panel. And some of these differences--such as integrated versus standalone graphics--you may never notice.