You need to decide what it is that you're looking for. If you are in the apple battery efficiency camp, there is nothing else to look at. You won't be swayed by pricing. There is nothing else in the market, and all the pricing talk is meaningless. Will you be swayed if I offered you a laptop for $500 ?
This all started with "they're ridiculously expensive" and ended with "there's nothing else in the market". Those two are intimately related.
The complete package is reasonably priced, when compared to other systems. If you completely ignore one part of the package, then sure, you can find something comparable, as my initial comment pointed out with the portable desktop replacements.
But the price on the shelf is for the complete package.
