2.16 GHz Core Duo, 2 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM, 100 GB HDD
While it was covered under AppleCare two years ago, I had two batteries replaced, the power charger replaced, the logic board replaced, the LCD inverter replaced twice, the screen replaced, 1 GB RAM replaced, SuperDrive replaced, among four or so incidents. (I might be forgetting some.) All for free! Thank you, Apple. In all honesty, there was only two situations that really required service: 1) when the power charger cable burned, and when my screen was buzzing. Everything else, I must admit, was a little superfluous and only prompted action because I kept complaining. I'm pretty sure this is more indicative of really good customer service as opposed to shoddy Apple products. (P.S. I forgot that I got my entire MBP replaced the third day I got it back in August because it overheated and died. Shoddy Apple products? Maybe. Maybe it's just me.)
~$2500, including a free HP printer and an iPod nano 1G.
At about 50 months of use, that comes out to about $50/month, or $1.80/day in cost of ownership (assuming I stop using it this month). Compare this to a ~$800 Dell Inspiron E1505, a popular computer that 2006 high school graduates like myself get for college. It's used for only two years and is replaced by another, better computer. That becomes about $33/month or about $1.20/day for the Dell over two years. A typical user will then spend about $1000 on his next notebook computer. Bring these two computers to the 50-month time scale, we get $1800 (= $800 + $1000), over 50 months, i.e. up to the present. That comes out to $1.30/day for these two computers, about 50-cents cheaper than owning a Mac. So why even get a Mac? Seriously.
50-cents is an eighth the cost of buying coffee everyday (at an average of $4/cup/day). The daily cost of having a texting plan is about $0.57/day (at +$20/month for unlimited texting, via Verizon). 50-cents isn't all that much. I think it's worth the cost.
Now, I just need to dig up $2000 to get myself another MacBook Pro.