Hmmm... Tom, what are you smoking in that pipe...?
mac, Mac, MAC....whatever, never thought about it, no doubt you are right.
I think really that , when you say your macbbook pro has been chugging it out for the last four years 24/7 then that just supports my case. you say a sony would still be working also, - who knows? maybe it would.
Between us my partner and I currently have four laptops - two acers, one hp, and one mac.
The oldest is a acer travelmate, that finally stopped working after about about 8 years.
The other acer is still going after about four years, the macbook is great after about 2.5 years, and the hp, which was the most expensive and highest spec, has ongoing problems after less than two years - the power supply died, now the screen has died (a known problem apparantly, and not worth the money to repair)
So now i need a new laptop that can run windows 7 64 bit, and really only Dell and the mac are in the running (sony has nothing with the same spec) - the mac has no numeric keypad, but is $200 cheaper than the dell, and about 1 kilo lighter (plus it also comes with the mac os). The dell has a faster processor, a slightly better video card, and all the other stuff is the same spec.
So it is a no-brainer really to go with the mac - it is just so much better in terms of build and design, and i fully expect it to be around in another 4,6 years...
And when rhino for the mac is up to speed, then maybe i will switch to the mac os for good...
I couldn't give a toss about the apple logo, or apple posey stuff - I just want to do my job, without the hassle and downtime of the hardware dropping the ball...
cheers
rabbit