Advice For MacBook Owner Looking For Upgrade

[DadHatter]

Hi, everyone! I'm a long, long time lurker, but I figured I would sign up to ask a could of questions. Currently, I own a BlackBook, 2.16 C2D with 2 GB of memory and a 160 GB hard drive. Anyway, I'm your standard web designer/SEO guy, but I'd like to start doing some recording at home, so I'm going to upgrade.

I *have* to have a laptop, so having a desktop only set-up is not possible. My question is, should I go for a 24" iMac, and hold onto my MacBook, or should I just wait for the MacBook Pro update to happen, and add an external monitor?

For those who had a similar predicament, what did you do? Are you happy with your decision? FWIW, the MacBook *could* get me through until the MBP update happens, but I kind of like the idea of having a desktop for my daily work, and using the laptop only when I'm hanging out on the couch, in bed, or on the road for work. Then again, a MBP would allow me to have one system for everything, and would allow me to sell the MacBook to finance it.

Thoughts?

Mike

 

[drummerlondonw3]

Hi Mike,

well I was in a similar position to you and went down the MBP route. You really dont have the compromise of anything in my opinion. The speed of the system is on par for 95% of the activities compared to an imac.

I was commenting about this in a recent thread. Its unlikely that a new case revision will come out soon. If you go and take the plunge now I think you would at least have another 6 months before a speed bump and possibly longer for a case redesign.

I went into a somewhat vicious circle while waiting for the upgrade to the current generation MBPs - I have to say though with the lower operating temperature and the move to 45nm architecture of the processor I felt that it was the right time to move.

That said I cannot see another significant jump (other than slight proc and hard drive improvements) until much later and coupled with the news that the macbooks are likely to see an new case design this summer this might be the best time to cash in on your blackbook and get the maximum for it and bridge the price gap - which is significant

Hope my rambles help - if you need any other info on how my MBP runs let me know, my mate runs an aluminium imac with the 2.8ghz extreme processor so if you need any comparison I can help

dave