Should I buy a Mac?

[alpha_dk]

The biggest reasons to sidegrade (yes, in my opinion is is only a sidegrade) from Ubuntu to OSX are the following:

You're finally sick and tired of editing xorg.conf
No matter what anyone says, as a user of both: rsync is nowhere near as nice as Time Machine.
Quicksilver > Katapault > gnome-launch-bar
Spotlight ~= beagle
Aqua metacity.

Really, what it comes down to is if you want a *nix platform with almost none of the issues that tend to plague linux, you're almost certainly going to love OS X. The *nixiness plus the user interface is really the reason I use it... it gives me access to all the functionality I expect through the terminal, but when I don't necessarily want to need to open a terminal and type "ifconfig | grep ath0 -", I don't have to use it (note: This is only an example, and as it turns out I tend to use that particular phrase a lot on both OS X and linux ).

But I will say to you what I say to everyone who is considering a Mac:
They can run everything that you want to run on computer (Windows, Linux).
They are competitively priced ***WITH OTHER LAPTOPS OF SIMILAR HARDWARE QUALITY***.

No, you won't find a $500 mac laptop. However, look at what you get with the MacBook, and then try and find a similar computer PC-only... you're probably only paying an extra $50-100, if that. For me, the fact that I can bring my laptop to any Apple store out there if there is a problem and get it fixed that day (unless its something large or rare) is worth the premium. Not to mention that you also get access to a copy of OS X in case you like it.

Apple has stayed out of the low-budget PC range on purpose; you end up taking such low margins that you need to overcharge on your high-priced computers to stay profitable. Apple doesn't really have a low-budget range; the mini is their lowest-margin computer, and even that is a healthy profit. So at the higher end, they take lower margins (i.e., can use better hardware and cut fewer corners) because they do not need to counter their low-margin lines. That's not to say you aren't paying a premium -- because you are -- but it does tend to be 'worth it'

If you have any questions to a Linux/windows user turned OSX/linux user (windows now only exists for gaming), feel free to PM me. I can recommend lots of good programs that will do what you are used to from Ubuntu (like an apt-get replacement )