I did the same kind of comparison last year:
http://www.scottlewisonline.com/archive/scott200707.html#macbook

It is still relevant if the specs and prices may have changed a bit over time.

One thing I noticed in your spec process; when the Mac came with a feature which was optional on the Windows machines, you added it, and included it in the price. When the Windows machine came with a feature standard that was a Mac option, instead of adding it and including it in the price, you kind of said “Oh well” and moved on.

Just went back and checked: the example I was thinking of was the Mini-DVI adapter. And, if we’re including dongles, an external media card reader for the Macbook would be an option. To be fair though, you did do the reverse on a couple of options (bundled software on the Dell in round 2 IIRC).

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not screaming bias, or claiming that it somehow invalidates the whole exercise. It just struck me as a small inconsistency, not one which really biases towards either platform.

Anyway, it cuts both ways – media reader goes down as a plus (yay!), but the price hike goes down as a minus. If you wanted to be anally consistent, speccing them all up to the exact same standard, and making each candidate wear full price.

On the question of full price and accessories – there’s no reason to pay Apple’s (or indeed Sony’s) markup on accessories when they’ll 9 times out of 10 use the same newegg clearance special USB stick/wifi/RAM/card reader/7200 RPM hard drive as any other machine.