I was at the store a few days ago, looking around to see if there was any new piece of technology that I just couldn’t live without, and I noticed something strange…  I walked by the notebook computer display and was taken aback by the sheer number of computers that were on display.  Normally I would say that choice is a good thing and the more options we have the better, but in this case I will go in the opposite direction and say PC makers have flooded the market with too many choices and not enough to differentiate them from the next model.  The best example was HP, there were over 18 different models of HP laptops to choose from.  There was the DV6000 series, DV7000 series, DV8000 series, there was also the TX series of notebooks.  Now, for the average consumer looking at these choices, what they see is a mass of similar looking computers and a bunch of numbers under them to show what they have (Anyone who has tried to help out a parent or someone new to computers will know that they put a lot of stock into those numbers - how much RAM they have, the processor speed, and the graphics processor - but almost all of the computers were very similar in specs so it raises the question; why are there so many models from each company that do basically the same thing?  18 models of HP notebooks, 12 different VAIOs, 10 different Toshibas, and various other models that all essentially do the exact same thing.  The main difference between them was the screen size.  It was a world of confusion that was a pain not only for the shoppers but also for the retail outlets who have to stock two of each computer just to have room for their other products - this means that if Sony came out with a killer system that everyone wanted, the store could only hold about 2 or 3 of them because they wouldn’t have room in their warehouse for anymore since they had to carry at least one or two of the other 40 models.  It wasn’t even just the laptops that were confusing, a quick stroll through the graphics card aisle put me up against a solid wall of products that had similar boxes and similar names but were somehow different.  If I was a clueless computer user looking to upgrade my PC, would I want to go with the 8800GT, the 8800GTS, the 7800 series, the 12 different types of NVidia cards, the over-clocked cards (I realized I only mentioned a few specific cards but I didn’t take the time to write them all down)?  It is no wonder that people get angry and frustrated when they go computer shopping.  You may not appreciate Apple, but give them credit for figuring out what consumers want - they want choice but they want a reasonable amount of choice.  I walk into an Apple shop and find four types of computers and within those types I see about 3 models to choose from.  People who are new to computers or are generally afraid of technology can handle that.  If you want a consumer level notebook computer than you are automatically down to three choices, if you want to burn DVDs then you are left with two options and at that point you are basically down to picking out the color you want.  Simple and easy to understand.  I think that is one of the reasons that Apple is doing so well in the notebook segment, they take a lot of the hard work out of the choices.