When making purchase decisions, one should always factor in the total cost of ownership (TCO), not just the upfront cost. One should also consider what his/her time is worth. With a PC, you are bound to spent more time tweaking, fixing, virus checking, restarting, and reformatting compared to a Mac. All of that costs time and money. In the long run, the more "expensive" computer is actually less expensive. In other words, you get what you pay for.