I did talk to my brother about it and what he said was along the lines of what msilverstar said here: he likes his a lot better, but it won't necessarily be the right thing for me; and it's a myth that they're so much sturdier and more reliable than PCs.

About price I think they've gone down a bit and when you get the student deal where the MacBook comes with a free iPod touch that is really not so bad. I think I might try to get one if I still have money at the end of the summer.

I've been playing with them at school and I have a lot of trouble with the windows being all over the screen, going off the screen so I can't reach the lower right corner in order to adjust them, disappearing completely when I minimize. I find these things very frustrating but they seem to be things a girl can get used to.

I'm thinking a netbook wouldn't be the right thing for me because what I really need it for most is writing, and I wouldn't want to to a ton of writing on a supersmall keyboard.