Like many others, I use a PC at work and own Macs at home, and the 3-year cost is what convinced me that a Mac is less expensive than a PC (I am on a fairly tight budget when it comes to buying consumer electronics). I recently purchased an iMac desktop with the added $120 extended warranty, so I know exactly what my 3-year cost is for my Mac desktop.

My thoughts on cost include the time that I have to spend keeping my computer running and working with peripherals (I have an ipod, a scanner/printer and a digital camera which I want to work easily with my computer), yearly cost for virus protection and such, and cost of software for doing “family computing” (iWork, iLife, Mail, and a Mobile Me account take care of all things digital for me).

Thanks again for your thoughtful work with technology.

One does not know what one might want to do a year or two in the future.

Especially with laptops, it is important to think as far ahead as one can. Laptops can be modified; but it is much more difficult for the home user to work in a laptop than it is in a desktop.

I just purchased a new machine with Windows 7 and the I7 CPU. I wanted the I7 because its four cores can be hyperthreaded. For me, this means I can “crunch” on eight work units at one time from World Community Grid or other projects running BOINC software. I will not be otherwise using the machine myself. My wife will be using the machine for email, some web buying, etc., light tasks. But, knowing that this machine may come ultimately to me to replace one of my really good Core 2 Duo Vista machines, I outfitted it now for what I might want to do in the future. Thus, the I7-920 CPU, 6 gigs of DRAM, and the Blue-Ray burner/DVD burner combo.

>>RSM