Apple Laptop and Dell PC???

What do you guys think about having an Apple laptop for work, and a powerful Dell PC for home?

I need a desktop, be it Mac or PC, but have not yet found the right choice, and am exploring all the possibilities!

I would like to have a mac desktop but the comparatively high prices, are putting me off slightly, however I do much prefer to use MAC OS X.

The reason for me looking at Dell PC's is because for even less than the price of a Base iMac, I could get a pretty hefty speck Dell XPS 520 packed full of features, but without OS X? The only options for me on the mac desktop side are the low end iMac or Mac Mini. For the prices, though you get a lot more for you money from Dell?

For only £393 I could get a Dell inspiron 530s, which has a small form factor, much better specs 2.33Ghz Core 2 Duo, and a 20" Dell 2008WFP!!! Whereas the iMac would cost about £750 with Student discount and with worse specs, but with Mac OS X! I love OS X and much prefer it, but is it worth the extra cash?

FYI, either way I will have a Black Macbook 2.2Ghz as my Mac laptop!

 

If you're asking if Dells are cheaper than Macs, yes, yes they are.

 

I am also asking, whether you guys think it is worth getting the iMac over the lower priced Dells, just for OS X?

OS X is important to me and I much prefer it, but I can't help feeling that I am wasting my money if I buy an iMac, when there are cheaper alternatives, which have better performance?

Also do you people think I will appreciate the added features of the Dell?

And also how do you think I would find switching from Mac on my laptop to Windows on my PC?

I would only be using my laptop when I am at work, and would use my desktop for most of the time!

 

Honestly, your macbook pro is pretty fast already. The desktop you are looking at isnt much faster than your laptop (at least not enough that you would notice a difference).

You could always just buy the 20" or larger monitor and hook it up to your laptop when you use it at home.

 

Please ignore my sig, as they are not my current laptops!

But I have reasons for wanting a desktop, as opposed to just having a monitor for my laptop etc. for one I want to be able to lave my laptop at work, without having to carry it back every day, and other reasons

 

i too am considering an iMac to replace my desktop. two things to consider that might help you out:

1. does the dell machine you mention have a comparable graphics card to that of the iMac?
2. do you prefer an all-in-one?

also, if you do consider getting an iMac, wait about 2 or 3 weeks as there's speculation that apple will update them with the new penryn processors. the thing is, its just a rumor at this point so the wait might be for nothing but anguish.

 

Why are you planning to replace your desktop to an iMac, is it simply because you want OS X. What sort of things do you use your dektop for? How much do you use it condisering you have a macbook pro?

 

Personally I would go with two Macs. They'll network much easier, share hard drives and printers better, and you won't have to deal with different versions of software. There's something to be said for having one platform. We have 3 in the house now, Linux, XP and OSX. Personally I like OSX best but mostly I wish they were all the same.

 

If you really love OS X but don't want to drop the money on the iMac, then look at installing Linux(maybe dual boot Windows for some apps/games). There's so many customizations you can do to the various distributions of Linux that you can pretty much get it to look/feel very similar.

 

How would a Mac Mini with 2GB ram, 1.83Ghz core 2 duo find running parrallels , windows vista and also multiple programs on OS X?

 

You may want 4 gb for that.

Edit: I guess the Mini doesn't support it, huh? Never mind....

 

Umm why do you need the Dell? Are you going to game on it or something? I think it would be easier for you to have an Apple laptop and a monitor instead of buying a whole new Dell desktop. You say that the Macbooks aren't that powerful, but it is powerful enough for you to be doing everything other than things that need a good graphics card.

 

On my MBP I get decent performance running Vista through VMWare Fusion. I'm not sure how it would work against Parallels. The barrier for running Vista virtually is the 2 GB memory. To run it effectively, I needed to instruct Fusion to grant the virtual Vista instance at minimum 1 GB, and turn off the Aero glass. Now if you consider running Windows XP virtually, then there's no problem whatsoever.

 

I'd also question what you would do at home...

I personally don't really have an option to buy a Mac as my desktop. The only one that would fit my needs is the Pro, and I can't afford to spec it out like I would need it. And the Pro is not a gaming machine, but a pro workstation. The hardware options don't lend itself to my needs (I don't freaking need a Xeon processor).

I really would probably recommend just getting an iMac though, if you don't use it for gaming, development, or multimedia work.

There shouldn't be any hassle of networking an XP and OS X machine though.

 

Base mbp + monitor.

 

Yeah, I like the idea of a MacBook Pro and a "hub" for it at home...external display, external keyboard and mouse, USB hubs, etc. for the MBP at home, so it can double up as the main computer as well as the travel computer.

But if you really want to have a desktop, I wouldn't mind having a Dell desktop. They're a good price, and design, weight and such are not as important, if at all, for desktops.

 

I think you are better off buying 17 iMac and buy a cheap dell notebook,
1525 starts @ $500 and its a good portable...

 

Just to clarify, there no longer is a 17-inch iMac...the current generation iMac is only offered in 20-inch and 24-inch models .

 

To the OP: You've really answered your own question from the beginning. You said OS X is important to you and you prefer it. So buy the Mac that you can afford for home use and be done with it.

As much as it makes very little sense these days to buy a PC desktop (if you are not a gamer) when the Mac can do it all people will still buy a PC because they want to use Windows exclusively. You want to use OS X exclusively. So the forum should be asking you, "What's it worth to you?" If you want an OS X computer you buy a Macintosh.
If you were to tell us that you could care less which OS you were running then the topic of your post would make more of an argument.
Me thinks that your interest in Mac OS X is very minimal if you are letting price decide for you.

 

If you really like OSX and have no reason to use Windows (the main reason, obviously, being games), then I don't see the point of getting a Dell.

 

Thats is true...even better...

 

Rather than an iMac, would a Mini with a non-apple display do it for you? (I love the ACD design, but be damned if I'm paying $600 for a 20" that I could get from anybody else for $225. They need to drop the price to $349 at least!)

The Mini can be had cheap, and it's not too outdated in the spec department.

Also, keep in mind that you can find deals on used Macs if you look...

Edit; imar3l; I HATE your sig. It makes the thread wider for those that don't do full-screen browsers.

 

what will the purpose of the desktop machine at home be? I use my Fujitsu as a home desktop machine, using it for basic tasks, downloading, and some light gaming and some occasional rendering, watching movies, etc. etc.

my MBP is where all the work on my projects gets done, among many other things.

my plan is to eventually a purchase a Mac Pro or whatever other high end desktop system Applle is offering at the time, and using it as a main home machine and dual booting OS X and Windows, as I still love to play the occasional Source game, as well as running a few very specific programs that are very useful to me.

it has been very convenient for me to have two machines, as I tend to work extremely late at my studio, and never feel like packing everything up just to do some basic things at home. makes it much simpler to have a machine at home for basic tasks that can still handle heavy work if need be.

if it wasn't for the nature of the projects that I work on, I would love to havve one of the new iMacs, but if I can afford it I can use as much power as is available.