I know I'm probly going to be flamed for this, but if you don't want to play games on it, why not just get a mac?

I have both a mac and pc now and very much prefer the mac for doing productive work. It just makes sense. They're much more user friendly and everything "works". You don't have to fiddle around with complex setups to get things to work with each other because it's all from Apple - everything is designed to work together.

When I got my mac for Christmas, I became an instant mac "fanboy" and I'm not ashamed to admit it. Office 2008 (mac version) is out soon (now?) but I haven't had a chance to test it out yet. I don't know if there's any "issues" with that, but I would be surprised if there was.

As far as backups go, there's nothing better than time machine on Leopard. It backs up everything automatically by the hour, and it's a simple process to retrieve things if you accidently deleted files and need to get them back. Plus, if you want a laptop, the new macbook air looks delicious.