What mac should I get.

[xj6jaguar1985]

I know, I know...I had this conversation when my powerbook got gaffed up. However I didn't know my dad would be having his girlfriend's child moving in here which leaves me the odd man out. Yes I could spend $900 and get an Apple certified refurbished macbook, but honestly I do not think that would be a good idea considering I make about $100 a week and I don't want to leave owing my dad 600 some odd dollars....ESPECIALLY when he finds out I'm moving back up north to live with my mother, he HATES my mom...haha
So what do I use a laptop for? The two most processor-heavy applications I use are the AIM chatrooms (Yeah I'm not going to lie, I'm a chatroom junkie. I loved being on that built in iSight camera so I could show off my awesome drumming skills in chatrooms...I'm lame I know ) and I love playing classic nintendo games on virtual NES. My 1.67 GHz powerbook lagged a little bit in chatrooms and lagged horribly playing virtual NES games because I believe it was the fact it only had 1GB of RAM. The macbook had no problem (It was 2GHz with 2GB of RAM) playing Virtual NES and being in AIM chatrooms.
For some reason I love the 1.42GHz iBooks and I'm realllllyyyy leaning towards one, even though you can only max out the RAM to 1.5GB and they still hold a decent resale value at about $400. Then again the same goes for a 1.67GHz G4 powerbook, they are holding their value around there as well. But wouldn't it be more logical to get something like that (I'm going to put $200 down on one so I'd only owe my dad $200) instead of getting a macbook that would cost me $800 and me owing him $500? It makes sense to me because when I have a decent job up north in Rhode Island, I can always get the mac I want!

 

[KeithTeeple]

I go back and forth between my Mom's and my Dad's, since I'm always in one place or the other, I bought a MacBook so I could bring it from place to place with me, including friends houses and school. Sounds like you're a pretty busy person, so I'd recommend MacBook for you. MBP would be good, but you said you can't really afford it so that leaves it out of the question. Mac Mini would work, but they're not as portable, and they have small HD and RAM. MB is probably best for you, just remember you're going to need enough for the warranty and a mouse too. Plus you're probably going to want additional software as well. Mine came to $2,200 total.