Big Kitty In Stores Soon

Apple is fairly competitive in pricing when compared to brands like Sony and Alienware .... trying to compare a Mac to a Compaq or a Dell is comparing .. well, Apples to oranges

what is Vista if not eye candy? it's clunky and full of problems. Microsoft has even began offering downgrade kits for Vista users screaming to get back to XP (which wasn't much better at stability)

OSX is more about intuitive interfacing than chic looks

I agree. I only use Vista because I needed a 64bit OS, and I figured might as well go Vista rather than purchase a 64bit XP which will probably be obsolete in a couple of years.
Believe me I've cursed the interface in Vista many times, although some of it is cute. But luckily the command line is never far away.

lol, of course it is.
The pros and cons balance. If you're unbiased, you can see that. But the problem is, most people that own Mac act like it's their savior, and like their part of some sort of team once they use one. The PC users are the same way, just not as extreme.

where do you come up with this stuff ?

a large majorty of Mac users are Mac users because they finally had enough of dealing with all of Windows headaches
you are not born a Mac user
and most everyone started out with Windows back in the day because it was the first widely accessible GUI OS

I didn't switch until OSX was first released
on a whim, I bought a modest entry level e-Mac just to test the waters
and as it turns out, it did what I needed it to do without alot of backlash
My daughter got on the thing before she could even walk and was zipping away online in no time

so in a way, Macintosh was a Shangri-La for me
no more defragmenting, virus scanning, registry entry fiddling, msconfig tinkering, crashing/rebooting
it was a refreshing take on personal computing
and I see no reason to turn back
it does what I want it to, nothing more, nothing less

As a person that has both PC and Mac, I can tell you that in my experience that the Mac is a much more "enjoyable" one. Yes, you can get a windows machine for about half of an imac, but how long after you get that PC is it running at a snail's pace because you have to have virus protection on it or it isn't powerful enough? I have had an imac since they first came out and it still runs as fast as it did when I got it. I have an ibook that I still use for hours on a daily basis and it is still a little tank. The PC my wife uses is constantly locking up, running slow, and most frustrating, is constantly dropping the wireless signal. I have tried numerous types of wireless cards and recievers and she has to "restart" the signal about once or twice every time she is on the net. Now, I am not a computer genius. I just use them. But I can take my ibook to my neighbor's house and never loose signal. It just sees it and locks on.

Now I know there are Mac Geeks and PC Geeks. I am just an ordinary consumer that honestly got tired of buying a new PC every year because in my mind, they are built to be disposable. Sure I can go out and get an $800 PC, but the next year or two if it is slow or what not, it is cheaper just to buy a new one than try to fix it....and I think that is what they want. Like the US automotive industry used to be...they didn't want you to keep your car for more than 4 years and they built them accordingly. You can go out there and get a rocking PC that is more "tank like", but guess what? You are now in the price range of the "pricey" macs.

The weird thing is, most the problems mac users usually accuse the PC for being notorious with, I've never experienced. Crashing? Maybe in 1993. My PC will run slow eventually, once I just overload it, but that'll happen with a mac too. My new one hasn't slowed a bit and it's right at 1 year old and I've got and entire mall's worth of media here.
It's all on what you want a computer for I suppose. I could use a Mac myself, but I'm a designer. Otherwise, I just wouldn't bother.

I think the reason Macs have grown is popularity is because Macs are much better for Audio/Graphics/Video and honestly, that is what is becomeing more important to the avg. consumer. Is the PC a better gaming computer? Yes, but that is becoming a smaller and smaller market with the gaming machines.