What would you get if you were in my shoes? Mac OR Windows? Is 160GB HD enough?????????????????????????/???

That would be Mac as it runs Windows too. There are also a lot more games on the way for the Mac platform thanks to the iPhone apps store.

Another point to note is that with XP you are still forced to run 8 year old technology because Vista doesn't cut it where as with Mac Leopard you have the best current OS.

Unless you are looking at building your own custom gaming rig you are not actually paying a lot more for a handful of programs considering that you get iLife08 with your Mac which allows you to make movies, record music, play music and handle all your photos. You don't need any antivirus, you can surf the web from the word GO and since you already have XP you and run that on Bootcamp for your PC games if you need to.

Also if you ARE trying to compare computers - compare the Dell all in one with the iMac - the iMac actually comes out cheaper since the iMac is an All in one rather than a stand alone desktop computer.

New users guide to Mac Leopard

http://www.apple.com/findouthow/mac/

There is also a LOT of Free stuff for the Mac

http://mac.softpedia.com/

http://www.opensourcemac.org/

http://www.macupdate.com/

http://www.versiontracker.com/macosx/

160 GB is plenty. The OS itself really only needs around 16-20GB, and that's even taking into account restore points and some basic software installations. If they're accumulating data files to a large degree, they may want to keep them on another drive so they don't slow down the OS. Otherwise your biggest concerns are (1) if a computer someone has had "for years" is truly 64-bit capable, and (2) if they have enough RAM to benefit from 64-bit. If they don't have 4GB or more, you might as well stick with 32-bit.

For what you do, it doesn't matter what you buy. You can actually save money by dropping down from a T9300 to say a P8600. Find the cheapest hard drive option and upgrade yourself. 500GB is only $80 for 7200rpm. And if the 4GB RAM option is not free, get the lowest and upgrade. 4GB is only $40 online.

So realistically, $700/800 PC right there. I'd rather save $600 and invest it somewhere.

I couldn't agree with you more. I think Mac is very overrated. It is a nice machine, but there are lots of great computers out there. The one that you mention is nice, but you can find one with similar specs for much less than $1,080. I provided the link for one example, but there are many out there. 4G of memory is plenty. Nice, big hard drive. Wireless N network card built-in. Best of all, all for about half the price of a Mac! If you really want the feel and look of a Mac, you could simply (and for free) download and install one of many Linux Operating Systems, and duel-boot with Windows, thereby giving you the best of both worlds. I hope this helps. Good luck.

Windows

Go with the pc if you are not doing anything hard core. 4gb of ram and 320 hard drive is pretty good but for what you need you could probably find a good pc for like $500-$600.

I would go with the PC, less headache...although I've used a MAC, it was only really good for creating and editing video..besides that, there's nothing really better that a MAC has to offer. Plus you get more room for your money with a PC..........

Go for the Mac, you won't regret it.

Macbook more expensive but more reliable