What people don't seem to realize in the Mac vs. PC price war is their time. Time is money to me. I can't have enough time to do stuff. And when I'm being more productive instead of fixing things, I waste less time.
I just reinstalled OS X about a week ago, and lemme tell you: it was fairly painless. I just backed up my users folder on my iPod, renamed the Applications folder so OS X would remake a new folder, and installed OS X and updated. Then I dragged all of my apps back and some of my prefs (I usually like to make new prefs, so I don't just drag them all back) back, and I was up and running in record time. I did have a problem with my hard drive that I had to fix with TechTool which took up more time than it did to reinstall OS X and put everything back.
I was actually quite surprised. OS X was easier to reinstall than OS 9! But I don't believe for a minute that anyone can say reinstalling Windows was this painless.
This is what OS X and Mac hardware is all about, and I'll gladly pay a couple hundred extra dollars for my saved time, plus the longer-lasting-lifetime of a Mac.
But actually, the iBook, new iMac, and Powerbook are the best deals around. I doubt you can find a PC with a DVD burner, a swivel flat screen, a fast processor and a great graphics card, not to mention a great operating system, all for $1899. Nor can you find as great a portable laptop as the iBook with all those features (including FireWire, USB, modem, Ethernet, airport) for $1199. And a 1" thin PC laptop with a COMBO drive in it, and a 15.2" wide-aspect flat screen? Forget about it.
UPDATE: By the way, the guy posted a followup article. Just go to the original link and he has a link to the followup. (I was too lazy to go and find the link again.)
