Positive on Switch... But, when?

[darkcurse]

Hello, I've been an avid reader of these here forums and I must say that I like the community at macrumors very much. Well, here's my dillema of sorts. I'm currently pursuing my degree in Computer Science and am moving on to my 2nd year. I suffered through my 1st year without a computer because due to certain complications I ended up not buying the last revision of the Powerbook. Anyways, when the MacBook Pro (I still cringe at that name *shudder*) was announced I was all excited and wanted to immediately go out and order one. But since I live in Malaysia, the Apple resellers told me I had to wait quite awhile to get one. And, by that time my semester had ended and so I decided to wait awhile more. My new semester starts in September and I don't think I can live another semester without one so on to the question.

When is the right time to switch? My friends have told me to wait until at least August since thats the time Intel will release Merom and hopefully, Apple will come out with a speed bump to their MBP's? Well, I'm actually quite happy with the current MBP's specs but after looking at the problems faced by some of the people here at macrumors and seeing all the different alleged defects that have surfaced I'm starting to worry about the build quality of this Rev A MBP.

Another alternative offered by my some of my friends was that I buy a MacBook first as a cheaper way to enter into the Mac community. And when all the problems with the MBP's are resolved to just go out and buy whatever model is out there at that point in time. Though I see the wisdom in that but the integrated graphics on the MacBooks are really a deal breaker for me at this point all things else being more or less equal.

So, what do you guys say?

 

[Temujin]

If you need a mac now then buy now. If you can wait then wait as long as possible.
Upcoming revisions might come in august, might not. Nobody knows.

 

[amac4me]

I would suggest waiting if you can hold out for a while. I'd say there's a good chance that we'll see a speed bump in the MacBook Pro's as the 2.33 Core Duo chips were just announced a few days ago.

Your timeline of August/September is quite narrow. If Apple does announce the speed bump, for your sake, I hope there are no shipping delays.

Good luck and congrats on the decision to make the switch.

 

[aristobrat]

Another alternative offered by my some of my friends was that I buy a MacBook first as a cheaper way to enter into the Mac community. And when all the problems with the MBP's are resolved to just go out and buy whatever model is out there at that point in time.

I went thru 3 MBPs before giving up and getting a refund.

Integrated graphics isn't a deal for me, so my plan was like your alternative above -- get a MB and wait for Apple to start making better MBPs.

I picked up the bottom-of-the-line MB from Amazon ($999 after online rebate) and ... I'm fricking in love with this machine. So much that unless the next rev of MBPs has something spectacularly new with them, I doubt seriously I'll upgrade.

 

[theBB]

If you had to wait quite a while to get the initial MBPs in Malaysia, then you'll probably end up waiting another few months for Merom ones as well even if new models are introduced at the end of August.

Why do you need a high end graphics card for? Games? Do you need programming that requires hard core real time graphics effects? Otherwise, I don't think MacBook would be that bad. I have not heard anyone on this forum complain about their iMovie performance due to lack of a high end graphics card.