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mac recommendations
i was asked today what i would recommend if someone were buying a mac this month; in case you’re considering it too here are my first thoughts.
if it will be in one spot in the house, and not portable, i recommend a 20″ iMac for $1200 or a 24″ iMac for $1800 because the screen is so much larger than a laptop.
if portability is valued, then i recommend a small, light and white 13″ MacBook for $999 or the new, all aluminum 13″ MacBook with wizzy trackpad for $1300. The difference between these is hard to characterize, the extra memory and the stiffer case and new trackpad are nice. But maybe not worth the extra $300 if price sensitive. Best to go look at both in an Apple store to compare, aesthetically different fell to each. I’d spend the extra for the aluminum one personally.
but if not price sensitive, the coolest laptop by far is the MacBook Air for $1800. just pick one of these up in an Apple store and you’ll know what I mean. Really. they’re just that amazing. blows your mind how light and thin they are. not as fast, but for most of what we do on a computer, plenty fast.
my only real concern though with a laptop, is that the screens are so much smaller. if the computer is going to just sit on a certain desk forever, then the imac is a better solution. it’s basically just a thin, flat panel monitor with the computer built into that, so they don’t take up any more space really. they’re a great value.
but if you really need portable, and a larger screen size, which is my personal situation, then you would get the 15″ or 17″ macbook pro. These are from $2000 to $2800 but then offer more screen and are still quite portable.
and of course if you don’t like the mac software that comes on the computer, you can ditch it and install Windows XP or Windows Vista on these instead. Or run both Mac and Windows as needed. that just costs the additional expense of buying a retail copy of Windows, for something around $100. I know people who use a MacBook Pro and only run Windows on it. they just prefer the mac laptop over dell or alternatives. and it looks like the mac laptops are winning a lot of people over, if you look at market share trends, so if you go mac you won’t be such an outlier anymore.
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