Second the idea of buying a Mac - partner has a 17" Mac Book Pro, cost a small fortune but used for professional photography so needed the larger screen. Beautiful build, runs Windows if you really really want to use a program without a Mac platform, and just works, generally seamlessly. OS updates easily and getting to know the Mac OS is not that difficult.
Before this Mac, we had a 17" Powerbook G4 which was excellent and still lying about at home in good order, and a 13" Powerbook G4,also alive and well and lying about cluttering up the house somewhere - these were both non-intel Macs. Both superb construction and live forever.
Good luck with your choice - expensive but money well spent, you won't need a new laptop for a long time!
