Just to clarify my opinion, Windows may have improved over the past couple of years but for me it is still an incohesive mess full of clutter and doubtable design decision, also that they are still hanging onto the old windows kernel, still doing that registry and DLL disaster which DOES and WILL lead to a system slowdown the more files you accumulate is beyond me. I know that Mac OS has it's fair share of issues but the overall WORKING experience, and that is what I want my OS to do, WORK WITH and FOR me is beyond what Windows will ever achieve. I know, this is all personal experience and opinion so if you love Windows, good for you but my original point was that I see myself as "paying premium" for the privilege of using the Mac OS instead of Windows (or Linux, been toying with Ubuntu and Mint for a while on my secondary computer, not bad for everyday tasks...) as purely hardware wise, there are PLENTY of cost-effective alternatives to a MBP. Sadly that's no use for you if you favor Mac OS over Windows, which I do and I feel like there are many other people out there int he same boat with me.