… can charge $200 for a different colour and a few gigs more hard drive space.

Check out the specs here. Compare the second-lowest-end model to the third-lowest end model (the first one available in black).

Every statistic on it is the same as the one before it, except that the hard drive is a wee bit bigger. $200 bucks (a difference in price of 12%!) for a scant 40 GB of space… eeww….

Also, we’re seriously looking at the second-to-lowest end system for Heather. It seems to have all the right stuff where it counts (processor, ram, battery life), and looks to be the best system (most of the ones after that… all you’re getting for your money are more toys, from where I’m sitting).

A key component to any computer, though, is software… how much would it cost to nicely-equip a mac with software (off the top of my head… office suite, bootcamp, parallis… anything else my sister might need?)

I think she’s looking at getting a mac, all she really wants to do is type on the keyboard and play around with the UI. If she can adjust to those two things, I think that might be the system of choice.

How easy is it to find places to repair Macs? How good is their build quality, once and for all? How does battery life run (Apple claims six hours, is this true with normal use)? I’ve really liked having a docking station for my laptop, does something similar exist for mac?

And, of keen importance, how nicely does it play with non-mac assessories? Can you plug in standard mice, headphones, keyboards, hard drives, etc. and have it all “just work” (Yes, I know that Brendon could probably get all these things to work. Heck, if he was challanged, he could probably make the hard drive dance by using the correct sequence of seeks on the drive; but that’s not what an average person can do)

Bottom line: Could my sister (not particularly tech-headed) successfully use a Mac in the Windows-based world we live without having to take cumbersome steps, without undue costs, and without a painful learning curve?

‘cuz $1500 for a system with a top-end processor, good ram, and a nice warranty is hard to find in many other places…

The specs look good to me, but there are so many things that don’t fit on a spec sheet that worry me.