Windows: Most of them have a less attractive casing, A..... less attractive OS that is harder to use (with the exception of Vista that is a hell lot more pretty and is dumbed down for idiots), but (yes, the but), has way less compatibility issues with games, software and of course, computer hardware.
Overall: If I could afford it ever 4 years, I'd go with a Mac. I wouldn't hesitate to take the MacBook that costs $1099 or more over the Windows computer that costs $500-$600. Macs just look better (which is a big plus for people like me, and my friends, who all want MacBooks), and are easier to use for recording. I'm pretty much sick of Vista asking me everything, and also prompting me to upgrade to Linux:
But really, go with a Mac if you can afford it. Save yourself the agony of starting off with Windows if you've never used computers for recording and/or programming/coding before. It's just so much easier and dumbed down (not always a bad thing, by the way), and just has so much more pretty stuff to it. It's a big plus for recording (they're so damn quiet!) and with other people who are like "OMGWTFBBQ YOU GOT A MACBOOOOOK!" and then want to use it. I would just say get a Mac, because they're just the overall... better of choices. I swear by Windows because of the compatibility... I need my Paint.NET, I need my FL Studio 7, I need my Office, I need my Visual Studio .NET, etc... etc... etc...
I do, however, have upgraded the harddrive in this laptop from 80GB to 250GB, and am running Windows Vista and Mac OS X Tiger on separate partitions. Not that I'm advocating pirating Mac OS X to try this, check out osx86project.org and see if you like it. It saves you money, and with the 2.5GHz processor and 2GB of RAM on this laptop, It gives me more than a MacBook would ever give me... Except it's not as pretty. And it wasn't built for Mac OS X. And I still feel like a geek for putting OS X on my Toshiba. So yeah.
Macs win in the war against Windows.
