what you really buy with an Apple is club membership. Its status and service, and thats about it. Yes the systems are beautifully put together but they are expensive and not always the best out there spec-wise. Its a small, shiny Escalade for people trying to look like intellectuals or those with money to burn.

Apples service, both phone and in-store, is what you really pay for. I have had various major issues with my Mac (yes I own several as well as PC’s) and Apple has taken care of all of them under the extended warrantee.

The ability for me to walk into an Apple store store in NYC, 2500 miles from home in CA, with a broken laptop and walkout with a brand new computer and all of my files is why i buy apple products.

I run windows on all of them either in boot camp or parallels , I have too for work, so i could just as easily buy a cheap PC.

What picking up the Apple brand product buys you is solid design and a really nice safety blanket (assuming you buy the apple care extension) and nothing more.

So the real question you have to ask yourself is “Is paying 2x the price worth the security of owning a Mac?”

For me the answer was yes even though I despise the operating system… the safty net of an apple was worth it,