I'm having Mac Indecision Syndrome.

My current laptop, an HP Pavilion dv6000 running a derivitave of Debian, is beginning to show its age. I think it's time to upgrade; I've settled on purchasing a Mac of some kind, but I'm not quite sure which model/variant is right for me.

The main uses of the new machine will revolve around multimedia consumption and production - I will be editing AVCHD footage shot on my Sony HDRCX110 (I'm not sure yet whether iMovie will be sufficient for my needs or whether I'll need to purchase Adobe Premiere/FCP/something else). I'll also be doing some basic audio editing using Audacity and a number of third party plugins, and will be housing my 90GB+ music collection, among other things.

I was under the impression that an iMac is the best choice for video editing, but I just looked at the configs prices for the MacBook Pro and it looks like they are both cheaper and more powerful than I remembered.

It seems like the bottom line is that I'll either (a.) end up purchasing an iMac and then a MBP or other laptop at some point in the future for non-multimedia uses or (b.) purchase a MacBook Pro and use it for both the multimedia stuff and other uses (web development, etc).

I'd be very happy to hear any thoughts/feedback/whatever that you all have.

tl;dr - HELLLLLLLLLP! WHAT DO I DO?!

All depends on what your transportability needs are ~ desktop iMac or portable MBP. Whatever choice you come up with make sure you check out the Apple Refurbished site. Safe hundreds, get a full 12 month warranty and latest operating system all with free delivery. Refurbs can also have the 3 year AppleCare optional warranty.


http://store.apple.com/au/browse/home/specialdeals/mac

The real question is "do you need portability?"

If so, then you want the MacBook Pro.

If not, you can choose between the iMac and the forthcoming Mac Pro.

It also depends on the amount of money you are willing to spend. I went through the very decision process about a year ago. My conclusion was that the IDEAL setup would be a top of the line MacBook Pro, which as you state has a very beefy processor these days, and an external Thunderbolt Apple 27" display. This way, you have power, portability and a large display space when you are working on your video (or in my case, Photoshop with images). When I added this all up, and compared it to the latest 27" iMac, the dollars did the talking - the iMac was the much better deal, and I didn't NEED the portability.

You might wish to think about the laptop/external-display approach vs. the iMac approach.

I'd save the money and get a third party display. To be honest, I'm not a huge fan of the apple ones, and generally prefer NEC. So you miss out in the thunderbolt connection

Dysfunction said:

I'd save the money and get a third party display. To be honest, I'm not a huge fan of the apple ones, and generally prefer NEC. So you miss out in the thunderbolt connection

Click to expand...

If someone can get past the price tag...a couple of nice convenience features of the Apple display's are (if someone is pairing it up with an Apple notebook computer):

- built in speakers (much better than the notebooks built-in speakers...especially if the notebook is used in "clamshell" mode
- the notebook can be plugged into the display directly for power...so no need for the notebooks power brick & cord.

But the price is very high.

- Nick