The nice thing about a laptop Vs. a mini is that you get a "free" second monitor, which is something to calculate into the total cost. That is exactly the setup I currently use - Laptop, Monitor, USB Keyboard/Mouse, and headset.

Plus, as trivial as it sounds, the battery backup is nice so you won't lose any work if the power goes out. It is extremely rare but when it happens it is an absolute god send.

Normally the laptop's benefits would be offset by the ability to upgrade a workstation but since the mini cannot be upgraded the laptop's benefits just cause it to stand out.

Quote: Original post by UnoriginalGuy16
The nice thing about a laptop Vs. a mini is that you get a "free" second monitor, which is something to calculate into the total cost. That is exactly the setup I currently use - Laptop, Monitor, USB Keyboard/Mouse, and headset.

Plus, as trivial as it sounds, the battery backup is nice so you won't lose any work if the power goes out. It is extremely rare but when it happens it is an absolute god send.

Normally the laptop's benefits would be offset by the ability to upgrade a workstation but since the mini cannot be upgraded the laptop's benefits just cause it to stand out.

A decent-sized UPS is pretty cheap, though, and it ensures that you won't be losing your work if the power goes out with your desktop.

Don't get me wrong, a laptop definitely has its advantages. But if someone is just "trying out" a Mac, it may not be the best idea to jump in head first and have to spend $2500+. They could buy a $700 lightly-used desktop and see how much they use it. If they really like it, and find themselves using it more than a PC, then they could shell out the $2500+ for the laptop and have the best of both worlds.

The Macrumors buyers' guide keeps track of how often Apple releases new hardware and how likely it is for your purchase to be obsoleted.

Apple will generally replace your product for free if they release a better one within 2-3 weeks of its release, but you have to call them and be really super nice about it.

I should probably write up a guide to buying and owning a Mac in the hardware forum and sticky it - there are a lot of ways you can pay less than MSRP for your Mac, ranging from the developer program to buying fully-warrantied refurb to just plain being a student.

Apple generally has pretty long "legs" for hardware releases; they stopped selling PowerPC-based computers in August 2006, and just now dropped support for it as of Snow Leopard (10.6), which just came out. This is actually fairly abnormal, as up until 10.4 they supported machines made as early as 1998. The Intel transition is a pretty substantial improvement, so I'm guessing that's what's driving this.

You should have no problem making this machine last three years; I'm considering getting rid of my first-gen Macbook Pro (August 2006) now so I can have the faster processor and (more importantly) the higher RAM ceiling.

I had a few problems with my Macbook Pro that were mostly the fault of being a first-generation machine, and they were all fixed under warranty in a few hours. Being able to drop off the machine to a physical human being and having them fix it, rather than mailing the machine to Texas, is a big part of the appeal for the Mac for me. From what I can see from current generation MBPs, they're rock solid and the build quality has massively improved.