I don't know if that's necessarily a fair assessment.
I went to Dell's site and specified a similar configuration on its low end machine--256M RAM, no software, no monitor, 1 year warranty, DVD/CD-RW drive and WordPerfect (like that's useful)--and it came out at $547.
Sure. Add $29.00 for Works or $149 for Office Basic. $50 for the screen (though it currently is a LCD). Take the free 256M upgrade. And add necessary virus and security protection (not as huge a worry on the Mac) for $69. Out the door at $815, sans shipping and tax.
MacMini at $499, without the memory upgrade (which I find unnecessary for OS X, but people will disagree... I would argue the Mac is usable at the memory level, an XP PC is not). Add decent USB mouse and keyboard for $50. Add iWork for $79. Get Quicken 2005 and iLife free. Add $205 for the 15" LCD from Princeton. Total of $833, sans shipping and tax. If you wanted Office 2004 for Mac, you have the "Home/Academic" version at $139 for an alternative total of $893, a spread of less than $100. With the memory, $75 more for $968 (a price that will drop quickly as the authorized resellers get involved).
Now envision all the help desk calls you get on weekends and weeknights gone.
Media stuff is great... it ships with iMovie, iTunes (so it can work with the Airport Express), iPhoto, so you've got a full suite of media editing tools.
As for DVR. With remote control, $159. Don't know much about it... I have my DirecTivos.
http://www.miglia.com/products/video...dvr/index.html
I can't speak for its quality (that was just a paste from MacWorld), but then again... according to the Washington Post and New York Times technology editors, I think we're still waiting on a quality DVR for Windows.
Timothy