I suppose one reason why I love Macs is that the components are well documented. Even large scale PC manufacturers use a different motherboard for two days of builds due to part availability and swap back to the other when bits are available again. Macs tend to have (though not always!) consistency of parts, hence the wealth of information concerning the unit you are refurbishing.

It also means the operating system has more of a chance of being compatible with support chips etc as one was written for the other.

I looked a few weeks ago to replace my old (2005) Mac Mini. As the Mac Mini hasn't been updated for a while, I first looked at building a Hackintosh. ie build a PC to the same spec as a Mac and install OSX Snow Leopard. In the end, yesterday I went into the Apple Store and came out with a brand spanking new iMac, quad core Sandybridge etc. Typing on it now in fact. Love the damned thing and hope it lasts the six years my Mac Mini did.

Garage Band, by the way, (bundled free with a new Mac or less than a tenner in the on line store) is excellent for music production, easy to use and ruddy powerful.

As somebody put above, once you have a Mac you don't go back. Ok, you curse the marketing philosophy, question the ethics, baulk at the up front cost and feel you are feeding mammon. But you love the things all the same.