Coke computer vs. Pepsi computer

The essential point about specs is bang on, but comparing computer purchasing to soft drinks over-trivializes it. Soft drinks have nearly zero feature differentiation.<p>Lots of consumer goods have meaningful features. One dishwasher might be quiet. Another might use very little energy. A third may heat its own water, sanitizing the dishes. You may want a model that can be fitted with a panel to match the cabinetry.<p>What dishwasher manufacturers have moved away from is specifications that do not strongly correlate with features. How many horsepower does a dishwasher motor have? How many chips are in its circuitry? What does it weigh? These things are rarely front and centre, because most buyers can't draw a connection between them and a benefit they will enjoy.<p>The trend is not towards brands being the only thing that matter, but rather towards features that probide benefits. RAM and Megahertz are specifications. Being powerful enough to do speech recognition in real time is a feature. Siri is a benefit.

I don't agree, this is a gross over-simplification and the comparison with Coke and Pepsi doesn't work.<p>Drinking a soft drink gives you an immediate, hard-wired response. Tasting something is, well, relying on your taste buds for one. How does this translate to something like working with a computer? It's just a dishonest and intellectually lazy comparison.<p>Mac or PC, Laptop or Desktop, Battlefield 3 or browsing the web. If your grandfather with arthritis and bad sight buys a 11.6" MacBook Air with a 1366×768 resolution and a pixel density of 135 good luck evading him at future family ceremonies if you're the head geek of the family.<p>Also, I don't know about you guys, but I certainly don't want to be held accountable for a guy ending up with Norton Antivirus just because I went "you want a pc, uhh, it doesn't matter, just go with anything".

It seems like it's more like Audi computer vs. Honda computer:<p>1. Price matters<p>2. Key metrics like HP are used in sales brochures to most buyers<p>3. Metrics like 0-60 time or torque will be available for advanced buyers

I've seen several people who bought machines with 512Mb, not realising that was a small amount, who then complain that their computer is very slow, despite being brand new. It does make a difference, however, most people don't understand the specs and top brands insist on shipping machines with poor specs.<p>As a side note, I wish my iPad had more memory (it has 256Mb), because the browser crashes on web pages with a lot of data/javascript.

I'm not sure I agree. I look at the nutrition facts on the food I purchase. I look at the specs. when I'm buying a car, and the specs. do inform my purchasing decision. When I'm buying a computer, I do look at specs. to decide which computer will run <i>my</i> computational tasks most efficiently.<p>For me, a world without specs. would be bleak indeed.

The main reason that specs become so important in PC purchase is because with the IBM compatible PC there needed to be some way to differentiate between a bewildering amount of brands and models. There needed to be a clear reason as to why a $1000 PC was worth more money than a $500 one.<p>The problem was that there seemed to a spec war a few years ago (still continues to some extent) with computer companies trying to get as many high numbers into their ads as possible. For example allot of ads saying stuff like:<p>3Ghz CPU , 4GB RAM, 500GB HDD , 128MB Graphics Card for Only £300!!!!!<p>Of course this would actually mean you got a Celeron , lots of basic slow RAM , a low speed IDE HDD and a shared memory graphics card with minimal acceleration features but of course it would sound impressive to the less savvy buyer who had a basic notion of what the numbers meant but who didn't really understand performance overall.<p>I always compare this to people who compare the performance of 2 cars by quoting the engine displacement as the key figure for performance without considering induction method , valve configuration, fuel delivery etc etc. Of course cars at least have numbers like bhp and torque and bhp per ton which at least provide something to compare, I often have people show me 2 computers of similar price in a catalog and ask me "which one would be faster" and there is no way I can really answer that question with much confidence.<p>It was also important of course because many pieces of software , especially games would have a "minimum requirements" portion on the box.<p>Apple computers have always been less spec focused in their marketing , mainly because there are fewer models to choose between, so a simple Standard/Pro/Pro++ works just as well.<p>Of course specs are still important <i>really</i> , this is evident in how much hype is given to the CPU etc of a new smartphone when it comes out. Even apple have a "tech specs" section for each of their computers on their website , and usually give options for faster CPU , Extra Memory etc. When lots of android tablets hit the market I can't really think of many others ways in which people will distinguish between them apart from obvious stuff like screen size and weight (which are really specs themselves anyway). You need some heuristic which can be used for answering questions like "If I buy this tablet , how likely will it be to still be able to run all the newest graphically intense games in 2 years time"<p>The only thing that I can think of that has <i>really</i> changed recently is that more stuff can be offloaded to "the cloud" rather than computed locally, obviously in those cases local hardware specs become less important <i>but</i> specs like latency and bandwidth (especially upload) of your ISP / telco provider suddenly become <i>more</i> important.

Far more important the the GHz, RAM or VRAM size or HDD size is the construction of the machine (especially for laptops). That's where I'd spend the time doing the research. Dell uses cheap plastic, HP has shiny screens, Lenovo has magical alloy stuff they make the backing from, Apple sometimes uses aluminum for its cases.<p>Picking out a laptop is not like buying a car, but it's not a soft drink either. It's more like picking out clothing. Yes, quality is important, but you also want it look and feel nice and feel that it's not going to let you down (think stain resistant cloth, wrinkle free shirts, ties that go with everything, etc).

Specs are only ever irrelevant if there is only one product out there. The analogy with Coke and Pepsi don't really work (to me anyway) because you can try both out and can differentiate by taste. In addition, they both serve only one purpose - to quench your thirst.<p>Computers, on the other hand, are expensive (you can't just try them out) and used for a wide variety of tasks. For maximum benefit, you need to tailor it and for that you need to know the specs. Non-techies know that these things matter but they have no knowledge about it which is why they go to their tech friends for help.

I've learned to <i>immediately</i> divert those questions by asking what they want to do with their computer instead. And if they can't answer that immediately, I ask why their current computer isn't working for them (which usually nets an <i>extremely</i> specific answer before the question even finishes).<p>Diablo 3? $++. Pong? $--. Non-work-related and no high-gpu gaming? Size--.<p>Non-techies tend to fall into one of these groups, and computer manufacturers (except Apple) overcomplicate the choices to such mind-blowing degrees that it's impossible to determine between HP36Q9X and A95i, and even if you <i>could</i> you couldn't state your decision because it's impossible to remember or even pronounce. Buying computers is such a horrifying experience, I really can't blame people for remaining ignorant of the reasons behind things.

Computers are to specs as wine is to specify gravity. Someone cares, but it probably isn't you.

I think specs are important on products that are configurable. You measure the value of, say, a computer by the individual parts used to assemble the product. You remove and replace any of those parts, the value immediately changes.<p>Ipods, Ipads, Kindles, etc. have no (easily) configurable parts, so the price you see reflects all you get.<p>And plus, isn't software king nowadays anyway? Maybe companies like Amazon and Apple recognize hardware may be reaching some plateau with diminishing returns in speed, efficiency, etc. (or at least the differences between hardware competitors is becoming more negligible over time); therefore it's irrelevant to add a spec sheet.

"We’re finally getting close to customer-centric computer shopping, and hopefully more and more manufacturers will jump on the bandwagon."<p>This is an awful attitude to have. People do care about specs in hindsight. If they have a poor experience with a netbook, and it turns out that it's because of the dog-slow Atom under the hood, they're definitely going to care. Except, by the time the realize that they do care, they've already spent their money and they're probably without recourse.<p>For those of us that <i>do</i> understand tech specs, we shouldn't celebrate being deprived of the ability to avoid making costly mistakes.

I think this is a bit naive. It's like buying a car. Do people care if they buy a Toyota with a V-8 engine? Absolutely. They just don't know if that's good or bad, so they'll ask a car geek. After all, they want a car that is fast, gets good gas milage, and doesn't break all the time, and the engine affects all of those things. They just don't know if "Toyota with a V-8 engine" translates into those things.<p>Apple's biggest contribution is in making sure that the customer doesn't need to worry about the spec, not in making specs irrelevant.

A lot of low-end Android tablets don't tell you what CPU they have. Not the most helpful thing in the world if you're trying to develop a game.

This may apply to phones but I disagree with "computers". A PC with better specs is going to perform better than a PC with worse specs. Just like a macbook pro with worse specs will perform worse than a pc laptop with better specs (running Win7 at least).

Anyone else think of gaming consoles when they read this?<p>Gaming consoles, even today, don't need to share their specs. They do, but that's not why people by them. Very little in the way of hardware influences people. In fact, even the BluRay part of the PS3 isn't the reason people like the PS3. It's because they can play BluRays on it.<p>So, for certain people, Halo is important. For others, it's Mario. What does this have in common with things like iPad, iPhones, etc? The product enables you to use a specific ecosystem of features. If I buy an XBox, I can partake in XBox Live. PS3, I can watch BluRays and use PSN.<p>Kinect is the same thing: the hardware really isn't important. It's what it allows you to do.<p>That's what sells to people.<p>The problem is, when all the computers do basically the same thing, what's their to differentiate? What's does an HP do that a Dell does not?<p>So, how is this different then a Mac? Well, you basically have 4 macs right now: Mini, Air, MBP, and an iMac. The Pro is that machine for people that care about the hardware.<p>The Mini is clear in what it offers. The Air, MBP, and iMac are all specific, and the hardware features are fairly obvious, but they all enable access to the same ecosystem. The goal here is, when you go to buy a Mac, the only thing you need to decide is what you want to use it for (and, I firmly believe even that will slowly erode away).

<i>Apple’s decision not to release specs with the original iPod, and again with the iPhone and iPad, was them realizing that it just doesn’t matter.</i><p>Yeah, actually it does. What an odd thing to say.