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Just had this discussion yesterday.

If you were shopping for luxury sedan, you might look at Cadillac, BMW, and Audi. If you are looking for economy car, you might look at Hyundai, Honda, Chevy and Kia. A person who can afford an Audi would not be happy with a Chevy Sonic. A person who can only afford a Sonic will say that Audis are too expensive.

If you have only ever been on the Sonic side of life, you cannot speak with authority and knowledge about the Audi side. The buying experience is VERY different. The driving experience is VERY different. The overall cost of ownership is VERY different.

Same thing with Apple. Buying a Mac (especially in an Apple Store) is a very different experience (usually) than buying a bargain laptop at Best Buy. I have done both. Trust me, Apple is better.

Having a Mac serviced is a very different experience. My son had a minor USB port issue with his one year old Mac Book. They took his computer to the back, pulled his hard drive, put it in a new computer, and sent him on his way in half an hour. While not always perfect, you can see from surveys that Mac users are very happy with the technical support.

Owning and using a Mac is a very different experience. Transitioning to the new operating system is easy and within a week I didn’t even think about it. Not having to mess with registry issues, malware and virus issues, and inconvenient security updates that take your computer offline for hours is wonderful. We have four Macs and one PC at work (for now) and spend far more time maintaining the PC than the four Macs combined.

Are Macs right for everyone? No. If you are a college student on a very tight budget and spend your free time playing computer games, they stay with PCs. If, however, you run a business and want your computers to “just work” consistently, you should do an honest total cost of ownership evaluation and see if Macs might not be just the thing your company needs.