which laptop to buy?

Hello,

I am hoping to get a good deal on a new mac laptop in the upcoming thanksgiving sales but am looing for some advice on which one.

I have narrowed it down to: 15 macbook pro, 17 macbook pro, macbook and macbook air 13.3.

My main use will be graphic design so obviously processing power needs to be a consideration for large photoshop files etc. Having said that if it takes slightly longer to process and their is a good performance/price trade off that would be good too - I imagine the macbook would fit into this category.

The Macbook air seems a bit cheaper than the macbook pros is this because it is less powerful, not very good??

Finally where is the best place likely to be to get a good deal. Seems Apple have a sale coming up but is Best Buy, Macmall as good?

Thanks for any help

If your main use is going to be graphic design, I imagine you would want as much screen real estate as possible along with a high resolution.

It's probably a good idea to take a trip to your local Apple store or Best Buy and try out all the machines you mentioned above before you buy. Keep in mind that unless you really need a portable computer, the best machine for graphic design is going to be the iMac 27" machine. Not too portable though.

Narrow your search down to the 15- or 17-inch MacBook Pros. You want all the power and screen real estate you can get.

15". The 17" is way too big to carry around and it takes up a lot of room. If you need more screen real estate you can always hook it up to an external monitor.

Ideally the 27" iMac, but that's not exactly portable.

MBPs are not laptops. They are notebooks and for good reason too. Unless you like grill marks on your thighs.

I have both a 15 in and 17 in. , the difference in weight is only 1lb. Though it is bigger to lug around, you won't notice the weight difference.

Plus you want as much RAM as possible with heavy PS usage.