I was reading a review of the iMac 5K, highly favorable you understand, which had the telltale “pricey” word in the title. It’s a cheap shot, since it’s a common perception — actually misperception — that Apple overcharges for its gear to earn stellar profits.

Of course, that claim ignores the fact that a company like Samsung, having high-end smartphones priced in the same range as an iPhone, makes far less in the way of profits. So clearly there’s a disconnect. But let’s return to the subject of the Mac.

Nowadays, if you want an expensive Mac, just look over the configuration options for a Mac Pro. Check off every possible upgrade, and add a Sharp 32-inch PN-K321 — 4K Ultra HD LED Monitor, and you’ll end up with a bill for $13,522. That includes the AppleCare extended warranty. Back in 1988, a Macintosh IIx could also be configured to set you back a five-figure sum.

But most Macs available nowadays don’t cost anywhere near that much, and they are definitely not expensive.

Sure, you can buy a Chrome-book, with Google’s web-based OS, for a starting price of $199, but consider what little you get for the price. A Windows PC note-book can be had for less than $400, such as a Dell Inspiron with, get this, an Intel Celeron processor. You cannot expect very much when you want to take the cheap route.

Compare that to the very cheapest MacBook Air, which is still, at $899, a better value than a Surface Pro 3 from Microsoft that actually becomes more expensive when you add the keyboard and more powerful configurations. All right, Macs do not have a touchscreen, but it’s a real question mark whether having that capability on a regular note-book computer is a plus or a needless expense. So far, convertible PC portables haven’t been huge sellers. Besides, it’s not a new form factor at all, although today’s entrants into this unproven product category are slimmer and lighter.

The key here is that, for what Apple is offering, you cannot say Macs are overpriced. You may find comparably equipped Windows PCs for a little less, but you also have to look at Apple’s software bundle, which is not easily matched on the other side of the tracks.

But what about the iMac 5K? That review called it “pricey,” and it may seem that way with a starting price of $2,499. You can also pile on the options with all SSD rather than a Fusion Drive, more powerful processor and graphics, and the maximum 32GB of RAM. Suddenly the price is north of $4,000. You can save money if you buy RAM from a third-party, but replacing the hard drive isn’t worth the potential savings in most cases when you consider the annoying process of taking the thing apart.

As a practical matter, though, $2,499 is just four dollars more than the original 128K compact Mac. Even more interesting is the fact that, if priced in 2014 dollars, the first Mac would cost $5,594 according to one estimate (others are similar). Suddenly the iMac 5K seems cheap by this extremely unequal standard.

Of course, that’s not a reasonable comparison. A 2014 all-in-one personal computer should be compared directly to another 2014 all-in-one personal computer. But here the PC makers are at a disadvantage, because there is no comparable Windows product. There might be eventually, but don’t forget that the entire iMac 5K has the same retail price as a 27-inch Dell 5K display. Remember that the Dell doesn’t include the computer, so suddenly Apple has a huge advantage.

Now I assume the folks at Dell are smart enough to realize their product is not such a good value when compared to the iMac 5K. So there may be a lower price before long.

Even if you forget the fact that this particular iMac lacks target display mode — meaning it cannot be used as a display on another Mac — you can still use it as a Windows computer if you like. Don’t forget Boot Camp or the ability to run a Windows virtual machine with such apps as Parallels Desktop or VMWare Fusion. All right, you won’t get 5K capability with a Boot Camp setup until AMD releases a driver update, but the iMac is a relative bargain, relatively speaking, when you consider what it can do right now.

Sure, if you consider the iMac 5K’s price without the fine details, I can see where some will argue that it’s expensive, and that you can get a perfectly good all-in-one PC for a lot less. But that ignores the 5K factor, and there Apple has a lock on the market for this holiday season.

But since Dell appears to have the capability to make a 5K display at what would have been an affordable price before the iMac 5K arrived, I suppose other companies will get into the game. Typical of PC makers, they will push the price as low as possible even if profit margins are nuked.

The fair argument to make is that Apple sells mid-priced and high-end personal computers. In those categories, Apple’s prices are competitive with the competition. If you still want to call them pricey despite these considerations, so be it. But the claims won’t be true.

Apple never heard the end of it when September’s iOS 8.0.1 update went awry. This sorry little episode fueled speculation that the company had taken on far too many projects and needed to slow down and improve quality control. While Apple’s new product introductions were but a fraction of what other tech companies delivered, that must be too much. The theory had it that Apple must be perfect, and there was little room for error.

Of course, 2014 wasn’t the first year where Apple screwed up, and it won’t be the last no matter you think they’ve taken on too much or not.

Over the years, there have been flawed updates, and the need to enhance product warranties to handle persistent problems. Don’t forget the power supply failures on the iMac G5, which was first released in 2004. At that time, the iPhone and iPad hadn’t quite reached the rumor stage, and forget about an Apple Watch.

Some believe the iPhone 4, introduced in 2010, had a fatal flaw that resulted in poor cellular reception if you held it the “wrong way,” which meant that you covered the junction of the two antennas on the lower left side. It turns out that this so-called Antennagate phenomenon applied to other mobile handsets too in various ways, but Apple got the rap and was forced, as a PR maneuver, to ship free cases until the dust settled.

Let’s not forget the Apple Maps fiasco in 2012 as another example of good intentions gone bad, but that may have been more a marketing issue. Google persistently calls new products betas for years to fend off criticism about bugs. If Apple had taken the same approach to Maps, the outcries would have been muted. Apple can’t take the blame if they warn you, already, that a product is not yet considered ready as a final release. Remember how long Siri remained in beta.

More important, Apple is hardly the only tech company to issue flawed updates that went bad. A recent article from ZDNet lists 10 flawed Microsoft updates for this year alone. Some were serious enough to cause seriously impaired performance — or the inability for a PC to boot.

Here’s a key example: “August Windows updates cause systems to go into reboot loops (among other problems).”

Add to that flaws in an Exchange Server 2010 update that would keep Outlook from connecting to the email server, or one that would block the ability of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 (how’s that for a silly name!) to lose their ability to install future updates, but don’t forget an earlier update for these systems that would cause system reboots, which is, I suppose, different from a reboot loop.

Yet another flawed update disables ActiveX controls.

You can check the article for the rest, but this is a real messy situation. What it means is that you just cannot trust Microsoft to issue a reliable update for most any product. It hardly seems honest to attack Apple for one flawed update, almost immediately withdrawn, and not give Microsoft its due for doing far worse.

I do understand that Microsoft’s situation is far more complicated than Apple’s. They have loads of system versions, an incalculable number of hardware variations to support, so it’s inevitable that things will go wrong from time to time. That’s a key reason why IT people in the enterprise will normally monitor a Microsoft update for its efficacy on a test computer before deploying it to company PCs.

The consumer is in a far worse position, because most people don’t have the time to test every single system update to make sure it works before installing it on the family PCs. That would require having a PC that serves solely as a test bed. The best answer is just to avoid Microsoft patches for a while and consult the online chatter to make sure they work before installing. Having to back out of a bad install, or hoping Microsoft will somehow be able to release a quick fix, can result in disaster. Imagine someone with a small business who must depend on each and every PC in the company to operate efficiently.

You certainly shouldn’t assume that all iOS and OS X updates must be perfect. More often than not, though, the flaw is failing to completely fix a problem. A key example is OS 10.10.1, which, in part, was designed to repair Wi-Fi connection glitches with Yosemite. For many it worked, but some Mac users continued to report problems. According to published reports about a forthcoming 10.10.2 update, it appears that Wi-Fi issues are still being worked on.

So if you want to be real cautious, turn off the options to “Install OS X updates” and “Install system data files and security updates” in Yosemite’s App Store preferences. If you opt to install the updates manually, you have time to consult the online chatter about possible flaws before you take the leap.

Honestly, I leave the update options active. I realize I am taking a somewhat dangerous approach, but I am not one to always play it safe.

In recent months, I’ve written some preliminary reviews of several products. But due to the press of time and other events, I haven’t gotten around to actually playing catch-up. It’s time that I make up for some of that, which is the purpose of this article.

Now several weeks ago, I received an iPad Air 2 for review. Apple sent a top-of-the-line silver model with 128GB solid state memory and a cellular radio. So if I need to get online without ready access to a Wi-Fi hotspot, I can order up a data program from a wireless carrier.

For me, though, the iPad mostly stays at home, although my wife has taken it with her when visiting her sister. Barbara is the devoted iPad user in the Steinberg household. She takes it wherever she goes around the house, and, when taking a break, she’ll catch up on email, the latest news, or checking out merchandise for a small eBay business she is starting up with the help of her sister.

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First and foremost, when I write about how people test tech gear, I speak from experience. I started in the game in 1994 when, as the author of my first computer book, I got an email from a Macworld editor. For several years thereafter, I wrote for that magazine before moving elsewhere. Nowadays, most of my reviews appear in these columns and on The Tech Night Owl LIVE.

Over the years, I’ve reviewed everything from one of those early digital music players — all very bad until the iPod arrived — to smartphones, audio gear including computer speakers, TV sets, quite a few personal computers (Mac and PC), tablets and printers. As I write this column, I have an iPad Air 2 and an iMac 5K in house for hands-on evaluation.

So I think I have a decent grasp on the process. Since I’ve worked for a number of publications, I have seen different approaches. One editor kept egging me on to find fault in products that didn’t have significant faults, just to enlarge the “Cons” list. Without naming names, that editor has since gone on to blog at a mainstream newspaper, where you’ll see misleading and phony claims about possible product shortcomings. That’s not a game I will ever play, which is why I stopped working for that person after a few months. It didn’t help my bottom line, though there were other editors who were willing to allow me to play fair.

Unfortunately, there are too many lazy reviewers out there, and they do a disservice to the reader. Some simply paraphrase the reviewer’s notes supplied by a manufacturer in evaluating the product or service. Sure, those notes are useful as background information, but a reviewer is supposed to serve the interests of the reader not the company, and thus they should follow their own — or their publisher’s — guidance in writing that review.

So, yes, I do read the manuals and the product notes, but prefer to do my own thing. I hope you readers accept my approach. What I am trying to do is put myself in the position of the typical user, so I can get a grasp as to how well the product or service operates in normal use.

Take that iMac 5K that I received from Apple last week. The first thing I did ahead of hooking it up was to back up the data on my work Mac, a late 2009 27-inch iMac. I used Bombich’s Carbon Copy Cloner to make a clone backup on an external FireWire 800 drive. You see, I wanted to see what Apple has accomplished in five years and how it impacts my workflow.

In passing, the iMac 5K, and other recent iMacs, ditched FireWire and went to Thunderbolt. So Apple supplied a Thunderbolt to FireWire 800 converter plug to allow me to attach my backup drives. I used Yosemite’s Migration Assistant to bring it all over, as explained in a feature article I wrote for last weekend’s issue of our newsletter. In reviewing the iPad Air 2, I set it up with a backup of my wife’s iPad 3. After brief testing, I put the unit into her hands for an extended hands-on.

Now the very laziest reviewers often don’t bother to actually live with a product beyond the brief hands-on. They will post articles touting a comparison with an existing, presumably competing, product, but do little more than list specs and make assumptions as to what they mean in actual use. That is the reason why smartphones and tablets sporting processors with higher clock rates and more RAM are considered to be superior to the iPhone and iPad. It doesn’t matter that actual benchmarks show Apple to do as well or better, with a snapper interface. It’s all about the specs.

Sometimes product comparisons don’t even make much sense. Take an article I read this week that pitted an iPhone 6, featuring a 4.7-inch display, with the Google Nexus 6, which has a 6-inch display.

Right away, the article has problems. If the reviewer was interested in comparing mostly similar gear, why not the Google Nexus 5, which has a 5-inch display? Or perhaps choose an iPhone 6 Plus, Apple’s first foray into the world of phablets. That would have made far more sense.

Now it does appear the reviewer did perform genuine hands-on comparisons, and came up with conclusions that appear reasonable, whether you agree with them or not, while still ignoring the fundamental disconnect in the article. It would be roughly the equivalent of comparing a Microsoft Surface 3 with a MacBook Pro with Retina display. Microsoft actually compares its tablet — essentially a convertible PC note-book — with the MacBook Air. Both are slim with displays that are close in size. The MacBook Air comes with 11-inch and 13-inch displays. The Surface 3 is 12-inch. See? Close.

But the physical keyboard on a Surface 3 is an attachable accessory. The MacBook Air is a standard clamshell note-book with the keyboard included. So this sort of comparison, which Microsoft touts heavily with costly advertising, is really not very accurate.

The long and short of it is I think I have valid reasons to claim that my approach to reviews, admittedly imperfect, makes far more sense than the approaches taken by some other tech writers.