MS Bulks Up With Sturdy New Laptop Hunters Ad

[Vincent Ferrari]

<p><em>"With a $700 budget, Matt and Olivia find their perfect laptop a large screen HP dv7 with great battery life. Great for sharing pictures of their son Jayden with friends and family."</em></p><p><em><object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" width="600" height="360" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0"><param name="src" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/zO7b5mACOA4" /><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="600" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/zO7b5mACOA4"></embed></object></em></p><p>Wow, it sure does look sturdy, doesn't it?</p><p>Best Buy <a href="http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?_dyncharset=ISO-8859-1&amp;_dynSessConf=-1140182843222821641&amp;id=pcat17071&amp;type=page&amp;ks=960&amp;st=dv7&amp;sc=Global&amp;cp=1&amp;sp=+currentprice+skuid&amp;qp=&amp;list=n&amp;usc=All+Categories&amp;nrp=15&amp;iht=n" target="_blank">doesn't have any $700 DV7's on their site</a>, so it's hard to tell if they got what they actually wanted, but the $589 model has a super-impressive battery life of 2 hours 30 minutes.</p><p>Do any of the laptop hunters actually say, "I want this" and actually get it?</p>

[emuelle1]

Is there any evidence that the "Laptop Hunters" are normal people hunting for laptops under an MS ad campaign, or paid and scripted actors?

[Jason Dunn]

Is there any evidence that the "Laptop Hunters" are normal people hunting for laptops under an MS ad campaign, or paid and scripted actors?

This is obviously "directed" to some extent - it's not like a camera crew would ambush a family on the way into Best Buy and randomly find people who want to be in a commercial. But I've heard no evidence that they're scripted insofar as Microsoft is telling them what to say, or that they're actors - with one exception. That very first commercial with Lauren - it turns out she's an actress:

http://i.gizmodo.com/5190861/someone-found-microsofts-lauren-and-shes-an-actress

I don't think any of that makes the commercials any less legitimate - or certainly no worse than the FUD-filled Apple commercials.

[Jason Dunn]

I've said it before and I'll keep in saying it: price matters to most people. Sure, this laptop isn't cutting edge, and I doubt 2.5 hours of battery life is considered "long" by most people, but the Mac "option" is for them to spend $2499 USD. Someone comes into a store with a $700 budget, and the Apple "answer" is "Come back in a few months after you've saved up your money". Does anyone really consider that a good option?

Apple could EASILY release a 17 inch Macbook for $999 if they wanted to, cut down from the Macbook Pro, but they instead they stick to their artificial and ridiculous notion that things like screen size are THE defining characteristic for a laptop and that anyone who wants big screen wants to pay $2500. They're limiting themselves to certain segments of the market - and it's their right to do that - but to pretend that everyone can afford a $2500 laptop is ridiculous...

[Vincent Ferrari]

I've said it before and I'll keep in saying it: price matters to most people. Sure, this laptop isn't cutting edge, and I doubt 2.5 hours of battery life is considered "long" by most people, but the Mac "option" is for them to spend $2499 USD. Someone comes into a store with a $700 budget, and the Apple "answer" is "Come back in a few months after you've saved up your money". Does anyone really consider that a good option?

Okay. If you're gonna play the broken record game, so will I... :D

The impression created by the commercials is that the Macs they pass on are similarly specced to the machines they end up buying and only differ in price. That's obviously not the case. In this case, that $2499 Mac is infinitely more powerful than the 8 lb piece of plastic they bought.

That doesn't mean that 8 lb piece of plastic doesn't suit every need they have in a computer, nor does it mean that the Mac would've done so any better. It does however, strike me as at least slightly disingenuous to compare a $600 HP to a $2500 Mac. If they were all the same, HP wouldn't sell high end $2500 machines either, which they do.

Frankly, as far as I'm concerned, those who buy anything solely based on price deserve what they get.

[The Yaz]

Sometimes I think we forget that people can "get by" with underpowered equipment. The fact is if you've only used older and slower computers, you do not appreciate the significant difference between a base laptop and a high-end one.

Case in point, last Christmas I waited in line and was able to purchase a door buster Compaq laptop at Walmart for $298. It has a 2.1gb AMD single core processor, 2gb ram, 160gb hard drive, 802.11b/g, 15.4" screen, Vista Home and dual layer DVD drive.

It's not my primary device in my home, but I am happliy running Vista on it. I use the laptop to check the web throughout the house and the kid's use it for checking facts when doing their homework in the kitchen. It was never intended for high-end gaming or ripping video.

The point is the laptop I purchased has met my needs. I've seen my friend's Macs and I agree they are beautiful machines, but I personnaly could never justify such a cost.

The best part was when I was considering adding more ram, a technician I spoke to told me to not upgrade to 3gb because the added memory would reduce my battery life without any noticeable improvement. He told me to wait and install Windows 7 and see the improvement from the software instead.

I think the Microsoft ads fail in general because its too short in time to convey an honest explanation as to why the Windows laptops were chosen over the Macs. (It's not always just the money;okay, maybe it is all about the money!)

I would rather have the ad company find out the needs of the customer, lay out comparable equipmet sided by side and them have the customer make the pick, explainning their choice. Then the high-end versus entry level could be avoided.

Steve :cool:

[Vincent Ferrari]

I doubt 2.5 hours of battery life is considered "long" by most people

One more thing related to that: that's exactly my point when I say the customers never get what they want. One of their considerations was good battery life. I don't know in what circles 2.5 hours is "good battery life," but none that I've ever seen. EVER. :confused:

Yet again, another "laptop hunter" doesn't get what they want based on the criteria they set forth in the first few seconds of the ad.

[Jason Dunn]

I would rather have the ad company find out the needs of the customer, lay out comparable equipmet sided by side and them have the customer make the pick, explainning their choice. Then the high-end versus entry level could be avoided.

I'm no advertising expert, but I think one of the "rules" of TV advertising is that you can't tell too complex of a story with a TV ad. Most ads convey one primary idea, and in the case of the Microsoft ads, the focus is cost. Doing a comparison shopping commercial on multuple purchasing factors would be pretty hard...

[Jason Dunn]

One more thing related to that: that's exactly my point when I say the customers never get what they want. One of their considerations was good battery life. I don't know in what circles 2.5 hours is "good battery life," but none that I've ever seen. EVER.

I have two lines of thought about this. First, for all we know these people could be coming from a five year old laptop that lasts 10 minutes on a charge. I see laptops like that all the time - people tend to keep using things until they break, largely because that laptop from five years ago might have cost them $2000 and they feel guilty about not using it any more. So 2.5 hours might be impressive for these people.

My second thought is that someone who wants long battery life but also a 17 inch screen is entirely clueless - with the exception of the 17" Macbook Pro and their "we'll put a HUGE battery in this thing and people will pay $2500 for it!!" approach, most 17" notebooks have awful battery life. The screen just sucks so much power that only people who are entirely clueless would think that a huge screen laptop would get great battery life...unless 2.5 hours is so much better than what they have now it really is good enough.

The issue isn't that there aren't Windows PCs out there with good battery life - hell, those HP and Dell enterprise laptops will do 20+ hours. The issue is, as always, cost. Those 20+ hour notebooks are $1500+, and the Macbook Pro is $2500+. So once again it comes down to balancing cost vs. features...price matters.

[ucfgrad93]

I just want to know, who's advertising campaign is this? Seems like the majority of the people are buying HP laptops.

[Jason Dunn]

I just want to know, who's advertising campaign is this? Seems like the majority of the people are buying HP laptops.

All the ads look like they're in a Best Buy, and I've only seen HP, Sony, and Toshiba units get bought in the ads...so it's some sort of group promotion. HP does seem to get the most love though.

All the laptops are here:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/choosepc/viewall/

[Vincent Ferrari]

All the ads look like they're in a Best Buy, and I've only seen HP, Sony, and Toshiba units get bought in the ads...so it's some sort of group promotion. HP does seem to get the most love though.

All the laptops are here:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/choosepc/viewall/

Some of them were filmed in Fry's in California. I have a feeling HP, Sony, Fry's and Best Buy are heavily subsidizing these ads (I haven't seen a Toshiba go out the door yet).