Macbook... macs are so pretty and practical..why would anyone want to use a pc??

They (at least the PCs I buy) are cheap, reliable, do what I want and offer me a good choice of hardware (including the maker of PC, motherboard, etc.).

While I would quite like an older (pre OS/X) Mac to play with as an item of personal interest/curiosity, etc. from my personal perspective and usage, I fear that with the Mac, I would be making hardware commitments as well as at least potential (not sure how it works with Macs but I know my preferred Linux will run) software commitments I don't want to make.

In a sense, going for a Mac instead of a PC would seem to be going against my sort of "personal bid for computer freedom".

That aside, I can imagine a new Mac being a good choice for others.

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good news re the Dt, Dick

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Oh and on Price, Janie, I suppose it's what your into /can/are prepared to work out how to do, etc. but my way suits me. Price wise, I suppose these days I'd spend about £200 on a PC base unit.

Last one (as I wanted an extra one in the living room for mythtv - record and distribute tv to other PCs in the house) was a "barebones" - £129+Vat for a 64bit AMD2 3800 system with 1GB ram. Just had to add hard disk and (existing) DVD drive. (Oh plus I added 2 tv cards, one a dual tuner so I can record 3 programs at the same time on that box - that did bump my costs for that box up a bit). Software costs for entire project £0.