Thanks for the link.  I had heard that battery life was shorter running Win7 through bootcamp, it was nice to see some actual numbers.  I'm looking at it right now as, 2/3 of 10 hours is still over 6 hours, which based on reviews and similar testing procedures ends up still being longer than most of the Windows 7 machines in the same category.

The Thinkpad processor isn't much "larger" in terms of speeds and processing power than the netbook that I'm replacing, and the netbook did bog down on some tasks. I'm just concerned that the minor bump in specs from the netbook processor to the ULV chips in the Thinkpads is not going to be enough to handle what I now need a laptop to do.   (I occasionally have to do some graphics work and VPN and remote sessions with other machines when I'm out, and that's next to impossible on the netbook.)  And I'll grant you that my needs are probably somewhat different than yours are.  After reading your review, I was really getting excited about the Thinkpad. But there is a pretty significant difference in capabilities from a 1.4g processor to a 2.4g processor.  Since Lenovo doesn't seem to be interested in having these machines in retail stores so folks can actually TRY them, there is no way for me to play with it a bit and see how it actually handles.  Which has nothing to do with the quality of the machine, its just how they have chosen to do business.

The more I think about it, the more I think that MBP might be the best option for me in spite of my reservations about Apple as a company.  I'd have the flexibility to run the OS that I prefer when I need to use applications that I've already purchased.  And for surfing and E-Mail and notes, I'm sure I could get used to OSX for basic tasks.  (And that would allow me to play with Scrivner for writing, which I've been looking at for a while.  It seems to be universally liked, very efficient, and a darn nice program.)

At the end of the day, I think its going to come down to what is the best tool for the job.  The name on the box should be less important than its capabilities and its suitableness for a specific person.  I do think that its sad that Apple has conducted themselves in such as way as to create concerns about how they do business.  And it seems like a poor business model to telly our customers what they want.  From your posts, it seems like you have been an Apple user for a while, yet this time Apple chased you away by not offering something that filled your needs and then telling you that you dont need it to begin with.

Thanks for the discussion and the info link and the excellent Blog.  I've been going back through older posts and your opinions on publishing and the business of books has been fascinating for me to read. As someone that very much wants to try to get my foot in the door, its interesting to see the view from someone already in.  Thanks for sharing!

Dean