Though I and some other Apple fanboys have been noting this for months if not years, it’s always good to see an independent firm come to the same conclusion: Apple Macintosh Computers Likely To Gain Market Share.

ChangeWave Research conducted two studies to determine PC-buying plans for the next few months and for laptops, guess which company was right up there? Apple. According to the poll, 29% of likely buyers were going to go with an Apple computer of some kind, this number was only behind those who planned on buying a Dell desktop at 31%. Apple beat Dell laptops (28%), HP desktops (24%), HP laptops (21%), and all else in the field.

If you think second in such a survey is nothing to write home about, consider that Apple’s overall marketshare is still just 8.1%. If these numbers hold, expect that to surge in the coming year. Forbes noted a very similar finding 2 days ago: consumers crave Macs.

Just in my own personal experience I find it interesting that sentiment about buying a Mac has seemed to go from ‘but nothing works on it’ when I bought my first one 3 years ago to now being either ‘it’s my next computer’ or ‘if it was just cheaper I’d buy one’. I think Apple really needs to step it up with a super-cheap laptop to secure potential buyers with price concerns. The first Mac I bought was a relatively cheap iBook G4, which then made me turn around and buy another much more expensive iMac less than a year later. The cheap iBook was like a gateway drug as now I’m shopping around for an even more expensive MacBook Pro (though I’ll probably wait for this).