Newbie Looking For Laptop Purchase

I'm looking into purchasing a laptop for my parents. Originally, I was looking into the Dell 1705 Inspiron, since my parents will be viewing photos, and the 17 inch screen will be ideal. Then, I heard people talk about Mac and how wonderful they are. I have not considered a Mac until now. They already have a PC so I thought having something different would be nice. My parents aren't really computer geeks. Basically they would be doing photo and web surfing. Are the new Macs overkill? The 17 inch screen of the Mac Pro would be nice, but at close to 3k, and the applications that they would use, this would be overkill. Is this generation of Macs that much better? What other Macs would you recommend? Screen size must be at least 15 inches. Thanks

(1) Expect that this will get moved to a more appropriate forum.

(2) MBPs are certainly overkill for browsing and photo-viewing. But if a 15" screen is a minimum requirement, smaller Mac notebooks won't qualify. How about a smaller/cheaper Mac notebook and an external monitor? That would give them the ease of a Mac, portability of a notebook, but the ability to look at stuff on a bigger screen when at home.

A 17" powerbook G4 might be ideal. You can probably find one on ebay or craigslist for less than $1500. Still a very powerfull machine, and definately capable (and maybe still overkill) for what you are looking for. It will have to be used most likely, but it will be new to your parents. And the powerbooks keep their finish very well.

For looking at photos and surfing almost any Mac would be overkill when pc laptops that will do the job are so much less in price.

Now if you want to give em the best give em a Mac. Don't think you could go wrong on a Mac Pro laptop, just expect to pay top end price for any model you pick.