The experience is crippled by Apple's lack of effort towards drivers, particularly in their laptops. (e.g. battery life hours shorter than it should be, touchpad not as good as Synaptics despite having the potential, etc.)
Last I checked Apple were one of the only laptop makers to get 12 hours battery life without crippling the machine. I'm quite happy with the 7 hours my 15" rMBP gets.
And a mac running windows is just as likely to get viruses as any other Windows system.
Yup, that part is 100% true. Regardless of what platform you put Windows on, its always going to be a Virus magnet due to it's inherent flawed design (i.e networking and security being added as an afterthought.)
The same amount of money spent on a prebuilt PC will likely be equal in reliability, and more so if you include the ability to replace parts yourself.
I'm on the fence with this one, having both owned Macs and built machines of equal spec. On the one hand, the home-made machine gives you freedom to switch parts out. On the other hand, the mac parts are generally a lot more reliable, and very well engineered to the point where you cant hear fans going, get great cooling, etc. The hardware is designed to run cool, things like the Mac Pro's modular motherboard design are fantastic for reliability and cooling.
It's fun to build your own machine, but reliability wise its got nothing on a pre-built machine (be it a Mac or Windows based box). Plus you cant really fault the Apple tech support service. Walk in with a problem, have a new mac or a fix when you walk out - all part of the warranty. If I tried walking into my local PC World with a broken HP tower, I'd have to pay out to have it fixed or would just be told to contact HP directly, where I'd have to pay to send my machine off and not get it back for weeks.
For people who actually work on their machines, Mac's are ideal for knowing that you wont be without a machine for any long period of time should something go wrong.
A self-built PC will be easily more reliable if you pick the correct parts
'more reliable' in what sense exactly? Part quality? No chance in hell. Sure you COULD build a machine of equal (or better) spec for the price of a Mac. But the end result is a poorly designed metal box that will last 3 years, maybe 4 if you push it. Macs from the early 2000s are still running all over the world, and are very capable machines due to the OS being way more optimised than Windows could ever be (this isn't some sort of 'fanboy' statement - its fact).
Macs are expensive because Apple can set whatever price they like on what is really mediocre hardware. Paying for the design/'build quality' makes no sense when companies like Sony can easily match their engineering prowess on high end portability/business focused laptops at a lower price point (e.g. Vaio Z series, Vaio Pro series).
Pick up a mac laptop - any one of them. Hold the sides of it and try to flex it. No sound, no flex. Now hold the Vaio and do the same. You'll hear the creaking and flexing of the shell. The mac laptops chassis is a lot more integrated to the point where it can be run over, and cause no damage to the motherboard at all.
You're not just paying for the shiny box either. The internals are hugely different on a mac than on anything else. Take a look at the way the cooling works on the rMBP for example - no other laptop does it that way, and I can tell you from experience that it works very well.
Also, what the hell is with almost every Windows based laptop placing the damn fan intake ON THE BOTTOM. How dumb is that? The second you put it on your
LAP it blocks the intake fan.
The NT kernel/system is probably just as fundamentally secure, all things considered, except it's just commonly used in a way that makes it inherently insecure (e.g. UAC disabled, admin account for normal use, etc.)
Not really. Its put together in such a way that makes sure it'll always be more susceptible to security problems. It had networking 'bodged on' due to business demand - it was never designed for what its being used for, and because Microsoft baked the browsing into the OS, its never ever going to be possible to get anywhere near the kind of security you get with Unix based operating systems.
To give you some kind of idea on how your Mac OS security works - its physically impossible to 'accidentally' download something and run it. Firstly everything you run on the OS has to have been executed (and on first run requires manual confirmation before it executes the app package) manually. Then you have the fact that you dont have the ability to have something running in the background without you knowing about it.
To actually get a virus it would have to be downloaded and run manually, so the only time that'll happen is if a package is infected. However even then, the virus cant spread anywhere, it will only run when the parent app is running, making it near impossible for a virus to 'hide' or 'embed' itself into the OS.
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Also just a bit of background:
I've used Windows and OS X for years (and built my own high-end machines without crappy £50 plastic cases that look cheap). I was exclusively a Windows user until 2007, when I got a Mac - I've not had any need or desire to 'switch back' at all as I found that within a week of using it I was hooked. Productivity is massively higher for me on OS X, and things just make a hell of a lot more sense. No messy DLL's. No registry nonsense. As much as I hate to use this stupid statement it really does 'just work' for me.
I get that we will always have the silly Mac VS PC arguments, but the way I see it, we use what works for us - without spreading lies about the competing product. They both serve their purpose. I personally find OS X to serve that purpose significantly better.
Price wise its down to your personal choice. I am happy to pay a premium for something I use every day, rather than have to babysit a machine that isn't as good as it should be.
With regards to virus protection - I've never had it on my Mac and never intend to. You'd have to be an idiot to actually go out and get a virus on a unix based system.