Depends who buys it. We don't view them that way because we are programmers and we know what an 8GB of ram means or what i5 means. Others look at computers differently (oh, I like the metal finish, this machine feels so fast). Not saying there is anything wrong, it is just how it is.
I think you're dead on and that's the factor a lot of techie people seem to completely fail to understand. We look at this stuff through a completely different lens than the typical consumer. Back in the awful days when I was retailing computers, I can't count the number of times people bought one laptop over the other because of the color or finish or some other minor detail. One of the main reasons Apple succeeds is that they make beautiful products, and it looks like Google is trying to share that market.
