The car analogy brought up earlier is a good way to put it. Neither is superior across the board. OS X has strengths in certain fields, Windows in other fields.

For example, Gaming. Windows dominates this market, no contest. There's no point in comparing the gaming power of a Windows machine to that of a Mac. It's like saying my Audi A4 can drive faster than your sailboat. Entirely different purposes, entirely different focus. Currently OS X is focused on workflow, mainly in the visual field. Windows is currently focused on the more industrial fields, be it gaming or industrial design.

That being said, if we go down to a lower level of specificity, you will find certain gains in favor of each OS. If we look at drivers, there's a clear winner. Now, I'm being general here. For the average user (who wouldn't even get what drivers ARE), OS X has better driver support. Reason? The user never has to touch them. Every now and then a little update bubble tells them to click yes, and they're done. On Windows, it's a much more manual and confusing process (!!!for the average user!!!). It involves knowing your hardware, finding the right driver on a site, and installing it without error. For the average user, Drivers are easier managed on a machine running OS X.

If we look at brute force, ignoring cost, OS X leads again. OS X supports up to 32 GB of RAM, two 3.2ghz Quad Core processors, 4TB of disk space, and 4 x ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT 256MB for graphics. Granted, you're paying out the proverbial donkey for this. There is NO windows system that can match this performance; the OS simply doesn't supply native support for this amount harware.

Now's the time when that wonderfully touchy subject of Cash gets brought up. Hands down, as far cost goes Windows systems are superior. You can't beat the 200 dollar complete machines you'll find at a Walmart sale. For the average user, this is the logical choice, and I wholeheartedly agree with it. Why spend extra money on something that you won't use?

Now we move out of the realm of the average user, and this is where it gets touchy. Some prefer OS X for various reasons, some prefer Windows for other reasons. Rarely will you find arguments made for either side that are devoid of opinionated statements.

For my personal choice, I'm currently with OS X on a Macbook pro sporting 4gb of ram, highest video memory option, and largest fastest hard disk available. Why did I pick this? I was heading off to college, to do college-y stuff. For me, that entails surfing the web, reading emails, and writing papers/presentations. I don't game, and the closest thing to industrial applications I partake in is CAD. For CAD I'm able to use bootcamp, with no problems. So for a college student like me, with no real loyalty to either Mac or Windows, I wanted only a few things out of my laptop: Good battery life, Large and bright display, reliability, fast boot time, and clean hardware. I'm fortunate enough to have cost not be a barrier for this computer (note: this was before the crash. Times are little tougher now.), and so I was able to narrow down my search between two machines. For me, it was either a Falcon Northwest TLX, or a Macbook Pro. I eventually decided on the MBP for a few factors: The boot time of OS X is quite rapid, the MPB has great battery life, and gorgeous display.

I realize that each "camp" has their own reasons for choosing whatever machine they chose, and I respect both options. Being someone who has no loyalty to any company, I will be more than willing to switch back to a windows machine once Microsoft succeeds in building a product that tops my MBP in my eyes. Again, this is a personal opinion, and I hope I've steered away from insulting either camp. Whatever comp suits your needs and constraints, hurrah to you. I have what works for me, and I'm glad that the companies are on decent enough terms to allow a good amount of interoperability.

...Ok, I'm all written out for now... I might come back and address the ads later.