Oh dearie me...shiny things lust again

Now here's a thing.

I've been wanting a laptop for some considerable time now. I've got 2 desktop PC's a really old Toshiba "portable" (takes about 3 days to boot up Win 2K and subsequently I never use it) and an Asus Eee 7 inch netbook.

There's all sorts of reasons I want a laptop. being able to do stuff anywhere in the house for one, out of the house for two, and just because I do for three.

Frankly the Eee isn't really up to it. Great though the concept is, the screen just ain't big enough, and even with XP "n-lited" (couldn't get on with Linux) there's no room to store much on the 4G solid state disk and not a decent enough screen re to work on.

I don't want a laptop that's a full desktop replacement either. My main Vista machine is perfectly OK for the heavy duty stuff I do.

I'd pretty much decided that I would look towards one of the more capable "netbooks", and as such, and with faith in the people at PC Pro (I've bought several bits of kit on their "labs" recommendations and never been disappointed) my eye had turned to the Samsung 10" screened NC10 and of late it's bigger and better brother the Samsung N110 as possibilities.

But for some unknown reasons I've started to dither. And particularly I'm dithering over whether I should get a Mac. And especially particularly over whether I should get a Macbook Pro.

Now let's get the sums out of the way.

I could get an NC10 for about £270 or a N110 for about £350. The cheapest I could get a Macbook Pro is about £780. No brainer.

But, I love gadgets. I love shiny things (perhaps I should have been a magpie). Several people I know in my virtual life (Murray over at Palm-Mac, Shaun at PDA247 , as well as a few people at work) use Macs - in fact Shaun is a recent convert - maybe he planted the seed?

The cons?

• The obvious cost
• I have no experience with Macs and a shedload with PCs
• I have no Mac software so I'd be starting from scratch
• I've invested loads of money in Windows software

The pros?

• It's gorgeous. I had a play with one in PC World today (wouldn't buy it from there at their prices though).
• I could put Windows on it and run my "must have" Windows programs on it.
• I'd feel very smug

I'll have to see. My mind isn't yet made up, though it wouldn't take much to sway me if I'm truthful.

I'll keep you posted.