seeking your advice - Apple MB\P on a XP based home network

[Pollux]

ho'k, so I'm a long time lurker, first time poster!

Just want to ask for a bit of honest advice from Mac peeps with far more expereince than me....

My old faithful PC is on her last legs - five years of Uni (college to others) and the old beast is finally showing her age (see sig block....old).

So, I'm thinking of retiring her to better pastures as a home server, running XP Pro, and being a file/interwebs/print server.

Meanwhile, I upgrade to a shiny new mac....considering a new MBP if the update 1) comes out soon-ish (ie next ~2mths) and 2) is sufficiently future-proof for a lifetime of about 4 years.

I just want to see if this sort of config would be workable, or if it would be better to maybe sell up some other gear (i got a Fujitsu LifeBook T3010 gathering dust), buy a Mac Mini as a stop-gap, and get a new MBP in, say, 9-10 mths.....

Oh, any replacement for my current PC would have to be pretty hardcore - i do some amature photography, and would probably use something like Bootcamp for gaming (so desktop replacement).

I'm REALLY not keen on Vista, so I would rlly like to make this mac config work.

any advice??

 

[digitalpencil]

Welcome to MR.

If you want a notebook and to play games, then an MBP is the only way to go as MBs have integrated graphics that aren't supported by the majority of modern games. In terms of future-proofing, buying a mac-mini as a 'stop-gap' or waiting for a new MBP rev.. it's difficult to say.
Firstly, there's been lots of speculation about a new MBP, what it will offer and when it will be released but no-one can confirm or deny the majority of these claims. Evidence in 5.2 builds support that a 'MacBookPro4,1' will be supported (these can be found in the minibatterylogger public logs). But in terms of what it's going to offer over the current rev.. Personally i think we're looking at a bigger trackpad similar to the MBAs to support multi-touch, unfortunately, one of those ugly-ass MBA keyboards, Penryn chipsets and the same 8600M GTs in the current rev. Many are speculating about a graphics overhaul, moving to a 9-series but I honestly don't see it happening this early. Perhaps, in 5,1.
So to sum-up, it's entirely down to you. I will say that people are always waiting for the next thing but that you could wait forever! The current MBP runs pretty much all modern games well (excluding Crysis & the such). The SR chipsets are fast, robust and low-power, the LED screens are simply brilliant and the 8600M GTs are a formidable card for a notebook of this gen.
XP is definitely the way to go as Vista offers reduced performance on the same games (lower FPS) plus, it sounds as if you, like me, hate it with a passion
As for the photography, it'll be fine. I process RAW from my D70 through Aperture regularly and am generally a design-nut with Flash, pshop & illustrator running alongside each other most of the day, alongwith FF, iTunes and various other apps.
So it's down to choice.. it'll do everything you want to do now. It's lifespan will run to 4 yrs in terms of system resource demands but I doubt very much it will be able to play games released at this time, but the same can be said about every system. Personally i'd hold off until 5.2, see what new rumours surface and then bite the bullet!

 

[Pollux]

Cheers for the good tips...yes, I'm a vista hater...it really annoys me whne companies like microsoft release so-called 'next gen' OS's that are buggy, full of flaws, need heaps of third party support (like AV, spyware detection, etc).

the photography is only a serious hobby (i've got a Canon 350D) but i do ;ile to ruin photoshop and a million other things....

I've been reading with interest a lot of the speculation on the MBP update....i think it will be quite significant, and take the MBP in a direction to complement the MBA - it will have either dual HDD or a SSD boot drive and a HDD storage (maybe SSD boot as a BTO), dual vid cards (either higher-spec current gen or lower spec next gem 9-series) 2.8Ghz base w/ 3.2 Ghz BTO on the 17" nad hi-res as standard across the 17" range, and a slightely better res on the 15". 4Gb ram base, with max 8Gb BTO....

OK, maybe a bit over-ambitious, but something to complement the MBA, and ocntinue to draw attention to Apple products. Once the hype has died down from the MBA, then the MBP rev. will be unleashed, and focus more attention on Applie....

Things like mag latch, mutlitouch and the like are a given IMHO.

 

[Fezzasus]

You wont be seeing dual hard drives and wont be seeing dual graphics cards until there is more than one model available on one chip. Whatever goes inside the next Macbook Pro, it will keep it's image of a sleek, professional computer and simply wont have room to house what you want in it.