Pat you are full of shit, I can get 3.5 hours out of my Mac book air, when I want to do so. And I don't have the 7 hour battery, My brother in law has a 13 in MacBook Pro with the 7 hr battery, I tested it for a day when he was in town, I turned it on and used it for 3 hrs straight and never touched a setting like I do for my Air. Watched some video, surfed the net for this time and had half the battery left. Why people get butt hurt about Apple products is funny. Most have never used one, not even for 5 min in an apple store. And if you base your opinion on pre-intel or older Macs, you are a moron. I wouldn't have dropped the money on all my apple stuff if I didn't play with the stuff first. I have family that turned me on to it. During my accident in 07 while I was in a wheel chair, I used his MacBook. For 3 weeks I got used to it and saw how easy it is. I then used his Mac Pro and and iPhone before purchasing iPhone and then my MacBook Air, AppleTV, time capsule, and LED Cinema Display in November of last year (2008). I waited over a year.
I have built my last PC's and sat in line with Anthony for my last $400 labtop which broke after 1 year. I got sick of Vista and ATI drivers failing, and ATI telling me there was nothing that could be done. I bought my Mac and am very happy, and it has nothing to do about the cash. I would never drop that amount of money on anything unless I knew I was going to like it. Everyone on here calls me a "fan boy", that's fine. The fact is I like the stuff because it works, and I don't have to mess with it. The fucking thing boots in less than a minute and is ready to go connected to a wireless network in this time. It shuts down in 3-4 seconds.
I still use Windows for work stuff, I run VMware Fusion 3 for my Windows Virtual machine. Fuck bootcamp, I run Windows stuff right on top of OSX for the few minutes I need it and I don't have to reboot. Just turn it on like any program in OSX.
Buy a mac if you go and play with them in the apple store and like it, schedule a personal shopping appointment and an associate will sit with you and show you their product and answer questions before you buy. They will sit with you for a good amount of time, you are not obligated to buy at that time.
Funny Microsoft is paying Apple employees very well to jump ship and work in the new Microsoft stores. They are copying everything that mac does with their stores, even snagging employees from apple to get it right.
funny I don't see HP, Acer, or Dell stores that look like this:
http://images.macrumors.com/article/2009/11/12/095229-uws_apple_store_1_500.jpg
http://images.macrumors.com/article/2009/11/12/095230-uws_apple_store_2_500.jpg
http://www.macrumors.com/2009/11/12/apples-upper-west-side-store-unveiled/
And Apple stock is at a all time high because their product sucks.
You can get a Refurbished 13 inch MacBook Pro for $999 with the 7 hour battery. I am buying a refurbished MacBook Air ($1349) so we have two in the house. Refurbished Macs save you some cash and are every bit as good as a new one.
http://store.apple.com/us/product/FB990LL/A?mco=MTA4MzQ4MDk