Last night I received an email from Dell about a back-to-school special. Rather than just promote their laptops, Dell decided to compare their top student laptops and the Apple laptops with the same specs. The comparisons include the Macbook 15 and 17 inch versus the Studio 15 and 17 inch models.

I’ve never been a fan of Apple-Dell “comparison wars” because the systems (and cultures) are so different. Dell versus IBM, Toshiba, etc. makes more sense because of the identical operating systems. Most customers who want a Mac aren’t going to switch because of price. Everyone knows PC-based laptops are less expensive than their Mac-based counterparts.

I took a look on the Apple Student Store and couldn’t seem to figure out how Dell came to the pricing they list in the image below. I got a total of $2,102 for the Apple Macbook Pro 15 with the same items listed. The Apple price includes an 8gb iPod Touch for free.

Dell ends their promo email by letting us know that with the $1,000+ savings over a Mac, you can go buy an iPod Touch.