Actually, I’d probably recommend a Mac to any user who doesn’t care about dealing with MS Office files (and that exception only because I’d never pay for Office X and the OpenOffice.org porting situation is fuzzy at best). OS X is pretty much everything an operating system ought to be, and if you’ve got the other hardware (e.g. a monitor and USB keyboard and mouse) the Mac mini is a pretty good deal (particularly compared to the crap that Dell et al are selling at that pricepoint).

Price/performance wise, however, you probably can’t beat a PC, particularly in the laptop realm where Intel’s Centrino/Pentium M and AMD Athlon 64-M are running circles around the Powerbook. If you go that route, dual boot Linux (I’d probably go with Ubuntu Linux these days; all the coolness of straight Debian with a better out-of-the-box desktop experience) and Windows XP.

Chris,

I was actually reluctant to upgrade to the 17”, though I’ve loved it. The reason is that I was hoping, somewhat unrealistically, that the G5 would be put in a Powerbook within a year or so. After looking into it further, I decided it would take years for them to handle the heat problems. When they get past that technological hurdle, the Powerbooks will have all of the speed of a PC and more.

I’ve been using Ubuntu for a couple of months now and I think it’s the most user-friendly Debian variant I’ve ever seen.

Though I plan on getting a Mac Mini, it is arguably not a better value than a similarly priced PC from Dell. Googling for articles comparing the Mac Mini to similarly priced PC’s will prove that out. I believe the Mac’s value lies in its not being prone to spyware and adware while still having access to popular commercial applications as well as its being small and portable.