Think about a MacBook

I love mine - no virus, no blue screens, no restarting.... I will probably never buy a windows machine again.

I got my first Mac (a MacBook) last year. I love it. Especially the magnetic power cord connection.

You can, to my knowledge, do everything that you can on Windows--although some things might require a Windows emulator. But I used to use Linux emulators on my Windows machines in order to write/run my code, so this is not a huge deal for me. With OS X's Linux base it should be easy to get whatever compilers and editors you need (it might already have a C compiler, I don't know--I mostly program in IDL). Whatever programs you write on the Mac should, as long as they have the same file type, work fine in Windows. I have not had a problem with my IDL files.

As for the bad... You have to relearn which key combinations do what, but that's not hard. There are also some programs that are not yet "universal," i.e. they have to go through Rosetta to be translated for the Intel processor and therefore take longer to start up and/or run. That number is shrinking as more and more companies are making their Mac versions universal. Most everything is designed to be easy and seamless, but when it's not, it's really not. We recently tried to set my laptop up to print to a shared printer that was connected to a Windows machine. Tried everything we could think of, and everything we could find online, with no luck. Bought an Apple Airport Express to use as a print server, and it worked from the word "go." So, the Mac-Windows interface leaves something to be desired, but Mac-Mac is great. The bottom of the laptop does, as you've probably heard, get quite warm. Not so hot as to burn you, but you might find it uncomfortable.

Overall, I give my Mac two big thumbs up. I'd definitely buy it again.

Well, you do have to restart after some software updates.

Oh no!  Just wait until the hardcore mac bigots see this thread.....

Seriously they are both computers.  99% of what most people do is the same on both (office, email, internet).   Windows laptops are cheaper, there is more variety and more programs available for them.  That is still the biggest selling point for me.   A lot af mac heads will tell you that the apple is far superior and worth the extra cost, but I've never been convinced.   When was the last time you really had a blue screen? I work in corporate IT and it is pretty rare to have blue screen with Windows XP.  Maybe 1 or 2 a year with 500 computers.   I am sure if we were 100% mac we would have that many dead apples as well. 

As far as interoperability, you would have to dual boot with windows (now possible on the new intel macs) to program for both platforms.  

I love my mac. That being said I work in a windows environment for IT so I spend more time in that world. The mac is definitely far superior when it comes to user friendly behavior. It pretty much does what you expect when you expect it to. Things like VPN and RDP seem to work fine and office is a little slicker than the straight MS version. Keep in mind that there is no database application like Excel included in the package. I am currently using cocoaMySQL for that. Filemaker pro will set you back about $150 more after office, after this and that. Not having to deal with the most hated registry is pleasant however there are downsides.

Compatibility is always suspect and various applications don't work exactly as they should specifically IM clients. Getting advanced mac help is somewhat difficult unless you know someone nearby who is a mac geek. Going to see the "geniuses" at the mac store is an exercise in futility if you want help outside of the real basic mac things. If you mention something about windows they look at you like you are speaking Martian.

Bootcamp works fine if you want to boot windows instead of OSX. I like Parallels because it runs Windows in a window instead of having to boot it. so you can have the best of both worlds instantly.

The multi-key functions involving Ctrl+ are kind of a pain when first getting the hang of it because of the apple key and I cannot deal with the one button mouse so I recommend buying something different if you go with an external mouse.

Safari is a nightmare application so use something else because forms are a problem as is BT using rich text or tinymce for your posts. I find that Safari crashes way too often for my liking. The other quirk that you'll notice is the resize buttons are all opposite. I overcame this by putting my Windows toolbar on the left and my mac dock on the right so I work in opposites (right to left and left to right). It's odd but my brain likes it that way.

The biggest problem with the mac is the cost. If you are going to just do windows stuff with it then I would say by two windows notebooks for the same price. I have NEVER seen the blue screen of death although I'm sure it happens often enough. Macs look nicer but seriously for the extra $1000 it's hard to justify the little perks. I too bought my mac after my iPod but then again my business paid for it so the cost became comparable due to the writeoff.

Oh yeah, forgot to mention: a three-button mouse works as such in the shells (highlight to copy, middle button to paste). I find that that comes in very handy.