CUSA makes the BBC news site

[Piru]

Well, plenty of people moan about that. But those people aside, most people are happy with that because what you pay for is superior build quality coupled with the "total package" of getting an OS that is reasonably well thought out, as well as a lifestyle brand (it's no different than people picking clothes brands etc.)

I have a cheap Acer laptop with pretty much the same specs as my wife's Macbook. It cost 1/3 of the Mac. But it's easy to see why (though perhaps not the *whole* price difference): It's lighter, it doesn't creak and give if you lift it by one edge. It's got all kinds of little touches like a backlit keyboard. Its keyboard isn't falling to pieces after a few months, the battery still holds the charge far better, and so on. If you want "just a PC" without the Apple brand of similar quality, you do actually end up paying pretty much the same as for the Macbook, and  there aren't many alternatives around. Attention to detail places Apple product pretty close to the top in terms of PC manufacturers if you are to rank by quality.

Amen.

It's all those small things indeed, such as:

• enough grunt to actually be usable, unlike those crappy sub-notebooks with win7 basic. eow...
• backlit keyboard even in the 13" model
• environment adaptive backlighting
• cooling system that doesn't melt the laptop if you place the system on a soft surface
• magnetic power connector that prevents disasters (has saved 2 different macbook pros for me already)
• aluminum body that actually can take a beating.

No other "normal" laptop would have survived the beating this one received: busted_macbook_pro.jpg (here's the same machine after some rework: mended_macbook_pro.jpg). The machine was involved in a blading accident and the guy carrying it fared worse than the laptop...

Try the same with some plasticy ACER or DELL and you end up with backbag full of laptop components. This system on the other hand works great (only dvdrw-drive ceased to function). I use it as a backup / party laptop.

[Piru]

Nobody has the market on reliability.

Correct. It doesn't invalidate my points though.

As for Mac users being a cultists, I guess I am the exception that proves the rule. I use Macs because I genuinely considered them to be better than the alternatives. There's nothing more to it.

I also have a bunch (4 currently) of older PowerPC macs mainly because I work on MorphOS for them.

PS. I don't own iphone, ipod, ipad or other Apple nonsense products. There are better alternatives for these.