i-sako.com

It sounds to me like the new Macs are more solid than one would anticipate for the first generation of such a line, but that’s probably due to the fact that Apple has been testing its software on Intel machines for five years now. It’s the software which is not fully ready, most significantly a way to dual-boot both Mac OS X and Windows XP natively (and switch smoothly between them) on a Mactel. If the new Macs were able to do that, I’d probably by a 17-inch iMac in the next few months to replace my aging Celeron. But as far as hardware is concerned, initial reports say its just fine--which is not to say that problems couldn’t crop up. But then, they can always crop up--my Nth-generation PowerPC Powerbook has screen issues, darkening around the hinges, that I want to take it to the Apple Store for. And in the past, hardware issues cropped up more because things were untested, because the hardware was just coming in--but again, Apple’s been testing Intel Macs for some time now…

I always say go with Macs, of course. But needing to use Windows immediately could be a problem--even Virtual PC doesn’t work on the new Mactels. But for six or twelve months from now, a Mactel would probably be an easy better choice.