I am a nooob :)

To macs, well, not totally. I have read up and know the basics. Just a few Q's and oppinions to ask

First... Im getting a Mac Mini as im only young and dont have the budget for a iMac.

Also, is it worth getting one? With talks of them dropping it, would it still be updateable eg. New OS updates after leopard? I know if you can keep updating the OS it will stop one day but hopefully by then I will have an iMac

Next up.. err... Is it worth getting iWork, its only £50 which is incredibilly cheap for a "office suit" set of programs. I would only use them for school and stuff.

Thanks,
Joe,
Resident noob

I hear you man, i'm only 16, I got a macbook but what I did is I went to the it department at college. They said I could be put on the college licence for office 2004, so i got mine for free, better than iwork in my opinon.
Anyway, make sure you use the education store, save yourself 5% on the machine i think.

As i understand the OS will be updatable because its the OS you are updating, the machine it's on doesn't matter. Any parts you can upgrade will be available too as they're going to be third party more often than not.

If you want an imac eventually, why not do a load of overtime and save for a few months, thats what i did, just my opinion.

I was gonna go the education route, but im in a "special" school. Mainly kids who got into trouble or had trouble in high school, Im there as im Autistic lol.

The problem is, is I dont know werther Apple do education offers in the UK in these types of schools.

If not, I can try get the money, but the 5% would help lol

You may want to hold out and see what does happen (if anything) during the Mac expo, there was people saying that it was going to be dropped a while ago and it never was and i can't see Apple removing the mini from the line up and not replacing it with another low-end Mac of some sort. In saying that i can't see Apple removing the mini at all. If they do drop the mini then it's not exactly bad news since you could pick one up at a clearance price. Leopard is an extremely new O/S so it will be a few years before we see another operating system. If the mini can run Leopard I'm guessing it will be able to run the new O/S but may need a little more RAM. Iwork is pretty good however look at Neo Office it is free and can read and write to MS office file formats and on top of that it is good software. You are entitled to a student discount of about 6% if you take some school paper work (timetable, letter).

i would definently wait until you hear news from the Mac Expo. they might reveal a cheaper, lighter, more portable macbook of some sort for people on a budget or on the go.

If you have a student card you'll definitely be able to get discount, or if you're under 16 your parents have to purchase on your behalf as i understand it.

I am 16 and I decided to go with the iMac, I also got the iWork suite and couldn't be happier. I think iWork is better than office, but that's only because aesthetics are number 1 on my list, and iWork makes better looking stuff.

Why don't you try NeoOffice instead of iWork if you are on a budget.
It costs $0.00 (free)..