We owned a pretty good IBM thinkpad for 7 years. Worked fine for our needs, but was subject to many of those inexplicable Windows shutdowns and crashes. Lost a lot of hours to re-booting. Spent many hours on hold waiting for our (then free) IBM technical help.

We bought a Dell Media Pavilion a couple of years ago. Reasonably priced, good features; Windows XP. However, we made a mistake in trying to use our old printer for which there was no driver available, and we've had crashes, weird error messages, and problems ever since. Resulting costs: Had to buy a new printer, spent around $300-$400 in technician/call center fees over the past two years, innumerable lost productivity and life hours while we've re-booted, re-started, been on hold...etc. We have also picked up the odd virus here and there despite practicing good e-mail hygiene and using antivirus software.

I've used Macs and PCs at work in various ways since 1988. The only time I've had any lost time with a Mac (and I have never, ever spent any money on technical help, and never gotten a virus) was when my current employer loaded Entourage onto my machine so the Macs and PCs could all use a Windows-friendly e-mail platform--and I lost all of my archived files.

I am not a technically adept person, and I don't believe one should spend a lot of money on something that immediately requires additional expenditures. When I buy a car, I expect to drive it for quite awhile before it needs servicing. I've never had a car that needed a tuneup in 500 miles. I also don't spend time selling things on eBay.

It's simple: Over time, a Mac is nearly cost-free when it comes to maintenance. A PC, at the very least, will cost in lost time, even if you're only waiting for all those re-starts.

I wouldn't count on the resale value of Mac hardware holding. I think one of the reasons you could count on it over the years was the amazingly closed market for Mac hardware.

Off the top of my head:

1> Product refreshes were slow and unsteady. Often the new model wasn't that much better than the one it was replacing. For someone on a product 2-3 years old your 1 year old system is a good upgrade.

2> Extremely constrained supply. When Apple stopped making - that was it for that product. No way you could cobble your own Mac together out of OEM parts.

That's changing rapidly. Apple's move of the Mac to essentially commodity hardware erodes some of the value holding capabilities of the platform.

For instance:

1> On the standard x86 PC (Windows/Linux) there has been immense market pressure by competitors. AMD/Intel, ATi/nVidia, and a plethora of OEM manufacturers of motherboards, etc.

2> 6 - 12 month product refreshes mean that literally in a year something that's truly better is really available.

By moving to x86 hardware - and ignoring the irrelevant slam on Windows getting "gunky" after a year (dunno about you but my friends and family don't seem to have that issue)... I've found the problem is related to naive users - 2 heavy Mac users I know found themselves reinstalling OS X about yearly to decruft their systems as well...

In any case by moving to commodity hardware - people will expect it to get better every 6 months. Apple is entering the volatile market (to a degree, sort of like how China participates in capitalism by maintaining a "walled garden").

I have always suspected this author is a total idiot; this post just proves it. Notwithstanding what others have said about the stupidity of the resale value argument, this line stands out:

"After just a year or two of use, a Windows machine gets so gummed up with spyware, viruses and other nasty stuff that it seems malicious to ask anybody for money for the thing..."

This is total crap. Any computer, Windows, Mac, or Linux, that is used by a person without knowledge of how computers work will end up badly. A Windows machine that's used and cared for by someone with even a bit of PC knowledge runs consistently, reliably, and with rock solid stability.

The Dell E1505 that I bought in 2006 for $1800 runs today with ZERO problems. At that time I considered a MacBook Pro, but the same config as the Dell was near $3000!! I have since upgraded and modified the Dell, so it remains current, and it still has not cost as much as the MacBook would have.

When I plunked down $1500 of so for my Key Lime iBook SE with the optional 20 gig hard drive my co-workers laughed that I would never fill it. Now my iTunes library is on an external drive and an iPhone would load slowly (since I have USB 1.0), but the coomuter itself is still running OS 10.4 like a champ, and hasn't given me a real reason to buy a new iBook other than wanting one.

Meanwhile at work I've gone through four PCs.

Reading through the comments I've found three good reasons to buy a PC over a Mac.

1) You're too broke to think about cost of ownership. If saving money over the next year is more important to you than saving money now, get a Mac. If you just can't afford to think 12 months out, get a PC.

2) You like to tinker with things. PCs are great for the types who like to pull off the case and put in a new graphics card or add some other bit. If you like your computer to simply work, get a Mac. If you like to work on your computer, get a PC. The same is true for the software tinkerers, the Unix users. If you like to fiddle with your OS rather than use it, you should not get a Mac.

3) There are some esoteric pieces of software that don't run on a Mac. At least they're esoteric to 98% of users. If you must program Oracle databases, for example, you have to run an emulator on a Mac to make it work and your life might be better with a PC.

If you are in the 98% whose needs can be met with both a PC and a Mac, if you don't like to crack the case of your computer to switch bits around, if you can spend a little money now to save a lot of money, time, and pain in the long run, then you're a Mac guy, whether you know it or not.

There will always be the Microsoft fanboy who has some weird software that they just "have" to run on a PC.

Fine.

Today's Mac's are designed for the other 98 percent of users.

There is literally nothing the current Mac "can't" do.

99 percent of all average users are not only satisifed with Macs, but love them more than their generic $299 Dell laptops.

True, there may be some special niche techie function a off the shelf Mac can't do, but for the rest of the world it's Mac all the way.