Mac Book vs Mac Book Air vs PC

I'm in the market for a new laptop and could use some advice. First off I've been using primarily PC's primarily for most of my life, but I'm giving some serious thought to getting a Mac instead this time, seems like each PC I've had I've liked less and less. So I'd love to hear from people who've had experience with both...is there anything I'm going to miss that I used to be able to do on a PC that I won't be able to do on a Mac? Mostly I do DG & email, photos, Quicken, occasional word processing/spreadsheets, and a few games (which I'm not so attached to that I care whether I can play them anymore, as long as there are others to replace them!).

Then the 2nd question is assuming I go with the Mac, do I go with the MacBook or the MacBook Air? Besides the obvious size difference, the differences that I'm aware of are the Air has a smaller screen, smaller hard drive, and you need an external CD/DVD drive and I'm fine with all of those things, but I wonder if there's anything else it's missing in terms of capabilities given the types of things I want to do with the computer.

I appreciate any/all thoughts!