Prive parity has been there for a while, all things considered.
In the PPC days, it was just harder to tell.

It is really the same story now as then, a $1099 Apple laptop is a better deal than a $1099 dell, but you can't get a $699 Apple laptop, but you can get a $699 Dell. Apple only goes as far as they can without going cheap.

Actually, the iBook line was at price parity for years. I served on a school district tech committee and the parents who were Microsoft employees constantly railed against "the extra expense of Macs" as they urged Windows everywhere, not just our high school. I finally stopped one meeting, had a laptop brought in and we went to Apple.com and spec'ed out an iBook. Then we went to Dell.com and built a similar laptop (screen size, disk and RAM capacity, firewire for the digital camcorders, etc). We used the school ID's so we got the full discounts. The result was, no matter how they juggled the specs, a clear $150 dollar difference in the iBook's favor. The "extra expense of Macs" was never raised again. This was over three years ago.

Cough, cough....

You can now get a Dell Inspiron 1405, which is similar to the Macbook in all specs except gigabit/bluetooth/firewire (not major issues to many), with the same CPU, and some extra accessories (extra battery, whatever), for about $400 less after coupon. Sure the regular price is much closer ($100) to that of the Macbook, but then Apple never has coupon sales, do they?

The E1405 is a bit bigger than the MacBook, but not much heavier.

Mike Barton: The Dell Inspiron 1405, while not a bad machine, is not in the same class of portability or general quality, so not really comparable. That's why I stacked the MacBook against a HP nc6400. But you make my point that, minus heavy discounting by Dell -- which has so many laptops and none that really stand out to me other than on price, or maybe the new Latitude d620 -- the MacBook comes pretty close on price. And they come with a raft of useful software.

Price is significant because the price does bring Apple into line with other manufacturers. Additionally, Apple includes iLife which also makes the computer useful for a number of business and non-business activities. My company has put iWeb to a great deal of use since its introduction as well as a number of the other iLife apps. Microsoft's remote desktop client also provides a "thin client" solution for many that need to access ERP apps on a Windows based network.

I looked at one yesterday. I think the better test is running XP in "Parallels". I was impressed with the MacBook screen and keyboard. Seemed better. I haven't seen anything about battery life. Those four points are key to whether Windows users will buy one. The black is nice, but not a deal maker.

Also, will it run Vista?

At the end of the day, it isn't about price as much as it is about time.

Apple was first to market with the Intel Duo notebooks (likely a result of some deal with Intel) so we were not initially able to compare apples to oranges (or to Dells & HPs).

Now it is clear that the entire MacBook Pro line has reached price parity, not just the MacBook 13"
* the defacto 15" MacBook Pro is priced to compete favorably with HP's comparable offering: the HP nc8430 Notebook
** http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm/WF25a/321957-64295-89315-321838-f1-1839150.html

The pricing of this HP notebook and a MacBook Pro with almost identical hardware is within $150 including the 3yr Apple Care to match the HP 3yr warranty.
Since both will run WinXP, for this extra cash Mac buyers get:
* the built-in iSight camera, DVI port, iLife software, and a stable, secure, OS
* and loses one USB port and the modem
This seems like a pretty fair deal expecially for the media-focused user.