just had a quick look again, on dell, newegg and asus sites. only dell offers something similar, currently on sale from $1020 (originally 1250), with an i7m and a 5450. dell are also offering their alienware m11x for $1090, but its got an 11" screen. macbook pro's 13" are actually decently...
compare them to other 13" laptops with similar specs. last time i checked only dell had something similar for $50 less with a slightly better gpu (9500m as opposed to 9400m)
back then macs actually were actually the choice for designers due to their better quality crt's.
nowadays osx is just a simpler alternative to windows as an os. You aren't going to run into anywhere near as much hassle with osx than any windows based os. not to mention just how good apple are...
jesus, what on earth do you guys do with your itunes.
playing music, downloading a couple apps that need updates and its going through the gapless information for a few new albums.
tbh i'd see if you could borrow a netbook for a time and see if you can get used to it. i've got 2 netbooks in my posession now cause i know people who've bought them (when they could have gotten a similarly specced notebook for the same price) and couldn't get used to the screen and keyboard...
more users associate radeon than ati to their products.
the main reason i can tell is cost cutting, running a few brands actually costs a fair bit of money (e.g GM found out the hard way)
like bandwidth and hardware were ever an issue. its just microsoft making money cause they can. i'd understand if games had dedicated servers, continuous updates for new content for each game and whatnot. but they dont.
uhh only because of how the system works, depending on what the agreement was on, one could fight how silly the whole thing is. but a contract is a contract, remember that whole gamestation stealing peoples souls? they were actually liable to do that.