The first thing that startled me about the MacBooks were not their glossy white or matte black finishes, nor the fact that they had Intel dual-core processors rather than lower-powered single-core ones. I had expected all that. What surprised me was the price: they start at $1,099, even lower if you are a student.... The MacBook is a powerful and affordable option, especially for people who are uncertain about their Windows future. The next version, Vista, might be a success, but with a MacBook you can hedge your bet. You get a computer that runs both Mac OS X and Windows XP today, and even appears to meet the minimum requirements for Vista once it gets here. Dell and HP should be very worried indeed.