Actually, I paid almost $2,000 for my 17" MacBook Pro three years ago. I just sold it, used, for $945 when I bought my new $2,300 17" MacBook Pro in January. Do HP notebooks keep value like that? I don't know.
I use the 17" because I edit video and produce 2D animation.
I went Mac three years go, after thinking that all Mac users were leftist heretics. Now, I'll run Windows, as long as it's on my Mac. For me and for my family - and I'm saying for me and my family - Mac simply works. In three years, this family of five has become believers (including the Georgia Tech grad daughter who didn't want a Mac because she thought only stuck-up kids had Macs; after using them for about nine months when she visited home, she caved in).
Funny, if HP’s are so cheap how about this from Newegg:
HP EliteBook 8740w (XT911UT#ABA) Intel Core i7 740QM(1.73GHz) 17.0” 8GB Memory 500GB HDD NVIDIA Quadro FX 3800M Notebook: $3608.99
Or this:
HP EliteBook 8440p (BQ295US#ABA) Intel Core i5 540M(2.53GHz) 14” 4GB Memory 250GB HDD Notebook: $2049.99
In fact I saw no fewer than 10 laptops for over $1600 made by HP. Boy, those HP laptops sure are expensive.
The other day I was at a BMW dealership and discovered that some Toyotas are more expensive than some BMW’s!
If Macs weren’t a value, people wouldn’t keep buying them. Are they the perfect computer for everyone? Nope. Do they ignore the bottom feeders? Yep. If you only buy the least expensive anything, then Apple isn’t for you. If, like most people, there are some items that are so important to you that you will pay a little extra to have a better/easier/more reliable version, then seriously look at Mac.