My fourth and latest laptop is the 13 inch MacBook Pro 2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo.I bought it back in late 2009 and have had no issues with it.I may be wrong but I do believe the same model can be bought new at micro center here in Columbus for under a grand.Being my first Mac I was a little nervous but quickly found it a very easy conversion.
As far as the reason for switching from pc to mac goes.While I don't really want to get into the whole debate about mac vs pc I will say that in 5 years I went through 3 pc laptops that cost me around $1000 each.They all managed to last past the 1 yr manufacture warranty.