For what it's worth, we had poor experience with Dell. Our desktop hard drive died, without warning - which is how I learned the hard way to make sure I always back stuff up on an external hard drive. Himself was unimpressed with his Dell experiences through work, but is very happy with his HP laptop - so much in fact, that we bought one for his sister. His view is, if you're not getting a Mac, then get an HP.

Thought I would come back and update. Well, in the end, I decided to go with the Apple. :-) There were so many reasons I wanted to get one and quite a few reasons I didn't want to get another windows machine. Two of the issues that were keeping me from getting the Apple resolved at the last minute and I was very happy to see no obstacles to getting it. I have had a MacBookPro for two weeks now and loving it! Almost have everything moved over from the old computer and Monday got the new printer installed and connected. Tech support has been great as expected. There have been some issues with changing over from the windows system to the Mac. I was using MS Works on the old Dell and converting those to iWorks was not straightforward although in the end most of that is done. Going from MS Office is easier. Changing over from Windows Media Player to iTunes...if you are importing your music to WMPlayer in the wma format, well, come to find out it is a proprietary format to Windows and it is not easy to switch over to mp3 that will allow the iTunes to play it. I had to convert 800 songs to mp3 before moving it to the Apple which was not so great. Time consuming. Had to download four programs on Tuesday and only one of them actually made the conversion. Plus converting the files does lower the quality some. So, I am planning on getting as much off of CDs to replace them as I can, but they are fine for the time being. Just for your information, you can set your WindowsMediaPlayer to import into it in the mp3 format and that will make your life so much easier if/when you want to move them or use another player. Photos were a breeze to move and using iPhoto is just a treat! Such an improvement over my previous photo software for organizing photos. I have never used Photoshop software, so maybe that is as good at organizing as the iPhoto? I do plan on trying photoshop at some point. So that's my story. :-) Jane, I hope you have made the change over to whatever you liked the most and have a new machine that you are happy with. :-)

I definitely would not get the celeron processor. Go for a better rated processor. I am an AMD fan prefer them over Intel but everyone has their own preferences. on the router make sure you change the default user name and password to the router itself and give your wireless network a very strong number/letter mix passphrase or use one generated by the router if it will do that (write it on a card and tape it to the bottom of the router not blocking any vents). Be sure also that you have enabled WPA2 encryption in the router setup so that your wireless is safe from those passing by or near you that could other wise jump onto your network. My router is a linksys G router and I have a 4000sqft house, I can use my laptops anywhere and get an excellent rated signal, I can go out in my yard and get the same, my neighbor can see my network from his house and he shows it as a strong signal, of course mine is locked down so he can not get on it as is his, I see his from my house which has 2 bars.

I didn't know MS was skipping 9 and going to 10 - thanks, Emma. Yeah, I'm a little leery about buying a laptop online without trying it first. I love the keyboard and feel/response of the touchpad on my current laptop, so I want to find something as comfortable. I think it's best I wait until Windows 10 comes out... it might be less Windows 8'ish; although I've been using W8.1 on a desktop, so I'm familiar with it - and I don't absolutely hate it, like many people do. I didn't dislike Vista (my laptop), either, like many people do. I actually like Vista. Guess I'm not too hard to please when it comes to operating systems - lol.