Yes, a Mac will cost you much more than $500.
Yup, and be no better in any aspect than a PC...
I don't understand why there is such a 'fanboy' attitude with macs...i have worked on macs for many hours and they don't work any better nor worse than a PC and yet for the same specs they cost much more....but its 'cool' to have a mac because your different...
Honestly though, macs are good, they are just too expensive for what you get AFAIC