i read a few of the early responses and was quickly infuriated. this rumor that "macs are overpriced" needs to be killed. this is simply a MYTH. im in college, and in our computer science courses one of the first things the professors stress is that in the long run, both macs and PC's cost the exact same. mac's are more expensive in the beginning only because they come with everything. power, technology, reliability and beautiful design. PC's need upgrade after upgrade. im not even gonna get into the whole Macs actually work discussion because bitter PC users seem to be oblivious to the fact that their PCs are constantly crashing, need formatting, need restarts, virus scanners, malware removers and a host of other crap to keep them running. im not even gonna bring up vista because its self explanatory. plus keep in mind, ive never had to install a driver for anything in my life. You bitter PC users need to accept the fact that Macs JUST WORK....PERFECTLY....EVERYTIME.
Now that i blew off some steam, to address the original question.... for the best bang for your buck, go with the new Unibody Macbooks. They're powerful, gorgeous and also eco friendly. Not to mention that new glass trackpad and multi touch four finger gestures blow my mind. If you've never had a Mac before, get ready to be blown away by how perfectly everything works. i own a 24" iMac as well as a Macbook Air.
If you dont mind spending a little bit more, get the iMac. It is basically the God of desktop computers. I would not recommend a Macbook air though, i use it only for taking notes in class. Its really not that practical if you dont already own a "main" computer at home. think of it as a netbook. a really expensive and thin netbook lol.
Fanboy?
Macs don't always work. It's a brilliant marketing slogan that mindless zombies like to repeat to try and reinforce the myth that a Mac is better than a PC.
They're the same.
You can get an equally specced PC desktop for cheaper than a Mac. It'll even share similar brands as far as parts go. Of course you're not going to have certain amenities, but if you're building for outright speed and don't care about a glass screen, multi touch pads, backlit keyboards, etc, etc... then you're going to pay less when it comes down to just pure computing power.
It's a fact. Price out a case, MB, processor, memory, HDD, GPU, power supply, and all the basic necessities and you'll have a cheaper Win box for the price of a Mac.
Macs don't always work. Just go to any Apple support forum. I had to reinstall OS X last weekend because of a major crash. Repairing disk permission and the disk itself didn't do anything. Vista, which is also on my MBP is still running fine. Kind of funny, right?
I've had a MBP that I got new with crooked keys on the key board. Two refurbed MBP's with screen issues, a power button that fell down into the case, an Apple developed program for Apple's OS X that was very unstable, Photo Shop CS3 that crashed more on OS X than Vista, and other problems here an there.
Nothing works 100% of the time. If you believe that it does, then you've fed into the marketing and Apple has done their job at recruiting a loyal customer. AKA: Fanboy.
Edit: And please explain why PC's need upgrade after upgrade after upgrade? This is usually for gamers who constantly need the best to run programs at max settings.
I have a 3.0ghz P4 with 512mb RAM I use at work and it works fine. It has an integrated GPU. I don't game, it's 4 years old or more, and it works fine. Why do I need an upgrade?