First of all , generally speaking ,their hardware is second to none.Since they dont change their style -laptops wise 2008 MBP looks and feel better than 2013 vaio or super Samsung/HPs. Their battery life is stable. After a year or 2, still hold 70-80% charge.

You still need PC (or dual boot) if you need certain things.(windows is not going anywhere)

Macs are also loosing their cool /exclusive factor sInce everybody (young kids) start using them everywhere compared to 3 years ago.(like iPhone -everybody has one now).go to a Starbucks /CF BEAN, old,young,cool,geek, homeless all using Macs.

For a serious musician with limited money but with long term goals (recording to live work ),Mac is the way to go.

And ofcourse , resale value- just check the Craig 's list )

They might be losing their exclusivity, but they'll never lose their cool!

The new windows pro pads with full fledged windows 8 pro, will give the ipads a run for their money as all the windows pro apps will run on an Intel i5 or even i7 pad with windows 8.

Dont get a windows RT pad tough, as those are ARM based and dont run the professional windows music programs and VST´s.

I think these new windows pads have much more to offer to a musician then an Ipad, because they have 0 times the processing power of an Ipad, espescially those that use full fledged Intel processors and not Attoms.

Bill check you pm.
Deane

This Bill or another one?