Becoming a Mac home

[New2me]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8B117 Safari/6531.22.7)

With ~$2,500 to spend, and the goal of becoming a Mac home, what Apple products should I purchase to accomplish my goal?
I was thinking:
Mac Book Pro 15"
Mini Mac (keep using my existing monitor)
Apple TV

My wife and I already own IPhones.
What combo of products do you think I should buy to become a Mac house, and why? Keep your responses around the $2,500 price range, please.

 

[Hellhammer]

What will the machines be used for? That determines what specs you should be looking at. Your current plan sounds okay although if you arent a heavy user, 13" MBP might be just fine

 

[New2me]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8B117 Safari/6531.22.7)

Sorry, I should have specified. I'll be using it for everyday basic home use (Quicken, Internet, email, etc), entertainment (movies, netflix, music).
I want to begin doing some video editing of home movies.
And beyond that I'm open to your suggestions! I want to learn about the many ways I can use Apple technology in the home to automate and enjoy life.

 

[Hellhammer]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8B117 Safari/6531.22.7)

Sorry, I should have specified. I'll be using it for everyday basic home use (Quicken, Internet, email, etc), entertainment (movies, netflix, music).
I want to begin doing some video editing of home movies.
And beyond that I'm open to your suggestions! I want to learn about the many ways I can use Apple technology in the home to automate and enjoy life.

13" MBP would be fine for your needs but the higher res in 15" (especially if you choose hi res screen like you should) is very good for editing since it takes a lot screen space. On the other hand, you could do that with the Mini and use your current monitor for that. If you don't need the Mini right now, you may want to wait for the update which should happen soon.

All in all, if you want the 15", go ahead and buy it. You won't regret it. If you want to save some $ or maybe get an iPad 2 with the leftover, go with the 13" MBP.

 

[AdrianK]

The base 15" or 13" MBP sounds fine for your needs. Unless you have other people in your household I don't see why you need the mac mini, the MBP is more powerful and you can hook it up to an external monitor.

 

[flynz4]

You did not mention anything about travel. Hence, my advice would be:

• 27" iMac with either a 1TB or 2TB drive, depending on how large you expect your digital life to expand. Keeping everything on 1 large drive simplifies backup significantly.
• Apple TV
• Some sort of external HD for local backups
• Cloud backup service

That advice is predicated on an assumption that your current monitor does not support 2560 pixels across (few do)... which for me indicates it is ready for recycling. If you do have a high resolution monitor (2560X1440 or 2560X1600)... then you could get a Mac Mini to drive your existing monitor... but then you still may need more HDD storage if it is your primary machine.

If you do moderate travel... I would supplement the above with an iPad. If you do extensive travel, then I would eventually get a MacBook Air as funds allow.

/Jim