I'm planning to replace my five year old Dell Dimension with an Intel based Mac. Given that I've never used Macs, I did some research this weekend and have narrowed my choice down to Macbook and Macbook Pro (we don't want another "desktop).

I understand that the major difference between the Macbook and Macbook Pro is with respect to the graphics card - the former has it integrated with the motherboard while the latter has a separate graphics card. Another difference is that Pros are (almost) standard with Superdrives (CD RW & DVD RW) while Macbooks have a standard drive with an optional Superdrive. Pros also have an "expansion port" while Macbooks don't.

The difference in price is significant, however. Am I missing any other fundamental differences? And what exactly is the purpose of the "expansion" port?

The salesman at my local Apple store indicated that the standard 512 MB RAM was more than sufficient for most applications and users but recommended upping to 1 GB if loading Windows XP. Does this sound right?

From a switching perspective, I foresee loading Windows XP so that I can continue to use certain Windows only applications (Microsoft Money, Visio & VPN client). For people who have loaded XP on Intel based Macs, how easy/hard is it to load XP? And is there a significant drop in performance in XP on a Macbook vs. XP on a Macbook Pro vs. XP on a, say, Dell laptop?

Any other "tips" on making the "switch"?