I'm thinking of making the switch, well to extent I already have. Let me give you guys a little background then I'd like an opinion on the best system for my situation.
I purchased an Ipad a few months ago and that really got me into looking harder at apple products. The quality and ease of use on it are just fantastic. This led me to dig my girlfriend's old macbook (first version with the intel chipset) out of the closet and start using it. After a couple weeks of using it I'm equally impressed with OS X. It just seems to work better. Of course this led to me picking up a magic mouse and then this past weekend the bluetooth keyboard.
Now the issue I have with the macbook is that it is older and it's superdrive is officially dead. The 1 gig of ram is not going to cover me for running autocad in parallels which I will need to do for a full switch. I usually use it closed and plugged into my 24" monitor. So it seems I need to upgrade my hardware to fully experience what the mac is all about.
I rarely travel and when I do it's usually for pleasure and not business so the ipad more than covers any connectivity I need on the road. I'd hate to waste money on a Imac given I just bought a nice big display and the keyboard and mouse. So that leaves me with the macbook vs macbook pro vs mac mini.
Pricing is a concern for me. Between the app store for the ipad and recent hardware purchases apple has been getting far to big a chunck of my paycheck.
So my question is what do you guys think is the best value for my money? Also do you think I may be in the mac honeymoon phase and should wait a bit longer before purchasing? Finally if recommending the mini which is the direction I'm leaning do you think it is viable as a true desktop replacement?
Sorry for the lengthy post I always have been rather long winded.
I purchased an Ipad a few months ago and that really got me into looking harder at apple products. The quality and ease of use on it are just fantastic. This led me to dig my girlfriend's old macbook (first version with the intel chipset) out of the closet and start using it. After a couple weeks of using it I'm equally impressed with OS X. It just seems to work better. Of course this led to me picking up a magic mouse and then this past weekend the bluetooth keyboard.
Now the issue I have with the macbook is that it is older and it's superdrive is officially dead. The 1 gig of ram is not going to cover me for running autocad in parallels which I will need to do for a full switch. I usually use it closed and plugged into my 24" monitor. So it seems I need to upgrade my hardware to fully experience what the mac is all about.
I rarely travel and when I do it's usually for pleasure and not business so the ipad more than covers any connectivity I need on the road. I'd hate to waste money on a Imac given I just bought a nice big display and the keyboard and mouse. So that leaves me with the macbook vs macbook pro vs mac mini.
Pricing is a concern for me. Between the app store for the ipad and recent hardware purchases apple has been getting far to big a chunck of my paycheck.
So my question is what do you guys think is the best value for my money? Also do you think I may be in the mac honeymoon phase and should wait a bit longer before purchasing? Finally if recommending the mini which is the direction I'm leaning do you think it is viable as a true desktop replacement?
Sorry for the lengthy post I always have been rather long winded.