When I talk about Apple being expensive I certainly mean the hardware. I don't really buy much software apart from the OS (well, a few games, but there aren't OS X equivalents of them) as I use open-source stuff or other free offerings. So it's only the hardware costs that really matter to me.

Everyone has their price they are willing to pay. If you aren't willing to pay that price then don't, it's a simple as that.

I don't want anyone telling me I am being stupid spending more money on something when I am completely happy with it. I use a PC with Windows 7 at work and while it does the job there's still plenty of things that annoy me.

It is that simple. And we are just giving our views, as requested by the OP. No-one is trying to tell you that your decision is right or wrong. It's right for you, but may not be for the OP.

Yes, but there are so many people on here always questioning our judgement and just calling Apple owners fanboys as if we blindly buy Apple products that don't do what we want.

In reply to a post by Desmond:

You are looking at this from a bizarre perspective. If your software is blue screening Windows 7 on a bare metal PC then it will still blue screen Windows 7 in VmWare/Parallels/VirtualBox! ...

It's (probably) not the same emulated "hardware" under VMware etc. so that doesn't follow.

My perspective was that I was led to believe that OSX is inherently more stable than Windows, Macs are more reliable than PCs and my blue-screen problem is down to a quirk in the OS or a driver and not in my application software. Shifting the applications to a Mac should therefore resolve the stability problem. This was the opinion I was being given. From the replies here it looks as if this opinion also has a reliability problem

This was the opinion I was being given.

By whom?

In reply to a post by AEP:

The best rule to always follow is if it ain't broke and no one has given a compelling reason to change things

A good rule in general. But in this case it is broke, so testing with updated drivers is a logical trouble-shooting step. Trouble-shooting computer problems is not rocket science, just a matter of methodical testing.

I use the rule: If it ain't broke, tweak it - and if it IS broke, there is no harm trying a tweak anyway. All tweaks are fully reversable and do no physical harm ever. They merely just optimise the settings that are already there.

Love your Tweaks.

In my experience they are because you don't need to load many drivers. Third party drivers create much of the problem with Windows.

But no OS can work around a hardware fault without having RAID or something.

In my experience they are because you don't need to load many drivers.

You have to load just as many drivers on a Mac as on a PC. Each bit of hardware needs a driver to interface with the OS; there's no magic about a Mac that means it doesn't need drivers for hardware.

But it's true that on a Mac you have a very limited choice of hardware, basically what Apple will allow you to have, and hence a very limited set of drivers to choose from. Again, it's all a matter of what you want. If you want a fairly fixed system then a Mac is a fine (if rather expensive) choice. If you want to be able to upgrade, for example, a graphics card to one of your choice then a PC is a better choice.

I suspect the difficulty of upgrading Macs explains why so many people tend to get excited when a new product line comes out from them. If I need a bit more power from my PC I just buy a new graphics card, a new processor, whatever. It's a continuouis process; I don't need to buy a whole new PC every year or so.

Macs and PCs are both fine choices - horses for courses. But the OP's motives for considering a Mac don't hold water.