well the Asus laptop is a fairly good deal you posted, I did not see a built in camera (on the pics), Firewire 800, it does not specify what type of built in bluetooth it has, but never the less not a bad deal. It does ship w/ win xp so you would also be spending more for an OS upgrade.
I am not saying that you can dig out a better deal with a PC, I am saying that when people generalize about macs being way over priced they are typically wrong. So let me add some of the features, and to be fair I'll use newegg since they have good prices. I agree @ $1,498.99 that is a good deal, and asus make decent hardware.
FW web cam or equivalent = $64.99 (it lists a web cam in your specs but the pics do not show one...so we can take this out)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16830108132
bluetooth 2.0 ERD = 29.99 (it doesn't specify if your laptop is Bluetooth, or Bluetooth ERD 2.0, it makes a difference as in BT 2.0 is twice as fast)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833127117
5 button media remote or equiv = 38.99 this was the closest I could find
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16880100851
FW 800 adapter = 85.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16839104010
software:
video editing - this seems to be the closest thing to imovie $89.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832135006
Audio editing - this is hard because garage band is basically a entry level version of logic audio or pro tools because you can edit multiple tracks of audio - I am going to say this will cost anywhere from $100 to $400 depending on what app you want to use and each one will have different qualities, to split the difference for arguments sake I will say $200
here is a link to possible products
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...0350376+1305320468&name=Audio/Video+Utilities
iDVD equivalent = 73.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832105073
iphoto equivalent = I am going to say $30 to 50 dollars for somethng that does something similar, there are a plethora of apps you can choose from for minor photo editing, organizing, making slides shows and adding music tracks to them. For pricing I will give you the low end of $30.00
syncronization software = again this is another hard one to compare because isync will syncronize anything from cell phones, PDAs and other hand held devices, with your calendar, contacts, emails, appointments, address book, etc. it will work via blue tooth, via usb, etc. I am googling now for an equivalent but can't find one. Vista apparently has windows mobile sync built in, but your laptop would cost you probably another $200 (or whatever the upgrade cost is) for vista. I know that motorolla has a tool kit that costs around $50.00 that does the same thing, but it is its own software where as isync can be used to synch with many apps like ical and address book and your email client. I have no experience with the vista end. Plus the motorolla software obviously only works with motorolls phones, where as isync works with my nokia phone, my motorolls phone (my old phone) and it worked with my Palm, which I never used and gave back to my work since I have a laptop instead. I am going to say, upgrade to vista time, or purchase seperate apps, I'll guess around $150.00 would suffice.
okay so I have only scratched the surface of what is included in a mac so lets add it up now:
If you were to purchase all the extras I added it up as being $594.97. Please note that I did not add in the additional cost of the built in camera or bluetooth because I could not verify that they were included on the newegg site, so that would be an additional $94.98 if they did not meet the specs of what the Macbook Pro has standard.
add that to the price of the laptop = 1,498.99 + 594.97 = $2093.96, which the standard Mac book Pro starts at 1999.00. This is not including the camera or the bluetooth. I left that out because the specs listed on newegg seemed to be misleading, but they are listed so I left them out.
Please note that I haven't broken down feature to feature comparisions but I have done a pretty fair job. I would say that the laptops are evenly priced for what they are capable of doing. The downside on the Mac is, if you didn't need all those features you pay for them anyways, so perhaps the Asus laptop would be a better choice.
Now, if I compared every single function the Mac could do over that Asus then I could probably add tons of more money to the overall cost of the Asus laptop to actually make it comparable to the Mac. So, do you see where I say they are not over priced and that they are high end machines? I am not saying they would be the best end user solution to everyone's needs, but I am saying that just stating they are over priced is a wrong and ignorant statement.
If anyone else can find better products that more match the functionality of a Mac adjust my pricing and see where it stands. I obviously haven't used every software package out of there. For arguments sake leave open source software out, because like I stated earlier, OS X runs linux software natively for the most part.
Oh for some this matters and for some it doesn't, both those laptops weigh about the same with the only difference of the mac being 1" thick
macbook pro dimensions = 1 x 14.1 x 9.6 inches
Asus deminsions = 13.19" x 9.65" x 1.37-1.46"
The thinner the better IMO for laptops, but I use my laptop for work not for gaming or LAN parties.