A MacBook charger costs €75; a whole PC, €464

A MacBook charger costs €75; a whole PC, €464

Is it worth paying the Apple toll for a device that does the same thing? The question almost never comes out of curiosity, but out of a replacement. A gifted iPod that breaks after a year, a second iPod at a scandalous price, a third one and, after that, a MacBook. The bill that breaks everything is the charger's: 75 euros for the cable and the transformer. From there on, the conversation stops being about a brand and becomes a catalogue of prices and alternatives, from a €50 music player to a machine with Mac OS put together for €300.

The trigger: €75 for a MacBook charger

The charger is not a one-off. It is noted that Apple, Acer and HP share the same problem, and that these components usually fall outside the warranty under the excuse of voltage surges and mains spikes. The failure repeats itself; what doesn't repeat is the bill.

The figure under discussion is not the price of the cable, but the logic that sustains it. If a transformer costs 75 euros, any minor fault becomes an economic decision. That's where the search for substitutes begins, and the first front is the music player: the iPod was the gateway for almost everyone.

Which MP3 player replaces an iPod for €50?

There is one answer that keeps coming up: the Sansa Clip, about 50 euros delivered, 4 gigabytes, screen, radio and a memory card slot, with better sound than Apple's basic model. The higher version, the Fuze, is paired with SoundMagic PL 50 headphones and the free Rockbox firmware, and with that, gym and sports use is covered without depending on iTunes.

For anyone who wants more quality and is willing to pay for it, another niche brand appears: Cowon. The comparison doesn't stop at music. Against the iPad stands a 12-inch tablet PC, with a dual-core Turion64, 4 GB of RAM, a 500 GB disk and a removable DVD drive, touchscreen and Linux-compatible. The argument is simple: if the device doesn't support Flash and won't let you dig around in the disk, you pay for the gimmick twice.

Ubuntu: what you can and can't ask of Linux

The most cited alternative for the computer is not a product, it's an operating system. An ordinary desktop with the latest version of Ubuntu boots fast and handles internet and office work without breaking a sweat. Some people have been using it for four years at least 12 hours a day with the hardware as good as new, and some install a dock so the desktop looks like a Mac's.

Not everything is free. The drags of free software are well known: Flash is a pain —sometimes just disabling hardware acceleration is enough— and AMD/ATI graphics cards offer patchy coverage, to the point that Nvidia is recommended before getting into it. For most people's real use —browsing, writing, music and films— it's more than enough. The awkward question is another one: are there professional translation programs for Mac? The answer given is no.

The hackintosh: Mac OS for €300 when Apple asks €1,300

Here is the most annoying argument. A four-core machine, 8 GB of RAM and a 1 TB disk is built for 300 euros and installs Mac OS X with the same capabilities. The minimum equivalent price at Apple would be, according to that same calculation, 1,300 euros. The trick is to choose compatible components in advance; on two laptops the attempt ended in a kernel panic and an unrecognised wireless card.

There are specific guides for building it, and part of the saving is played out on the licence: it is claimed that the update and the full system are the same DVD and that an update can be bought for 20 euros. When the system is Windows, the calculation rises to about 100 euros. And here the line nobody wants to cross out loud appears: some directly recommend downloading it for zero euros or going for cheap OEM licences, which is not legal.

The breakdown of a complete computer built from parts comes to 464 euros: i3 processor for 97, motherboard for 63, graphics card for 113, 4 GB of memory for 38, 1 TB hard drive for 54, case for 24, power supply for 55 and DVD burner for 19.95. With the operating system separate, the total is still far below the apple catalogue.

Does a Mac last longer, or do three PCs fit in the same period?

The counterattack is always the same: durability. It is argued that a Mac can run ten years without much trouble, that it boots just as fast after four years of use and that it doesn't force you to fight with a thousand versions, bicho and drivers. For those who don't want to perform miracles, the closed system delivers. The music publishing, publications and printing sector adds a nuance: there Apple has been the standard and still is.

The reply is arithmetic. For what a Mac costs you can buy three machines updated over those ten years, and the warranty is renewed with each one. It is noted that a 1993 486 still works and that the problem was never the computer, but the system: Windows XP with the service packs installed ran without strange blue screens. And as proof, the clock: a €3 quartz one tells the time better than a €6,000 mechanical one.

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The most frugal alternative is still the usual one: don't buy Apple. The hard part isn't finding it, but explaining it to someone who has just paid 75 euros for a charger.