Sony Vaio Laptops?

[evulish]

With the Powerbook, it can interact with Windows quite well. In fact, Microsoft makes Office X for the Mac. I'm also quite sure Adobe makes all their products for Mac, too. Most files on a Mac are common. Probably the only thing is the filesystem and compressed filetypes. That doesn't really matter since you can create a SAMBA share on the network or use FTP or something. Also, something like winrar can probably open .sit and .dmg filetypes.

Also, Apple offers a great educational discount. It knocked a few hundred off my Powerbook. (Also, if you do go the powerbook way and are looking at the 15" without the DVD burner.. you'll get a nicer laptop by selecting the 15" w/ DVD burner then in the customization part, removing it. That way, you get the 1.25ghz processor, backlit keyboard [gorgeous], and built-n Airport Extreme (802.11g))

You might try picking up a copy of PC World. I'm pretty sure they have a a section in the back of their top laptops.