TBH, even as a fully mac'd up house, a top end laptop from Sony, etc would probably do her just as well. I have added W8 to all the new desktops at the office and they are not touch screen, but its still a functional 'pretty ' version of windows and was the cheapest way of getting an OS onto clean machines, W7 was already more expensive and XP [what the staff would have had if they could] a non starter.
However, my personal experience with Macs [I have 1 of each, MBP, MBA, iMac] - more robust physically than the collections of Dells and Acers we have had over the years, and yes this has been tested by a certain degree of clumsiness by one household member. They do breakdown, the HD in my MBP failed at 1yr & 2 weeks old, though luckily, the nice SMART system that is part of the OS told me it was failing and gave me time to back anything up and then get it down to the Mac store. I had got Applecare [the 3 year warranty] and so no problems replacing it - wondered round Brent Cross shopping centre for an hour, went back to collect my freshly repaired machine. The 'expert' did tell me that they would have done it anyway, even without Mac care, at only 2 weeks outside warranty - luckily I didn't have to test this bit of information
Usability - it takes a bit of getting used to when coming over from Windows, but the basics are the same. OS looks much nicer, screens are always better than any on a PC laptop, apart from the very high end pc machines [note: only IMO!! before anyone argues the point]
However, the thing that has swung it for me is how they work - again, this is simply my experience and not a technical absolute - macs seem use their hardware resources much more efficiently than a windows machine, so for example, my original iMac [bought 2nd hand to test the waters] was lower spec'd than the desktop pc I was using at the time [slower processor, but both Intel dual cores, less Ram, both on 250GB HD's] but ran every comparable program much quicker. CS4, MS Office, etc etc.... both machines were of a similar age and the PC had a clean windows install and I don't tend to fill my machines with junk either... so just as a random side by side test, Mac won. I chatted at the time to a few people that had opportunity to compare like for like and they said they had a similar experience. I will reiterate that this is not an absolute, too many other factors could be at play, it was simply my experience.
programs - again, if she uses lots of software this is where it could become financially silly. Some stuff [Adobe for example iirc] will allow you to change your existing licence from a windows one to a Mac one, so no problem, others won't. So, on my main iMac I run MS Office for Macs just because I got a really good deal on it when I purchased the machine, but the laptops just have Open Office, which does the same job and is free. All the common browsers now have Mac versions, Firefox, Chrome, etc. Yes, every so often even a mac will freeze, or something will stop running, but it happens a lot less often than it did on any windows machines I ever or still do own.
DVD drives, yes, current models are without, and if its an Air she is looking at, they never did, but an MBP, look at buying 2nd hand and you will get one with a drive [in fact I would thoroughly recommend 2nd hand if she is determined to have one as its a way to dip your toe in, see how it goes, and still get a good chunk of your money back if she decides after 3 months she doesn't like it]. Even pc machines are looking to phase them out, it will just take a lot longer to happen due to their market share and the demand amongst buyers for 'familiarity' - either way, don't worry, you are buying it for the good lady, a disc or a USB stick both drop easily into a handbag
So, thats simply my experience as someone that has moved over to fruit based computing over the last few years. There are pro's and cons for both systems as laid out very nicely earlier in the thread.
Finally, I know you can go into a store and try machines out, but can you find someone local that has a mac that you can have a longer play with, for a few hours while sharing a coffee and chat kind of thing... it will at least give you an idea of what you would be letting yourself in for - lets face it, we would suggest this is considering new camera equipment, why not for a whole new computer system
so she wants a Mac Book Pro thingy.
