i am having trouble deciding which mac to purchase initially i was going to go with the macbook pro because it seemed like good middle ground between power and portability as it is the most powerful computer which is still portable but then i did not know if i need all the power and so possibly a macbook air or a macbook is better i do not mind too much about the size or weight but the macbook air is cheaper so if i do not need the power of a macbook pro is makes sense to buy a macbook air for the money saving i also like the macbook because it has a retina display like the macbook pro but it has similar power and size to the macbook air but this is more expensive i heard the macbook is underpowered and i tried one in the apple store and it lagged just switching between windows the frames per second seemed to be low as the animation was stuttering if it cannot even run its own os how is it supposed to run any programs on top of the os but it looks nice and i am willing to sacrifice power for a good looking computer also the keyboard is good it was easier to type on and i made less typos however i feel going back to a normal keyboard such as at work after getting used to the macbook keyboard will cause me to make typos on the normal keyboard as i got used to the macbook keyboard where you can hit the edge of the keys and it will still type i am not sure what the battery life of the macbook is like the macbook air seems like a macbook actually it is slightly more powerful than the macbook but it does not have a retina display and it is cheaper so maybe this is a better option if i do not need the retina display i am not sure if i require the retina display or not i dont know if the battery life is better on the macbook or the macbook air the macbook pro has lower battery life also the macbook pro and macbook air come in different sizes so i do not know whether to go for 11 inches or 13 inches if i chose a macbook air and for a macbook pro i would need to choose between 13 inches and 15 inches the 15 inch laptop is the best size in my opinion and i do not mind about the weight coming from a windows laptop as even the 15 inch macbook pro is lighter than my current laptop but the price is quite a lot higher it is about 800 dollars more for a 15 inch screen than a 13 inch display so this would need to be taken into account do you think it is worth paying this amount for 2 more inches of display space i was also looking at desktop computers the imac is a good computer but it is not portable i dont know if i need a portable computer or not but it would be a nice feature to have the screen size of the imac is good and it seems to be powerful enough or a mac pro this computer would definitely be powerful enough but it is expensive and i would need to purchase a display on top of this i would probably go for an apple display to match the computer so this would cost approaching 5000 dollars which is quite a lot a 27 inch imac is almost the same but it costs about 2500 dollars so it is half as much but a bit less powerful the mac mini is also an option this computer is more portable but i would need to make sure there was a display wherever i was going to take it also i would not be able to use it on the train or plane or in a coffee shop for example because there would be no display there to connect the computer to i think for my lifestyle a laptop is better however a desktop computer is also better because of the screen size of the display and because it is more powerful so i do not know which computer to choose another option is to buy an apple laptop and a thunderbolt display and then this is like having a desktop and a laptop however the laptop is not as powerful as if i had a normal desktop so i do not know if this solution would work for my requirements my favourite computer in terms of aesthetics is the macbook however i dont know if this will be powerful enough for my needs if it cant even run the operating system in an apple store how is it going to perform when i install programs on it because these need to run on top of the operating system i think the second version of the macbook may be a better computer with more power and hopefully it will be powerful enough to run its own operating system with no programs open without slowing down also the next version of mac os is said to use less computer resources so maybe this will help with these issues however it may still lag when programs are open even simple programs such as microsoft word or the mail application on mac os the 27 inch imac with retina display also has a similar problem the animations are choppy when there are not even any programs open and it is supposed to have good hardware so i am not sure why mac os takes so much computer power to run i cant imagine how choppy it would be if you were to actually open even one program on this machine however again the computer may be better when the next version of mac os comes out and it may be updated with better hardware as well but i am not sure which computer to choose please can anyone help me make this decision thank you in advance for any help you are able to offer me