I know that this forum often sees posts similar to this, in which anxious Mac aficionados debate the merits of waiting for the next refresh to upgrade. I never thought it would come to this, but I am now adding my voice to the choir. A few of the law schools to which I have been accepted allow their students to use Macintoshes. All of the law schools require students to bring a laptop. I am fairly decided that if I choose a school that requires a PC I will wait until Q1 '07 for Vista's release; however, I am not quite certain how I feel about the Macintosh side of things.
If you read Intel's roadmap, Merom should be out by the end of the year, which will bring a substantial performance boost to mobile computers. H1 '07 brings the rest of Intel's new mobile platform, including a new chipset and new 802.11n integrated wireless network controller. In addition to the performance boost seen in Merom-based products, these new mobile processors will also add virtualization technology as well as 64-bit extensions, both of which could potentially be supported by 10.5. I'm also personally expecting 10.5 (along with Windows Vista) to usher in a new era of resolution-independent GUI's, which will finally allow Apple to increase the resolution of the LCDs they use in MBPs without making them entirely unreadable. This will be good all around, allowing for sharper OS graphics, support for 1080p, etc.
So finally, my question. I must buy a laptop of some sort regardless of where I go or what turns the industry takes. My question is this. Do I buy the cheapest Dell Inspiron ($399 if you catch it at the right time), suffer for a year, and then get the most amazing machine the world has ever seen? Or is Intel full of hype and will Macbooks a year from now not be different enough to justify my pain?
Of course I understand the computer industry is the fastest moving industry on earth, and there will always be greener pastures just over the next hill. It seems, however, that the changes that take place over the next 12 months could be far larger and have far greater implications than usual. Of course that could just be because it is my money on the line this time.
If you read Intel's roadmap, Merom should be out by the end of the year, which will bring a substantial performance boost to mobile computers. H1 '07 brings the rest of Intel's new mobile platform, including a new chipset and new 802.11n integrated wireless network controller. In addition to the performance boost seen in Merom-based products, these new mobile processors will also add virtualization technology as well as 64-bit extensions, both of which could potentially be supported by 10.5. I'm also personally expecting 10.5 (along with Windows Vista) to usher in a new era of resolution-independent GUI's, which will finally allow Apple to increase the resolution of the LCDs they use in MBPs without making them entirely unreadable. This will be good all around, allowing for sharper OS graphics, support for 1080p, etc.
So finally, my question. I must buy a laptop of some sort regardless of where I go or what turns the industry takes. My question is this. Do I buy the cheapest Dell Inspiron ($399 if you catch it at the right time), suffer for a year, and then get the most amazing machine the world has ever seen? Or is Intel full of hype and will Macbooks a year from now not be different enough to justify my pain?
Of course I understand the computer industry is the fastest moving industry on earth, and there will always be greener pastures just over the next hill. It seems, however, that the changes that take place over the next 12 months could be far larger and have far greater implications than usual. Of course that could just be because it is my money on the line this time.
