i find it funny, that in an article criticizing apple for their prices that sony keeps getting brought up as a cheaper alternative.
in my experience Sony regularly have higher prices than a comparative machine from another manufacturer.
in the shop i work for we have a sony vaio selling for £499.00
the specs are,
4GB of ram
500GB hard-drive (5400rpm i think)
i3-2310m processor
and in the same shop we have a acer aspire for £499.00
the specs are,
6GB of ram
750GB hard-drive (also 5400rpm i think)
but it comes with a i5 processor, albeit a last generation one.
we also had a Toshiba satellite, with from what i can tell, has identical specs to the Sony, selling for £399.00
the Sony isn't even better made (its one of the lower end vaios) its not any thinner, and from what i can see has no real reason for costing more, other than brand name.
but back on topic, this article suggests, that the apple tax whilst real, isn't really that significant, and the tax doesn't apply to all apple products equally.
link
"In the end, we found each Apple machine to cost more than a similarly equipped PC counterpart, with the baseline Mac Pro being the exception. Usually the delta is around $50 to $150"
also one thing people never consider, resale value, look on ebay for the selling prices of secondhand apple products, they demand a heftier premium over competitors.
so whilst you will pay more for apple, you have more chance getting more of it back when it comes to an upgrade.