Please Help! I Need Laptop Advice!

Alright readers!  I need some advice.  Permit me to ask for some personal advice from the more knowledgeable of you out there.  My laptop will be 2 years old soon and instead of having a birthday cake with 2 candles for my laptop, I am thinking of replacing it with a newer one.  The dilemma I’m having is what laptop I should replace it with.

I’ve loved my laptop dearly.  It is a Dell Studio XPS (pictured here) with an Intel Core 2 Duo (2.4 GHz), 4 GB RAM, 500 GB Hard Drive (@ 7200 RPM) and an ATI 128MB graphics card.  I realize that these specs are still pretty good and that my laptop can still handle its fair share, but what can I say.  I’m a techie nerd with a constant hungering for upgrades.

I’ve pretty much narrowed my choices down to 2 options, but am open to more suggestions.  On the one hand is the new Dell XPS laptop with a 3GB NVIDIA graphics card, an Intel i7 processor, 1 TB hard drive and 8GB RAM.  On the other hand, I’ve been looking at the new MacBook Pro laptops with similar hardware specs.  I am in college and do not have tons of money to throw around, but a large part of me wants to be persuaded to go Mac and never look back.

I love fast computers with powerful graphics capabilities.  Let me know what you guys think I should go for, as I am in a bit of a quandary.  Feel free to take sides in the PC vs. Mac debate if you feel you need to as well.  Any advice you can give would be much appreciated and I will write later about what decision I made!  Thanks again!

Image Source: http://computershopper.com/var/ezwebin_site/storage/images/laptops/product-profile/dell-studio-xps-13/226893-1-eng-US/dell-studio-xps-13_large.jpg