Macbook Pro now or wait until the next release?

Hi everyone,

This is my first post on the forum so hopefully I won’t manage to upset anyone!

I have had my Dell laptop for 5 years which I paid just under £500 for. It has served me well but I feel like it’s on its way out soon and so I am thinking about making a significant upgrade to a Macbook Pro. I’d quite like to have a cross over whereby I can transfer everything from my old laptop to my new one so I don’t lose everything!

Firstly, having read a few threads on here I note people have said the MBP has a life expectancy of around 3 years. Is this really the case considering the cost and also the Apple brand, compared to my laptop which would be more than half the price and has so far lasted 5 years! I think if this is the case I will instantly need to rethink my options as I don’t really like the idea of having to spend over £1,000 every few years!

I am currently looking at the cheapest option, being the 13” for £999, but paying the add on to upgrade the hard drive to 750 gig. I will be using it as my primary computer for browsing, a large amount of downloading and I will also look to (finally) start learning the art of photo manipulation and uploading and editing camcorder made films. It will also be used for travelling so I will watch a number of films etc on there.

Because the current screen resolution for the 13” is 1280x800, compared to the 13” Air which is 1440x900 or the 15” Pro, do you think there’d be a big noticeable difference between the two resolutions for what my usage would be? Although the Air looks extremely nice it’s so much more expensive considering I’d like a sizeable hard drive and the 256 gig Air is pretty much double the price of the Pro.
Although I don’t use my CD/DVD burner daily I do use it to burn films, create CD’s etc, so I think this would be another reason to sway from the Air.

Would I be ok with just having the dual-core i5 for what my requirements are or is there an argument to consider the i7?

The big question I have which I’d like your opinion on, as I know things in the Apple world are hush hush until the big release, is if you would recommend I went for something like a 13” Pro now, or wait until whenever the next one is released? If my laptop can hold out that long! Is the rumour of the next release October/November 2012? I’m familiar with all the “wait until 2013, 2014, 2015” jokes by the way!!

I was reading this thread which is a year old now, but interesting to hear people’s opinions on what the MBP would be like in 12-24 months time. As the jargon doesn’t mean much to me, I wonder how close they were and also what their opinion is now knowing what they know! http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1105148

Thank you very much for your kind anticipated help and advice.

Lee.

 

Oh wow, is the rumour that it will be out in only a couple of months? I thought (correct me if I'm wrong) that the latest MBP is from October 2011, so I expected the 2012 one would be in October too.

I'd be more than happy to wait a couple of months!