Yes, I was a dyed-in-the-wool Mac sceptic for years. Yes, I've written screeds bemoaning the infuriating breed of smug Apple monks who treat all PC owners with condescending pity. But being chained to a Sony Vaio for the last few weeks has convinced me that I'd rather use a laptop that just works, rather than one that's so ponderous, stuttering and irritating I find myself perpetually on the verge of running outside and hurling it into traffic.
I just hope buying a MacBook won't turn me into an iPrick. I want a machine that essentially makes itself invisible, not a rectangular bragging stone. If, 10 minutes after buying it, I start burbling on about how it's left me more fulfilled as a human being, or find myself perched at a tiny Starbucks table stroking its glowing Apple with one hand while demonstratively tapping away with the other in the hope that passersby will assume I'm working on a screenplay, it's going straight in the bin.
Saying that "laptops are the new TV" sounds to me like a confusion of levels, a bit like talking about "internet addiction", or using electricity for entertainment. Though certainly, some internet-based activities seem to be taking the place of recreational TV watching as a switch-your-brain-off activity (LOLCats come to mind).
When TV was a new technology, the utopians talked about it being a promising new educational medium too, not taking into account that there'd be more money in stultifying entertainment.
A comprehensive iSkeptic: http://joannejacobs.net/?p=1470
Amongst all the Apple love-hating I like that he pointed out that laptops are the new TV. AFAIK this is a fast-moving, recent trend that hasn't been outed in public much. We all knew TV was dying as a medium, but it's also dying as "what people sit around doing together in the lounge room at night". Many lounge-rooms are now a sea of laptops, one per person, and I suspect this is the future.