From the Trying to Trick You Out of Your Money department.

So I'm surfing around computer shopping, an exercise that has proven to making me ill lately. Now, I'm a geek by trade (I suppose). I'm pretty up to speed on what goes into a computer, about what it costs, and what gear you need to fit whatever lifestyle you have. The sheer number of choices these manufactures have today is maddening. They'll throw any weird combination of junk in there to meet whatever kooky price point they need to meet. How about the newest-baddest chip made by Intel? Throw in a small amount of memory, no DVD burner, and some tiny hard drive and you have the "budget computer". Or you can choose one with all the goodies you like: big drive, extra ram, burning o-plenty.. but this one has the not-so-cool proc. Fine, so you can try the good proc, extra goodies, but they go PATA instead of SATA on the hard drive. All of these add up to something that meets an attractive price, but is lacking some key component that makes someone like me from pulling the trigger. Fine for Mom and Dad, not fine for someone who has a clue.

In any case, we're not here to discuss all the possible spec-per-dollar combinations. that the PC manufacturers have available. They go beyond even mish-mashing components to match up to nice-looking prices with 49 and 99 at the end. It the marketing mo-fos who try to nudge you into the bigger purchase with just the advertisements. Today I'm shopping on the of the big boys in PCs and they have a side-by-side look at two of their models. Two flavors of the same model actually. One they consider "sexy performer" the other "photo frenzy". Allright I've paraphrased the actual quips the marketing morons have used -mostly to cover my own ass in case the Nameless Company in question decides to get nasty (That happened to me with "ClimateInsect".. it was silly, I'll tell you all about it some day). Heck they all do this kind of thing, so they can all come sue me for slander.
So, obviously they are trying to insinuate that one is a good overall PC and the other might be be a better choice for someone looking to mess with their photos. They don't come out and say anything like that, they just label one differently than the other.

So let's compare the "sexy performer" to the "photo frenzy"
Processor - same
Memory - same
Hard Drive - same
Optical Drive - same
Video Card - same
Monitor - same
Speakers - same
Ports - didn't day, I'm guessing same.

Did I fail to mention that the "photo frenzy" pc clocks in at about $250 more than the "sexy performer"? Given that every piece of hardware spec I can find puts these guys at dead even, what could possibly separate these two enough to make it more photo-worthy and therefore cost more?
Oh that's right: it's the Warranty! "Sexy performer" only has the pesky one-year variety, and "photo frenzy" comes with a whopping 2 year warranty. But hey, that's not right. Adding the identical warranty to the "sexy performer" doesn't jack the price up that much. There must be some other difference, or else Nameless Company is just trying to steal money (shock, horror). After some digging (sifting to pages and pages of "customize" options), I found one other difference: Software! Hooray, they must have thrown in some cheesy photo-editing program right? Maybe a watered down Adobe product eh?
Nope It's Office. Office 2007 Student edition. The custom options confirm it, adding Office and a two-year warranty to the "sexy performer" makes it exactly the same price as the "photo frenzy".
Does Office now have some secret photo-editing suite built in that makes messing with your photos that much better? Maybe, but it doubt it.
I'll have to check with my photographer friends (not that I have any, I'll have to make some), but if my guess is correct I doubt they would say "Oh hell yeah, for my job I wouldn't be caught dead without an extended warranty and the Student version of Office."

Again, no where does the company outright say "this computer is better for photos". What they are doing is simply not saying that about the "sexy performer" in hopes that JoePhotoGuy who's shopping on-line for a new PC will identify with the phrase "photo frenzy" and immediately click on that model, without giving a thought to what is going on inside the computer.
Also to be fair, it's not like the company is outright stealing from you, the same services can be had for the same price with other models offered by the same place (funny though.. there is no option to reduce the warranty in the "photo frenzy" pages). They are simply bundling more profitable services into a build and trying to head-egg more people into buying it with advertising. It happens a lot. Far too often for us to catch it all.

The lesson we learn from all this is just be careful what you buy. If you're smart enough to have found your way through this blog and patient enough to have read the whole thing, you know this already. You're smart enough to resist the constant deluge of BS flowing from anyone who wants your money. But not everyone is that savvy. Do me a favor, help the nermals (not a type-o, just an inside joke), make sure your Mom doesn't buy 'photo frenzy' thinking she's going to be the next Ansel Adams. Businesses are always going to find clever ways to take our money. Stay sharp, and lend a hand to those who have less Marketing Resistance.

(P.S. Were there enough parenthesis for you? I didn't think so)