My Life on a Mac

[AYHJA]

Having said that then, of course my question is would you recommend a Mac or a PC to someone who was asking..?

[zaphodz]

I'm in the market for a new laptop. I'm looking at the new MacBook Pro's that have just been released - thinking about getting the base model 2.4GHz 15 inch one.

Just gotta fine tune the finances somewhat.

There are some things I have to run under a Windows environment, so I'll be Boot Camping XP on it. As much as possible though, I'll be trying out Mac OS.

For the things that don't require 3D acceleration, I'll use VMWare/Parallels.

Gonna give my PC to my sister. Probably never go back to a PC I suspect. Friends are gaming quite happily on the MacBook Pros. PC gaming is kinda dying anyway...

[happywonton]

The MBP has been out for a while. Unless you really need one right now, I'd wait for a possible update coming "soon." I've checked random rumor sites and supposedly there's one that's due.

As far as applications, when I first got my Mac, I used VMware and it was straight. But I got tired of running it because it made my MBP very hot (A solution is to use smcFanControl which controls the fan speed for a MBP). If you want to throw out some applications, I can try to recommend their mac alernates. Macupdate is a great site to find various tools as well.

Also, if you're not a student, I'd try to find someone that is because that discount can make the base model be around $1800 or so.

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As far as recommending a mac, I'd say it just depends on what they're going to do with it. I wouldn't really say I'd recommend it for gaming because most games seem to be Pro-PC but as far as entertainment, I'd def. recommend one. Image editing, video, pictures, and especially music. The various apps I found off of Macupdate helped me do things that a PC could only dream of doing. Also there is less maintenance I have to keep up with and I'd say that through long-term use of a Mac, I'm now converted.

[zaphodz]

Going to be running games under XP via Boot Camp.

[AYHJA]

For those prices, I'll never have a Mac...For a Mac w/similar features to my laptop I would have probably been out of double what I paid for this one...If someone gave me a nice ass mac to play with, that would probably be the only way I switch...

[zaphodz]

Actually last Friday Dell had a 10% off deal (for 1 hour only) and I couldn't resist. I fully tricked out a M1330 laptop: 2.6GHz dual core Penryn, 4G ram, 320G Hard Disk, LED backlight display. Nice light portable machine. Less than half price of the MacBook Pro.

Has HDMI out :)

When I get it I'll throw up a review...