[RightOnTheLeftCoast]

"...When I last looked to purchase..."

When was that? 1989?

Today, the cheapest Mac is the Mac Mini, about $600, and it's a premium machine compared to what you'd get for the price in the Microsoft side of the aisle, especially if you factor in the antivirus, anti-malware, firewall and disk-defrag stuff a PC needs and a Mac doesn't. And any Mac is way more secure and stable and functional and easy to use than a PC, and you can run Windows on it if you need to.

I really have no dog in the fight, as I go between Mac and Windows and Linux all day long... and in fact my Mac is running Windows in a virtual machine right now as I type. And I'm here to tell you that this "Mac is 4X more expensive" stuff is as false and misleading as an Obama campaign promise.

[SampleMan]

When was that? 1989?

Last month.

$600 is still 50% more than I paid. As for your other arguments, all the hype along those lines is why I looked at the Macs first.

I guess I just don't experience the headaches with the PC that you do. For 50% more, I need to get 50% more.

Apparently what I do on a computer doesn't justify the cost difference.