I'm looking to pick up a new mac for my desktop setup and I'm considering either getting a Mac Mini and/or Macbook Air/Pro/White (I've got two 23" screens that I already have, as well as good speakers, keyboard and mouse). My main uses are for fairly simple things such as browsing, e-mail, music, photos, etc. Some of the other uses for it will be for research as well as for developing code for some numerical simulations myself and my advisor will be running (currently in grad school) - the simulations won't be run on the desktop/laptop, we will be sending the jobs to a cluster to process. I also would like to play the occasional game here and there (nothing really too new, some of my current favourites are x-plane, call of duty 4, the sims 3, red alert 3, train simulator - and perhaps i'd be pushing it but maybe something like black ops and some other steam games).
Anyway, my question is whether in anyone's experience I would be able to use the current machines above offered by Apple for a half-decent overall experience based on my needs/wants. I've tried doing my own research on the Macs currently available but can't seem to come up with decision of what to get or what would be the better deal for the money (ie. macbook or mac mini for example, macbook being for when I go to school for meetings/work, etc - or perhaps even an ipad for when I got to school and mac mini for home?). Ideally I'd like to spend as little money as possible being a student
Anyway, my question is whether in anyone's experience I would be able to use the current machines above offered by Apple for a half-decent overall experience based on my needs/wants. I've tried doing my own research on the Macs currently available but can't seem to come up with decision of what to get or what would be the better deal for the money (ie. macbook or mac mini for example, macbook being for when I go to school for meetings/work, etc - or perhaps even an ipad for when I got to school and mac mini for home?). Ideally I'd like to spend as little money as possible being a student