Possible Regret

Dell has a window where you can return it. (I wish I had done that last summer)

The graphics card doesn't really do anything for movie watching btw.

If you really aren't sure, give Dell a call and ask them about how you would cancel it.

 

I don't know how to help you cancel your oder from Dell, but I'll help you with the other portions of your post.

First off, virus protection software isn't needed. I know it feels like you should have it, but you don't need it. OS X will take care of itself as long as you don't do anything overly stupid.

Secondly, you mentioned that the Dell was cheaper relative to the specs. However, did you find out how much it weighs, the battery life it gives, the thickness of the laptop? I assume you're going to school in the near future (or now), which means that these things will be important to you. Don't use internal specs as your only attribute of comparison.

Thirdly, your Blu Ray movies will indeed not play on a macbook (though I doubt they would on the Dell either). I think your only option here would be an external drive.

 

IMO 2GB of RAM on a vista machine is equivalent to 1GB on a computer running OS X cuz vista is such a resource hog!!

 

I very much agree. Your RAM disappears with Vista. I was on a Toshiba with 1gb, and it was horribly slow! Leopard, on the other hand, runs fine on 512mb. But of course, it runs better on more. Also, have you thought about the resale value of the two machines? The MB's resale in a year will be much higher than the Dell. You may think that you will use it for 4 or 5 years, but you may get into some work that it can't handle. I, for example, bought a MB three days after they were released with the intention to keep it throughout the AppleCare contract. I didn't know, though, that I would serious into video work. I sold it and got a MBP after it started slowing down. Great machine if I would have started video work. Like one of the other posts said, you need to consider more than just internal specs. Also, what is the max RAM the Dell can handle? Is it only 3.3gb, or can it do 4gb?

 

This is plain wrong. Lets not spread lies about Vista to push the OS X agenda. In fact, in many ways I find OS X to be more of a hog.

We are doing testing in my office to see what kind of performance hit we would take when we move our users to Vista. We found that if we keep with our current standard (Dell Optiplex 745, 2GB, Core 2 Duo, etc) it sails along just fine and even more so when we yank all the extra visual stuff.

Anyhow, if you plan on making claims such as this you should back it up with some testing. It is people like you that make it difficult for Mac users to be taken seriously, because you do not research and you make ridiculous claims.

 

Ok fine.. i didn't do any testing to prove this, but look at it this way. The minimum requirements for Vista Home Premium is 1GB of ram the minimum requirements for Leopard is 512 mb of RAM so whether you buy the macbook or stick with the Dell in this case ur getting approximately double the RAM u need to run ur OS properly. So theres no reason to worry about the loss of 1GB if the OP were to move to the Macbook.

 

As someone else said, won't help at all with movies. They play fine on either. Not BR of course. Won't play on mac at least.

It won't. Most problems with Vista have been with upgrading a machine that didn't ship with Vista other than the annoyances of Vista itself.

No security concern at all IMO

Don't know what this is

Totally bogus

Not safer. Probably not less safe but it's frequent pop-ups, screen shading everytime you download something is pretty annoying IMO. You can disable this but I think your security is adversely affected though.

 

The "trojan" your are talking about is only obtained because some people where downloading porn off of a sketchy site. As long as you download programs from reputable sites, there will be no problems with OS X. Worst comes to worst, just install Vista using boot camp and you can run it on your Macbook. I also was in your situation, thinking about a Dell or HP laptop. But the battery life on those are both about half that of the macbook. They are much bigger and heavier. They do not use as high a quality of hardware as Macbooks do. In the long run you will save money with the Macbook since it will keep it's retail value much better. They actually have done tests and a Macbook runs Vista faster than any other similarly specced laptop.

 

Try again, straight from the MS: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/editions/systemrequirements.mspx

There is a difference between recommendation and requirement, the 1GB for Vista is a recommendation, while the 512MB is the minimum supported. Oddly enough it matches Leopards minimum requirement. Apple doesn't seem to give a recommended system type, probably because we all know what Apple has and what is over the minimum.

So with a false premise, your conclusion is indeed false.

 

install OS X on your m1330!

http://uneasysilence.com/os-x-proven-hacked-and-running-on-an-ordinary-pc/

Theres better instructions out on the internet somewhere, I'm sure you can find them if these don't do.

Honestly, this would be the sweetest set up out there.

 

Look, if you can return it, do so. If you are feeling regret now, you obviously liked the macbook better. Go with the one which you really want because you don't want to regret it later on. It's what one of my friends always tells me and it's solid advice IMO. Get the one which will make you the most happy.