Which mac may be the best for me?

as of now my budget is 3k

im still trying to decide between mac/windows

the mac side of it im looking at a 15'' pro 17'' pro and a 24'' imac.

im wondering if some one could give me the plus minus on the screen size, i tried talked to an apple sales person over the phone, she sounded more like she wanted a date than to sell me a mac. The nearest mac store is about 2 hours away, so its kinda out of the question, ive been soaring over the site for the last week.

i cant decide.. so i thought i would ask some experts.

please give me your knowledge or your opinion. They will both mean a great deal to me.

Uses for this computer:

School
Gaming
Selling real estate
*portable? mabye?* idk

buyer:

17 year old male

loves his windows machine
loves running linux
likes to have nice things.


mk now that you know... RESPOND

I say stick with the 15" and save a little money. I don't know that the added screen space will make a ton of difference if you're just gaming on it (as opposed to graphic design or something). Given that you're 17 and likely headed to college, a laptop will be much more useful than an iMac when you get there.

IAmBen said:

I say stick with the 15" and save a little money. I don't know that the added screen space will make a ton of difference if you're just gaming on it (as opposed to graphic design or something). Given that you're 17 and likely headed to college, a laptop will be much more useful than an iMac when you get there.

Click to expand...

thank you. Anyone else have comments?

I too would opt for a portable, and I'd opt for the 15 inch, unless you need some large apps like Photoshop or InDesign to layout on a huge screen.

It's nice and compact, and good for all uses, especially at out age.

You must have heard you can run Windows on a Mac, but be sure to check out Mac OS X - you might not want Windows anymore.

Yeah, I at university (college for americans ?) now and I got a powerbook halfway through my first year. Its excellent for working on, doing reports etc.

Found OSX way nicer than windows, in terms of usuability and looks, and its pretty easy to pick up.

You might want to get MS Office for macs though. I know theres open source versions you can get for free, but you said you like nice things, and they dont look as nice as MS Office.

So yeah, Id also say go for the 15" and upgrade hte RAM and HD - gives you some portability which is ace for labs, or putting on a playlist at a party

I have to agree with everyone on the laptop part of it, but personally I love the 17" screen, plus the firewire 800 bus is nice to have with external harddrives. I do a lot of video and photo editing so that's whay I made my choice in that direction.

sweet

im soo getting one very soon!

any other thoughts?