[ClodMaxx]

one other tidbit to help justify a mac's extra cost (aside from the small marketshare and lack of 'clones' to lower the cost): i worked at the apple store, and confirmed what i had heard all along....almost all parts made (the same parts as PC's, true) are made of premium materials, so they last longer. when you price out a custom mac on apple's website and add more ram, it's EXPENSIVE. you think, 'i can buy a few 1 gig ram chips for a fraction of that!'. but, apple gets the best of the best, to ensure that RAM you're buying lasts almost forever. plus, when you get it from apple, they're also there to back it up. sure, companies like kensington have warranties too, but i can tell you i've had to exchange a few ram chips in the past. free under warranty, but a pain. i've never, ever in my 20 years on macs ever had a ram chip/board go bad. (i have seen hard drives go bad over time on macs, but the computers were at least 8 years old).

dell, for example, gets the 'best deal' at the time from manufacturers on their parts to make their machines. at least, the old dell did. most of those parts had a really high fail rate, which admittedly was what almost lead to dell's downfall. the new dell may be better.