Hmm, exactly the same as my 3 year old HP 17" laptop that I paid $400 for.

I've seen several head to head ease of use studies that said that osx isnt any easier to use than win7. The thing is, nobody hangs around in the operating system much, and once you get into an app you aren't going to see any difference regardless of what OS you're running. This was a great argument when XP was the new kid on the block, but its 2012 now.

Last time I checked, Dell, Lenovo and other companies vie with Apple for top spot in support. Buy a laptop from the microsoft store and they'll support you just like apple does.

I'm afraid I have to stop here. When you make an argument that its a good idea to pay more for less power because the operating system is somewhat more efficient, then you're a fanboy. I just built two hackintosh desktops for around $500 each that would compete with a $2000+ high end pro model from apple. Looking at the apple BOM, mine also has better parts in every regard. But your argument is that I should pay the $2k, get a slower machine, and thats the win?

I have two cheap laptops with ssd's in them, total cost under $500. i3's, 4gb ram, 128gb ssd. Quiet, fast, cheap.

What you're getting for the extra money is Apples profit margin leveraged against slave labor. Stupid *and* immoral.

...second buy whatever the right screen size is that she wants for under $500. If she doesn't like it, take it back and now that you know what she didn't like, get whatever else is on sale that suits her.

Don't waste your money on 'business grade' or supposed 'high end' laptops. They're made on the same assembly lines by the same people using largely the same parts, which is why you keep finding so much similarity. While one might make a specific quality argument for a more expensive model, generally you can buy two cheap ones for the price of one of the models meant largely to impress the people watching you use it. So buy one now and in 3 years, buy whatever the state of the art cheap laptop is at that time.

See? I knew there was an answer, AND someone willing to find it.

Hard to carry an xbox around with you. Plus motorola has plenty of set top boxes and google has google tv. Not a high end gaming console, but when you can have the same thing on your tv, phone, tablet and computer with access to most music, books and apps...whats not to like?

Not to mention Google swears that a huge percentage of tv's made in the second half of this year will have google tv incorporated.

I don't think Microsoft is going to be a player in any market anymore. It appears that their only trick is to shove windows onto small platforms where its not needed. Unless you have an xbox (which is hard to haul around with you), they don't have much in the way of a viable full platform set with apps and music and books. Lets face it, Bing/xbox live/whatever they're calling it these days sucks.

Apple has a range of consumer electronics, app and media markets, etc.

Amazon has some consumer electronics and is expanding, and has app and media markets.

Now Google will have a range of consumer electronics branded under their own name, a likely well manicured phone and tablet, app and media markets.

All three have the potential to develop sophisticated soup-to-nuts ecosystems.

Goodbye Microsoft...

I was just wondering what WHCMCHSHCHSC stood for, but the article never mentions it and neither did the front page of the company's web site.

So aside from having security issues, somewhere along the line someone forgot that not everyone knows what WHCSMSHC XVIII stands for.

I always like the random tech cheer for stuff like arm and linux. C'mon guys, you need a business driver and there isnt one. You don't just take technology and look for a problem for it to solve, you identify the most important problems to solve and then implement technology to solve that problem.

ARM built up to do what a desktop cpu does will look just like the cpu it intends to replace. It won't have significant power or energy advantages. It'll require a ton of software work and rework.

This is MIPS and PowerPC all over again. Nobody needs it. But we'll certainly spend a billion on it before realizing that it doesn't do anything for anyone.

Good luck to the ARM ceo. Bravado doesn't make the payroll.

No, I didn't. You implied he'd have to change careers because his kind of job might go away. I pointed out that he's going to not only need to dig into his current job (because trying to compete with 25 year olds at half pay in a completely new type of job would be suicidal), he's going to have to move into a senior/lead management type role to stay employed until he's in his mid to late 50's. Good luck after that.

You're apparently unfamiliar with the highly entertaining lack of work for techies in their late 40's+. If you aren't preparing to move into management or a leadership role of some kind, or you're ridiculously specialized you'll be forced out of the job in favor of a pair of 25 year old kids who together will be making the same money you are.

Don't think so? Think of all the 55 or 60 or 65 year old primarily technical guys you know that went through the recession and kept their jobs. There are some, for sure...but not that many.