[markw10]

I am going to get a mac soon, hopefully laptop, and am undecided between the Macbook or macbook Pro.
Well first, here's what I plan to use it for: Microsoft Office, Adobe Photoshop (some graphics design), Macromedia Studio 8 (web page development), itunes, very few if any games, and Quicken. I kind of will use a wide variety of programs. As well, since I currently have a windows laptop I am undecided between keeping that or selling it to get a nice mac laptop that I'd then run Parallels or Bootcamp.
First, for differences I can tell the graphics in the macbook pro is better. Is this a big step up? I know the screen size is larger which I like. As well, one thing that caught my eye is the Macbook Pro has a Expresscard/34 slot which I assume is similar to a PCMCIA card in a windows system. How important are these? I know in the windows laptop I have a pcmcia card which reads memory sticks, sd cards ,etc. and if I'm right the macbooks don't read these. Are there many cards for the mac though or do most items connect through USB?
Last, I had looked heaviliy at mac minis and know they and maybe imacs are in for a upgrade within a couple weeks (to meron chips possibly). Are there any changes due for the macbook or macbook pro? I could easily put my purchase off until late October.

[robertj]

Hello.

The MacBook will run very nearly as fast as the MacBook Pro. The MacBook Pro makes very little sense at this point. The graphics card won't make a big difference unless you're into gaming, which you're not. (There are various benchmarks around the web which compare the two; they seem very close in most applications.) The Pro will very likely be updated to Merom chips in the next couple of weeks, and that would be make the decision somewhat more difficult, especially if you like the larger screen. (Personally, I have a 15-inch Powerbook and would probably recommend buying a MacBook + 20" monitor -- it will cost you less than buying a MacBook Pro, you'll have a bigger monitor for your work at your desk, and you'll have a smaller, lighter computer to lug around on the go.)

I have personally never used my expresscard slot; seems like everything I need to do works through USB. I wouldn't consider the expresscard a big selling point unless you already own a card that will work with the MBP.

You can probably feel pretty comfortable selling your Windows laptop and running Parallels; if there are specific programs you need, you might want to see if anyone has had problems with those programs in particular; otherwise I hear things run fine.

With all that said, it sounds a little like you're looking for a reason to buy a MacBook Pro. Merom will probably be reason enough to justify the purchase; it just won't be strictly necessary. Look for it in the Sept. 12th media event currently being reported on the rumors sites, or else very soon thereafter, definitely by late October.

[houstonmacbro]

will i be happy with a macbook after using a powerbook g4 for the last 2 years? i know it's faster, but what about the quality.

i do not do much outside of things like blogging, podcasting, photo editing (iPhoto is fine), banking, and i do run a community bulletin board (net-based).