[ Ping to Swordmaker for any suggestions... ]
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You were asking — “In the next few months I am going to buy my first laptop. Can you recommend a good Apple product.”
For a laptop, you’ve basically got two categories — one is the normal model of laptop (might call it the consumer model) and then you’ve got the pro model.
Now, there are variations within each of those two groups (1) MacBook and (2) MacBook Pro — but they vary around very small things, like RAM or hard drive space and/or speed and then maybe a thing or two after that.
If you go to the Apple Retail Store and get your “hands on” it, then you’ll get a good idea of how they’re configured and their size.
Of course, the cheaper model is the MacBook while the MacBook Pro is the more expensive one. But, you’ve got all the software you need with them (I mean most normal software that people will want to use normally — not that specialized and security software and stuff like that).
Now, I’ve got the version of the laptop before the MacBook and it’s the consumer model (the lower end one). This time around for me, I’m going for the top end of laptop (which is quite a bit more expensive), but it’s got a lot more capability and some additional things on it (like the firewire port, for one thing — that I want for bootable hard drives that are external to the computer). You may not need that. The lower end model of MacBook doesn’t have firewire and while I want it, many others don’t care.
Anyway, you can go to the Apple Store, online, too — and get your basic prices. You really won’t find any dramatic sales on these computers (maybe $5 or $10 off here and there, but that’s about it). The most you may get “on sale” would be some additional equipment for free, while the basic computer itself will be the same as Apple’s price.
You may want to buy from the Apple Retail Store (not the online one, but the brick and mortar one), because they do have good service there. On the other hand, if you know of another reseller or retailer that has an absolutely good reputation and will stand behind their sales, then you might consider another place, other than the Apple retail store.
And, by the way, I wouldn’t bother with the “MacBook Air” model..., it’s not powerful enough and too small and has too many other problems (at least in my way of thinking).
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The MacBook model —
http://www.apple.com/macbook/
MacBook in the online store
http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_mac/family/macbook
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The MacBook Pro model
http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/
MacBook Pro in the online store
http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_mac/family/macbook_pro/
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As a P.S. here, you do know that you can boot the whole machine into a mode where it runs Windows only, right? LOL... (I don’t do that...). OR..., you can boot on the normal operating system (Mac OS X 10.5) and you can then get another special program to actually “boot” Windows “inside” the running operating system. And you can run Windows programs as if they are running on the normal Mac operating system (you can barely tell what is running on what). The Windows operating system is actually running inside the Mac OS X and will run all your Windows program within that Windows operating system. Quite cool, I would say. It will cost you more money to do it that way, since Microsoft is not going to “give you” their operating system to do that... LOL... But, it’s an option if you ever wanted to do that (not that you have to, mind you...).
Thank you so much.