Long time Windows user making the switch...sort of

Hey guys,

I've been around Macrumors for a number of months now checking out some of the forum postings but really haven't had the need to register and post until now. Truth be told, I've been a long time Windows user primary dealing with Dell equipment both at my home and my office environment. I've had my Dell Insprion notebook for a while, and it's been great, but it's a dated 1.6GHz Centrino with only a 1GB of RAM. So as the tasks that I've been making it take on have become more and more sluggish, I'm thinking it's about time I'm in the market for a new laptop.

I mainly work in website design and data processing. Design being in Adobe products like Dreamweaver and Flash which I know have Mac versions as well. I've been interested in pursuing the use of iMove because I've never really gotten well adjusted to Sony Vegas on my PC whatsoever with it's crazy performance issues on my machine as well. Some slight photo editing in Photoshop and whatnot, and then mainly I have a lot of e-mail and then the data processing that can be done from any web browser pretty much. Nothing extremely power hungry, but I'm still wanting something that will take on extra tasks when they come along.

I've had the intention of playing around with a Macbook Pro in person to make sure that I'll like its "in person" layout and appearance and whatnot, but sadly my nearest store is around two and a half hours away. I've looked at the prices online and have compared to MacMall.com which a friend told me about, and I'm tempted to go with them due to the price difference and the more options to finance (Bill Me Later, MacMall credit card, etc). I tried to apply for Apple's "Juniper Credit Card" but I haven't received any credit decision back from them, so I don't think I'll sit around and wait. Has anyone here purchased a Mac product from MacMall and had success? I'm definitely going to check out a Macbook Pro in person at a store and get myself familiar with what kind of changes I'll have to make, but for the most part I doubt there are going to be too many.

Also, I've poked around the forums to see that there might be an update to the Macbook Pro in the near future. But this is still planned or speculated for around the end of the year, right?

Just thought I'd check in and see what others thought. Thanks.