i recently bought a 15.6 inch toshiba with 8 gb ram, 750 GB hard drive, Intel core i5 2.67ghz processor, blu-ray player+dvd writer, wi-max, 2 MP webcam for $659 + tax. It was a father's day deal though. You might have to pay quite a bit more for it now.

I don't like macs becoz they implicitly charge u a ridiculously high premium for software and design rather than the things that matter the most: hardware specs. You won't get a mac with the above configurations at even double the price that I paid.