Microsoft’s Latest Anti-Apple Ads

Microsoft’s latest, anti-Apple ads are all over the Web and broadcast TV. The new Microsoft “Laptop Hunters-Lauren” commercial suggests that there is only one Apple laptop under $1,000 and it has a 13-inch screen. For the same money, it claims, you can get a better Windows-based laptop with a 17-inch screen. True? It is, but that isn’t the whole story.

In the 60-second ad, Lauren is looking for a new laptop, one that has “speed, has a comfortable keyboard, and a 17-inch screen” for under $1,000. An on-screen card and the voiceover drives home the point that Microsoft is giving her the money to buy the system: “You find it, you keep it.” She goes shopping, first to a “Mac Store,” where she can find only one computer for under $1,000, a MacBook with a 13-inch screen. Is this possible? Fraid so.