[dunco]

I'll admit up front I haven't done the math on this MBP, but are the prices really so bad on a laptop$$/year basis?

If you look at a feature comparison, sure, macs have always looked like a bad deal, but that evaporates when you bring a time calculation into it. The surveys I have seen all seem to place macs at about half the failure rate of other devices, and they seem to last twice as long. everyone seems to have a shocking story from Lenovo/Dell et. al. about shoddy hardware and incompetent support for anyone without a $10mil+ PO. If you pay more up front, you can make it back by using the same device for longer.