I understand about how a 1200$ hp isn't in the same class as a macbook pro, but the guy was talking about cod5 and even though the macbook nvidia 9400m is a huge improvement over x3100 I feel that apple is ripping people off cause for the price most pc's come with better graphic cards. I do not pc game anymore so it doesn't matter to me but I continue to own pc cause when I bought this Dell little over a year ago it was in competition with the macbook but about five hundred less dollars. It play a few games, edit's my movies and photos, and plays and rips my music and DVD's. You say packaged software so assume you mean ilife correct? On pc we don'call it ilife, its just software on our computer like windows media player, windows media center(Burns DVD and CD and helps with TV hook up and more), windows photo gallery, windows movie maker, and games. I'm not saying apple is bad, I just hate how apple users often say things or act like microsoft can't do it when it usually is a lie. My only beef with apple is there old commercials of "hi I'm a mac and I'm a pc" because they put up so many lies in there it's not even funny, any person slightly computer literate would be able to see that.
I am also a PC user and a Mac user and Linux user and a Unix user. I can tell you that iLife trumps the hell out of any Windows built in Application like Windows Movie Maker and the photo editor, I don't even consider those competition. The iLife apps are like a billion times more powerful, better, and easier to use. Sure you can do it with Windows out of the box, but not anywhere near a Mac can, and you don't have to be super computer savvy to use them because Apple makes them pretty easy to use. Which is a selling point, because your average user just wants it to work, period.
You also are missing a lot of built in features from the HP than you are over a Mac, which some people may not use or even understand. The SMS (sudden motion sensor) is a fantastic feature that will shut off your HD if it detects the laptop is falling, so it won't become damaged if you knock it over. Features like that, people don't even begin to understand that they are there and take them for granted.
WMP sucks, and doesn't play everything out of the box it requires all sorts of codecs, which I don't like. I use VLC pretty much on all my systems, Mac, Linux and Windows combined.
Out of the box the Mac has more functional and more well built features than any PC does, plus they are engineered a certain way with finess. The new Macbooks are all one piece, and they are all metal. That means that an industrial mill cuts out that one piece out of a sheet of metal. They did this to reduce bowing, buldging, and other problems you see when laptop cases are made from several parts. You are also paying for the engineering that goes into it, like you would a German car. It being only 1" thick is also awesome in my opinion.