As I mentioned previously, I’ve recently been considering the purchase of a MacBook.  Well, it didn’t take long – I’ve taken the plunge.  I decided to buy from Amazon.com, instead of directly from apply for a number of reasons:

• I trust Amazon.com.  That’s not to say that they haven’t let me down on occasion, but as a general rule, they can be counted on.
• They are offering a $100 rebate.
• They are offering 24 months no interest with the Amazon card.
• No sales tax.

I know that the first question that I will get from Rob when he shows up this morning is a big fat “Why?”.  Well, I’ve always been a bit of a closet Apple fanboy.  My first programming experience was in grade school with Logo on an Apple II.  My first programming book was an Apple programming book that I bought at the school book fair (if you want to know the truth, I bought the book because some of the examples had limericks which my 5^th grade self could not resist – I actually had no computer at the time and my parents flipped out for wasting money.)  I also live in a three iPod house.  My 1 year old has her own iPod loaded with her custom play lists of lullaby music. 

The last time I flirted with purchasing a Mac was when the Mac Mini came out.  I passed at that point because it didn’t seem practical.  I was looking for a cheap way to get my hands on a Mac OS X device so that I could test the waters.  In the end, I figured that it wouldn’t get much use if it had to compete for resources (keyboard, monitor, etc.) with my primary box.  The laptop form factor makes much more sense for what I’m looking to do with it.  The fact that I can run windows on it is another bonus.  Worst case it becomes a very cool looking windows box.

I also had it ingrained in my psyche that Apple == expensive.  It turns out that the MacBook is reasonably affordable.  Starting at $1099.  $1499 ($1399 from Amazon) nicely equipped.  I’m looking forward to bloging my experiences.  I probably won’t do a big “unboxing” post – that’s been over done.