[mikester]

If you can't spring for the Apple hardware or can't stand the limitations of the keyboard layout being non-PC then I would look at refurbished Dells.

Plan to upgrade RAM, it's usually cheaper to upgrade than to buy as built and as moses mentioned - planning for an SSD main drive is cool too.

I'm personally not sold on them yet, they are smaller in capacity (unless you're rich and I'm not) and have a shorter life span due to the design. I don't mind my spinning disks so much.

The Apple hardware is pretty well designed stuff. Even running windows it is fairly superior to most of what is out there.

I run a Macbook Pro 15" for work and use Fusion, Bootcamp and a virtual desktop through work if I REALLY need a windows environment. Seems like a lot but each environment has a purpose.

At home I run a Mac Mini with a Windows bootcamp partition too and I usually use that through Fusion. The great thing about Fusion is I can boot the bootcamp partition from Lion.

Still, sounds like you just need a Dell refurb. My wife's been using a Dell Laptop for about 2 years now. 4GB of ram, I think it's a Core2duo CPU. It's perfect. Can't beat it. She usually doesn't take it out of the house though.