This is a bit off topic, but yes, I agree with Matt. This year, I took my first baby steps in the Mac world, as my new company computer was a Mac. A shiny new Mac Book Pro 15", worth about 2500 euro in its current configuration.

And while I like the Mac OS, love the design (which is second to none) and have bought an iPad 2 since then (which I also love), I still have an issue with the price Apple asks for its hardware. In this case I didn't have to pay for the notebook myself, but I doubt I ever would have. I mean, come on: 2500 euro? If you buy the hardware equivalent of this MacBook Pro in the PC world, you'll pay about 800 euro. This means you effectively can buy THREE PC notebooks, using equal hardware, for the price of ONE MacBook Pro. Now, I would have no problem paying about 50% more, but 300% more is just greedy. Even if you consider Macs usually make for a better price on the second-hand market.

I don't want to make this into a "bash Apple on its prices"-topic though, because I do agree the system certainly has its merits. The OS is very nice to work with and its very stable. But on the other hand, I have to admit that most of my stability issue with windows were also gone since XP SP2. (I was smart enough to skip Vista and am now on Win7, wich is also very stable for me - I still have to encounter my first BSOD and it's been running for more than a year).

The Apple hardware is beautiful and just breathes "class", more than any competing PC product does. But same as Matt, I also don't want a computer in my monitor! My monitor is the piece of hardware upgrade the least of my entire computer setup. I've been using the monitor I'm typing this on for 6 years, it's been used with three hardware setups by now and I don't see that changing any time soon, short of it dying (in which case I'll simply buy a new monitor) Apple definitively left a gap in their range for not offering a desktop unit between the mini and the Mac Pros. Because I must admit I've been in doubt once or twice if I would get a mac mini or not. I never end up doing so because in the end there is nothing I could do with it that I can't do with my current pc, and there would be no speed upgrade as well. And call me old fashioned, but I also like to be able to put a couple of harddisks in my pc case, just to have a lot of local storage. I know there's now such things as NAS'es, and I even run a Windows Home Server (which, agreed, is not a true NAS, but comes close), but still, that's how I feel about it.

So for me, personally, I don't see myself switching to Apple completely. And it's not a question of not liking the OS or the way it works (because I do!), its simply a matter of cost. I simply cannot justify spending more on a laptop than most people make in a month over here, especially if I could have almost the same functionality with only spending about the equivalent of a week's pay for most.

That, and there's always hackintosh.