Help/advice about buying a mac laptop plz

[d.am]

There are probably a hundred questions like this on here so If ur p##### off by it sorry but i think a direct answer will allow me to buy a mac with confidence at least

I am buying my first mac -looking at the mac book pro
need a laptop


also want to record music on it either via a pro tools set up or simply garageband
want to do all my office based work on it
i want it to last

I have been slightly worried about the threasds where i learned about the santa rosa and leapard updates

obviously novice questions and i may have some more

but i would be grateful for some advice

thanks

 

[dartzorichalcos]

Do you need portability or not?
Since the Santa Rosa platform and Leopard are not far off from being released, I suggest you wait.
If you don't need portability and don't want to wait, I suggest getting this:

Refurbished MacBook Pro, 17-inch, 2.16GHz Intel Core Duo
17-inch widescreen display (1680x1050 resolution)
1GB (single SODIMM) 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM
120GB 5400-rpm Serial ATA hard drive
Slot-load SuperDrive (DVD±RW/CD-RW)
ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 with 256MB GDDR3 memory
Built-in iSight Camera
Front Row and Apple Remote
• Save 29% off the original price
Original price: $2,799.00
Your price: $1,999.00

or this:

Refurbished Mac Pro Quad 2.0GHz Intel Xeon
Two 2.0GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon processors
1GB (2 x 512MB) memory (667MHz DDR2 fully-buffered DIMM ECC)
250GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s 7200-rpm hard drive
16x SuperDrive (double-layer)
NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT graphics with 256MB memory
• Save 14% off the original price
Original price: $2,199.00
Your price: $1,899.00

 

[d.am]

portabilty is essential

Is the new stuff going to be that much better?

 

[dartzorichalcos]

Is the new stuff going to be that much better?

Yes because the computers are going to have a faster and better platform. OpenGL applications might be as 2x faster with Leopard.
Are you going to wait or not?
If you really need portability and can't wait, how about this:

15" 2.16GHz Intel Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro
1440 x 900 pixels
1GB memory (upgradeable to 2GB for another $175 from Apple)
120GB hard drive
6x double-layer SuperDrive
ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 graphics with 128MB SDRAM
$1,999.00

 

[zblaxberg]

The lower end macbook pro or the higher end macbook should be just fine...if you go macbook add in some ram to help with running any pro audio applications