My sister needs a new laptop, should she wait until February?

Tell her to check out the Apple Macbooks http://www.apple.com/macbook/macbook.html

Just ordered mine ( 2 ghz. 2 gig ram, 160 gig hard drive, AND Black, to match my X5!). It can do dual O/S - Mac Tiger OS and Windozzzz XP and later upgradable to Mac Leopard and Micro$oft Vista when they come out. You get the best of both worlds

It looks like a real nice laptop, I must say that I have always had a windows based computer and not sure that I what to go Apple. It is also my assumption that a Apple cost more than a windows based laptop, what do you think?

apple does cost more but you get a lot more for the money not on paper though. They are better in batterly life, in use and now since they are dual boot capable you get best of both worlds. price is the only draw back... but its my next computer.

trust me they did not hurt anyone's sales there is not enough software on the market to make it worth while and all the pcs that are vista capable if purchased now from dell will get the option to get the vista later. but mac is my next computer

Actually this cost debate was solved long before the intel deal. (Note the 2003 article link) Most of all the arguements boil down to what a person want's. I personally encourage people to visit a Mac Store and test drive the product. You could actually stay in the store for hours getting your questions answered so that you have enough information to make an informed decision. Then if you buy a PC at least you made the decision based on what you believe the facts are not what someone else says.

http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=22738

Performance and Cost

It is one of the great truths of computer ownership that base cost is just part of the total cost of ownership (TCO). Issues like long-term maintenance costs, security Relevant Products/Services and reliability also come into play.

Further complicating the issue is the "Cadillac vs. Mercedes Benz" analogy. A Cadillac is less expensive, but a Cadillac cannot go from 0 to 60 in 8.5 seconds. A similar computer platform may be cheaper, but does it really offer the same performance as its higher-priced competitor?

"Clearly, the price tags for PCs are lower -- at least at the low end," says Macworld editor-in-chief Jason Snell.

"However, we recently tested the speed of high-end Macs and PCs, and they're comparable -- for comparable prices -- in many areas. So, it's probably most realistic to say that while the cheapest PCs cost less than the cheapest Macs, the cheapest Macs are probably comparable with PCs that cost a similar amount," he told NewsFactor.

"In other words, as usual, you get what you pay for."

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absolutely agree which is why i said they are more expensive. For instance if my budget is 1000 that gets me a pretty darn good PC but mac is the lowest of the low AND not even 1000 but more like 1100 but yes you get what you pay for

I had software problems with my Thinkpad, even though I had one site with IBM they said it was a Windows problem and not covered,

Does Mac stand behind their product or will you get the same run around?

anyone ? I never owned one but could say from all the things i hear that they really do stand by their product. You have to remember windows goes on any brand pc where as mac is only mac there is no IBM or DELL or etc... its just MAC and they are very proud of it.