Horrible comparison.

* For one, choosing a "random laptop off of Dell's small business" is not the equivalent of a MBP.

* Second, your choice of power benchmark is ridiculous. FTA: "Before we mention the battery life of the Precision M4600, it's important to point out that our review unit came equipped with the Intel Core i7-2920XM Extreme Edition processor." And based on the source's graph[1] they are dead last by a significant amount. Are you sure you chose this "randomly?"

* Third, choosing a laptop slightly more comparable, hell, even if it's not as comparable, will yield significantly better battery life. The ThinkPad Edge [2] ranges from 7.4-5.7 hours; The T series can go up to 16 hours on a 9-cell battery [3] and the X series with up to 23 hours.

* As for price, Lenovo is near the same price range at around $179/9-cell battery.

The word "exorbitant" may not be completely qualified here, but the prices are neither decent nor cheap.

[1] http://i.imgur.com/Ucep7.png -- Don't want to take their bandwidth.

(Shortened lenovo links below since they were really big. No referral nonsense in there, I promise.)

[2] http://lnv.gy/N0mufz

[3] http://lnv.gy/cVtbKt

[4] http://lnv.gy/dBYhVr

While I'm unsure of the capacity of competition batteries, Apple claims 1000 or more recharge cycles on their batteries.

This is a critical factor -- if the Apple battery is $200 (installed professionally) vs $170 (parts only), and lasts significantly longer, it becomes more interesting of a comparison. But only if it lasts longer.

Also, Apple displays cycles used in system info, while finding similar information in Windows is not as easy. I know Apple is willing to replace batteries that die before their advertised cycle count is up, but I haven't heard of that behavior being common with competition.

I'm not claiming that Apple is better, not at all. Heck, comparing laptops between brands is difficult anyway, considering that Apple owns the >$1000 market and it's competition does the majority of it's business in the <$1000 market. (Meaning that most of the >$1000 laptops we compare to Apple products aren't those brands' bread-and-butter big sellers, they're niche products).

I just did a quick eBay search, and you can get a genuine battery for that particular Dell model well under $80. And as with most Dells, you can probably replace it yourself (which was my main point). Replacing the battery in the MacBook is 2.5 times the price of replacing the battery in the Dell.

And what if the SSD or memory is not large enough anymore for your needs? (Which often happens after a few years of use.) In most other laptops and non-Retina display MacBook Pro's one can replace them at market prices. Not so with the new retina display MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, etc.

A friend of mine recently asked a quote for upgrading memory in his (pre-aluminium) Mac Mini, it was over 200 Euro. The market value of the memory was 40 Euro.

Edit: I would like to add that I am a happy Mac user. But I think Apple is rapidly moving into the wrong direction with their changes to rapidly deprecate older models, either by making them non-upgradable or pretty randomly removing support for them in new operating system versions (both OS X and iOS).

Like Twitter, Apple thinks they don't need the geeks anymore. My fear is they may be right.

It's easy to pick on Apple in isolation. When you compare Apple's practices to other big vendors they're not all that different. Dell charges a tiny fortune for memory, especially for server models, compared to a wholesaler, they need to protect their bottom line as much as Apple and upgrades are always how they make their margins.

I'd rather that Apple deprecates older models of hardware than insists on supporting them perpetually. I say this as a developer. If you make an app for 10.7 you will not have to worry about building a PowerPC version, about testing it on a 2005-vintage Mac Mini just because one of your customers might have one. It's not supported. Period.

I know several people that are perfectly happy with an older system, 10.4 or 10.5 vintage either out of necessity or out of indifference. It works for them and they see no urgent reason to upgrade.

How much garbage do you think there is in Windows to support devices that haven't even been manufactured in the last ten years? How much better would Windows be if they abandoned all that and focused on making it better? I think it would look a lot like Windows 8, actually. Faster all around.

I think the assumption is that you can extend the life of older laptops. I can get a new $25 battery on amazon for my 4 year old Dell laptop. Not sure what the comparable price would be for apple.