I realize that the Microsoft “Laptop Hunter” ads are not new. They have been on for a few months now. The basic premise, if you haven’t seen them, is that they “run into” some person who is looking for a laptop. They follow them around a store (I think it’s always Best Buy) and somone shows them a bunch of laptops, including Macs. They always talk about how the Mac is too expensive and end up buying some Dell or HP or whatever with “better” specs.

Let me first say that I am a big Apple guy. Everyone knows this and if you want to call me a “fanboy” so be it. I am definitely not in the “Apple can do no wrong” camp because I think there are plenty of things wrong with the iPhone. I do think their computers are too pricey and I wish they would make some of them easier to upgrade.

That being said, I think these commercials are genius on so many levels. First off, Microsoft doesn’t make computers, they make an operating system. So it’s kind of funny that they are making commercials about comparing hardware. But it’s a brilliant move to me. There is so much negative talk about Vista that Microsoft needed to try another approach. They never even talk about features of the operating system, just about the computers and price. Most people know that Macs are considerably more expensive than “PCs*.” So I don’t think that this is a huge revelation to most people. But I think most people didn’t know that computers with equal “numbers” (and by numbers I mean amount of RAM, hard drive size, processor speed, screen size) cost so much less. It’s a brilliant way to hit the masses of uninformed casual users who undoubtedly had been intrigued by Macs  due to the popularity of the iPhone.

But at the same time, everyone get’s hung up on these “numbers.” It surprises me because even computer-savvy people I know say the same thing. It would be like if Kia started having commercials where they should people at CarMax looking at Kias and Hondas and saying, “Well the Kia is four cylinder, gets about the same gas mileage, has four doors, a steering wheel, brakes AND it’s half the price!!” Most people know that those two cars are not created equal. You sacrifice things like build quality, reliability, longevity. The problem is that the average person doesn’t know this about computers.

The bottom line, Microsoft hit a home run with these commercials. Most people I know already play “the Mac is too expensive” card all the time. This just hits that theory out of the park. Now of course anyone who owns a Mac probably disagrees.

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*I say “PCs” because PC stands for personal computer and a Mac is still a personal computer, but whatever.