Yeah.
See the Mac equivelant of the Dell I just got:
http://store.apple.com (Powerbook G4)
Price $2,499 before shipping and taxes.
The Dell i got:
Inspirion 9400
http://www1.us.dell.com/content/prod...=04&l=en&s=bsd
Paid $1,100 with shipping and Texas sales tax.
I can do a lot with the extra $1,400.
I was shopping for specific features. (procesor speed, etc) You are right there are inexpensive entry level macs. For my needs, with everythign equal, the PC was the way to go.
You are also right about the PR/Graphic Design love affair with macs. Its primarily for the look and feel of the machiene. For me it comes down to finances. They can look cool and trendy and be broke with a higher overhead. I'll have more money in my pocket and be average. (I'm not ever average, but for the purposes of this topic...)
Graphic Design software used to suck on PC's, but since 1998 or so the full Adobe Suite (Illustrator, Photoshop, Then PageMaker, now InDesign) has been fine and stable on PC's. Also, if you ever want to do corporate PR/Communications work, many large companies run exclusinve PC networks and wont even think of putting a mac on their network. Even if you could convince the IT dept to do so, good luck getting any support. They wont invest in the IT training for it. So here I am in PC land....
Thanks for the help on the XP Pro thing tho. lol.
*Edited to Fix Link