Thinking about a macbook pro

[feelthefire]

I'm considering going out and getting a macbook pro now that they've been updated, and taking advantage of the free iPod offer.

But, I'm concerned that it won't really represent a huge improvement over what I have right now. I have a pretty serious PC laptop with a year of warranty remaining (it was bought in summer '05, so it's two years old.) It's got a 1.86GHz Pentium M, a gig of RAM, 128mb of vram on an ATI FireGL V5000, and a 100gb hard drive.

I'd be interested in getting the 2.2GHz base macbook pro, stock.

Is it worth a $2000 investment? I also don't own mac editions of anything, but could always buy vista and run it off boot camp to use software I already have. I don't think I'd really be happy with a macbook, as the portability is interesting to me but I don't think I could go down to a 13.3" lower res display (as it is, the MBP display is lower res than the one I have.)

To do this, I would officially take a loan because my grant would be paying for it. That's not a big deal, I just want to make sure that if I do this I'll be seeing an improvement. I don't really have an attachment to OSX, so I don't consider that a feature so much.

Should I spring for it?

 

[Kaiser Phoenix]

Well seeing that you dont really have an attachement for OSX, I doubt you need to buy a MBP. You could buy similarly speced dell machines or what not that will perform better in some circumstances.

Just save your money and stick with what you know.

On the other hand, if you want to join the OSX club, please feel free to because its the best OS out there hands down. Vista is a pile of cr*p.

 

[dops7107]

<Thinking about a macbook pro>

Gee me too, I think about MacBook Pros all the time


[apologies for the pointless remark. in a weird mood this afternoon. won't do it again mods, promise. cross my heart and hope to die ]

 

[feelthefire]

Well seeing that you dont really have an attachement for OSX, I doubt you need to buy a MBP. You could buy similarly speced dell machines or what not that will perform better in some circumstances.

Just save your money and stick with what you know.

On the other hand, if you want to join the OSX club, please feel free to because its the best OS out there hands down. Vista is a pile of cr*p.

I mean it's nice, and very attractive, but I have a linux desktop system so in terms of representing a change in stability and usability, there isn't a huge change for me. I don't have an URGENT need for OSX, since I've never needed it before. I do have one program that only runs on OSX, so it would be nice to have a system for that.

My current laptop would be better suited to being a desktop bound system, as it has a port replicator and can drive two monitors, so it would go desk bound and the mac would be more of my everyday workstation, since it's a little smaller and lighter than this, with better battery due to the LED display.


And someone shoot me if I ever even consider buying a dell.
I'd be buying in store, so I'm not too worried about getting it replaced if something's wrong with the one I get.

Let me rephrase my question: is OSX and the performance worth the $2000 when I have a reasonably specced, working system?