I have the iMac setup next to a WinXP PC and the differences are not very striking. The Mac boots faster, but Win XP does come up a lot quicker than any flavor of Win98 or Win2000 used to. Installing the OS, on the Mac it's 2 CD's with no multi-digit/alpha product information number to send online to Cupertino . . . with Windows XP, you pretty much have to send over the digital DNA to Redmond. The Apple mouse and keyboard pretty much suck. Luckily the iMac will recognize a USB MS Intellimouse, even the right mouse click! Getting on the internet . . . on Win XP, you can use the guide, answer questions about the connection, whether you use a proxy, etc. On the iMac, plug the ethernet cable in, launch the browser and you're on! It figures it all out for you. I haven't tried this yet, but for XP you can add voice recognition and speech confirmation with an external mic and some software if you want more than "You Got Mail"; with the iMac, it's part of the OS and the mic is built in and you can choose what "voice" the computer uses. XP is a lot more forgiving than old Win and the blue screen of death has only shown up once (bad memory module) and the ability to switch between users is great. With the iMac, OS X 2.4 appears to be very stable. Both suffer from driver shortages from time to time and nothing is more fun than finding out that the only upgrade path for your favorite CD burning software is to upgrade (pay$) for a new version instead of downloading a patch!