I love Apple's products...until Jobs left, then the company did some stupid things. When they got rid of Motorola, I thought they were crazy...

but, Jobs came back and intel seems to be doing them justice and if I can convince da wife, our next puter will be a MAC again.

If it is refurbished MAC from Apple themselves, I am all for it. Their tech support is top notch...

I don't care much for Ebay myself but I know that there are good apples vs bad apples on ebay (puns intended)

If I was to buy a laptop currently, I really have to say that I would not buy a used one. A low-end HP laptop is $300.00 when it's on sale and only a $100.00 more when not on sale. Just do a search on their website.

HP CURRENTLY makes the best PC laptops in my humbled opinion. Gateway was tops 10 years ago then replaced by Dell but when Mike Dell left the company, it went downhill again. He came back last year but that company have some serious restructuring to do...I dumped all their stocks recently and went with HP

and nappy, agreed! LOL

Gates IS a savvy business man. Smart in his networking with people and
selling CARP that is worth $10.00 for $500.00

but that's marketing...years ago, I was involved with marketing, worked with a company called, "Amazing Discoveries"

not sure if anyone remembers that grand daddy of informercials or not. One of the products that they promoted was called, DD7...

years later, when I saw "OxyClean" I said to myself, now, that is some serious repackaging, they are selling the SAME worthless crap but are now calling it Oxyclean...LOLOL

so whenever I get to tawk PC vs. MAC, I think of DD7 and OxyClean...LMAO...

anyways, my next puter will be a MAC

I do want to say this though. If one is into upgrades and such, MACS are hard as heckit to upgrade (internal upgrades) cause they rather you buy a new one. But their puters are so advanced that it is usually two generations ahead of PC(well, maybe just ONE generation now)

the last thing I would suggest is to not let it overwhelmed you.

Stick to a tried and true company, avoid COMPAC puters, and look at your needs.

If you are just going to surf the net, email, blog, Youtube.
a low-end laptop will do just fine.

If you are into gaming like Allen, then, might want to ask him to build you one...that thing just looks too awesome...although I can say that I don't care for Vista...

alrighty, enough blabbering from me...LOL