[BlueSkyJaunte]

Do NOT buy a Dell...if you have any sort of problem (not unlikely) you will be in customer service HELL.

It took Dell over 50 days to refund my money ($2700) on a returned laptop. And that was dealing with their "employee purchase program escalations specialist". Lousy f*ckers.

As for "overpriced software" on the Mac, I installed OpenOffice.org and have decent MS Office compatability, and installed the GIMP and have a decent PhotoShop replacement (for my admittedly amateur photo work). Both applications are available FREE (as in both "gratis" and "libre"). Every device I have plugged in via USB or FireWire worked with little or no fiddling. Safari is a decent web browser, and there are plenty of games for mind-numbing. iTunes handles my MP3 library fantastically, and the DVD player works great. What more do you need to do???