Last year around this time I was thinking the same thing...macs are expensive. So I opted to get a dell laptop, 1gb of ram, 2.0ghz dual core processor, a built in webcam...all nice stuff for a year ago. Anyways, when I got the laptop I was happy with it, despite having to erase an huge amount of "crapware" from the computer. Now, a year later, i'm starting to regret picking the HP. Although in my opinion Dell is better than HP, HP will slow down your computer with a ton of crapware and useless programs. Then there's mac. And what interests me most is the fact that they wont get virus's and spyware on them. This is the main cause my computer will slow down and loose productivity, and I end up spending countless hours running spyware removing programs and virus scanners. I found myself spending more time fixing my computer than actually using it *and this has been true for every computer I've owned* Mac claims they can end this. No more "fixing" my computer. And whats more is the OS X is built around productivity, and only includes programs that you will use, programs you would normally have to buy on any other system. This is the iLife suite. And even though if you want to go pro in any of the applications you have to pay for a pro version, if you just do it on the side it suposidly works alright. Honestly I have no idea. But after I get a new imac I'll found out. A little afraid of the change, but also happy to get away from XP.
