Mac vs. PC

Hi,
I'm not really technical savvy so when people start talking rams or GhZ I draw a blank. I need a new laptop for work & home use though. I use it a lot, for writing project proposals, creating posters, downloading photos, charts, working on excel, working on my company website (currently created on dreamweaver). I also want to be able to edit film footage from DVD's, create DVD's (I have not done until now)

What laptop should I get? People keep screaming a Mac at me, but with the cheapest MacBook Pro running at 1399 Euro, and me preferring the larger screen which starts at 1599 that's a lot of money.

However because I am not a technical wizard I do need something that is easy to understand and use.

My current HP PC has 480MbRam. 1.70Ghz processor. ...? I have 3 USB ports and I use all of them. Why are Macs so expensive? What do I get? What about storage, my current PC is on overload as I have so much on there, it has made it very slow- despite regular defrags. Any advice is welcome.

Thanks!