Sorry for the lengthy tirade, here it goes:
eh, you all hate macs for the wrong reasons, (well just hating macs because its a mac is a bit childish anyway). I should know, I used to hate them. But when I had a chance to sit down and use one running OS X (OS 9 == the anti-christ), I changed my mind. They do fill a niche, that niche is NOT THE GAMER! I hate when people say they hate macs because they can't play games. Apple doesn't build machines to play games. They build machines to be productive, and to make daily tasks (web, e-mail, music and photos) much less complicated. iTunes, iDVD and iPhoto are applications that my mom can use, I can't say the same about much software on the PC.
OS X has removed a lot of the stuff that used to make Macintosh machines, "only for n00bs". OS X can be as complicated as you want (it can be run as a terminal only) or as simple as you want. Macintosh machines are some of the better machines for development and scientific research, as UNIX is infinitely powerful (Insert the fight from the microsoft fans here). Being originally a UNIX developer, and now working on more and more software for the mac, I have a bit of a different view on them as the people who just want to play games. There is a reason that the Number 1 academic supercomputer in the world is not a PC system, its composed of Macintosh G5s.
Also, macs do a lot of things better than PCs, like not get spyware, or viruses (which i must say is a very nice bonus in addition to a stable development machine). Another thing is that the gap between Windows and Mac is closing more and more. OS X provides plenty of features to allow a Mac to peacefully exist in a primarily windows environment (as in file formats, server connections and integration in to windows domains).
My experience with Dell has also taught me, you get what you pay for. I do not enjoy having to replace hard drives every couple of weeks because Dell chooses drives from the Maxtor (I mean Crashtor) reject bin to send as replacement parts. This wasn't with just one machine, it was with a lab of 30. 30 machines all had hard drives that died within a week of each other, not once but 3 times within a single year. And those machines were supposed to be the better ones designed for business settings (optiplex), I can only imagine the hell home users must be having. I have had one problem with my Powerbook G4, a hard drive that failed because of "rough" treatment, and I had the machine repaired in less than 2 days. The Dell parts were self installed and took over a week to reach my location. Sure you can buy a whole Dell machine cheaper than a Mac, but you end up spending more time and effort to keep it working than a Mac. It is not unheard of (I have a friend who still uses an 8 year old PowerMac G4 Tower) to use a Mac for a very long time. PC users can not get that kind of mileage out of their machines, especially those $350 crap specials that Dell keeps pushing. If you have to suggest a PC for someone, please suggest anyone but HP and Dell, they are 2/3 of the trifecta of horrible computer manufacturers. (Compaq used to be the third, but they have been eaten by HP
).
I don't care if you dislike macs, but just because the PC is the dominant equipment in the market, doesn't necessarily mean its the best. And add to this battle my powerbook has been up continuously for 30 days, as I have not had to reboot to install software, or reboot because it locked up, which is a major feat for most windows machines. (granted my two windows machines have been up 25 days because all they have been doing is folding
).
Enough for now. I will probably come up with some more later, but now I have to get to writing some fortran
Listen to Hokiethang, he knows what he is talking about. The main reason you get a Mac is to get OSX. It is unarguably better than Windows.