A little push before I take the leap!

[Hands Sandon]

By future proof I mean, will the laptop still do a very good job after a year? two years? 3 years? Will using it seem like torture as the years pass? Will it be able to support the next big thing?
I made the mistake when I bought the black macbook, don't want to do it again!

I plan on keeping my base 13 for at least 3 years. If you want i7's et al get the 15. But with that you'll have heat, fan noise and weight for those years and you'll save a few seconds here and there because of it, big deal.

 

[Patrick946]

I made the mistake when I bought the black macbook, don't want to do it again!

Why was it a mistake, was there something much better at the time? Would anything that was available at the time be performing well enough for you today that you wouldn't want to upgrade? No computer is future proof, it's just a question of how much power you need right now, and how long you can hold off before upgrading.

 

[torbjoern]

By future proof I mean, will the laptop still do a very good job after a year? two years? 3 years? Will using it seem like torture as the years pass? Will it be able to support the next big thing?
I made the mistake when I bought the black macbook, don't want to do it again!

Oh - in that sense, I think it will likely be fully usable within that time horizon (less than 4 years). That is, if you will keep using it for the same things as indicated in OP. Macs usually keep doing a good job far longer than Wintel PCs. Whether you intend to keep it for 3-4 years or sell it after 1-2 years, you should at least purchase the one with 4 GB of RAM.