Apple MacBook Pro - 15.4" - Core 2 Duo - MacOS X 10.5 - 2 GB RAM - 250 GB HDD

Firstly, this has been my first adventure into the world of Macs. I've used Windows all my life, but decided to change after all the good things I'd been hearing, and I'm extremely glad that I have. This laptop is absolutely incredible! It's design is second to none - not only being stylish, but also incredibly functional (aluminium casing may seem 'just for show', but to be honest why make a laptop out of plastic, an insulator of heat? metal is a conductor so it's gets rid of it better!).
The hardware is exceptional, being very fast and perfect for my needs. I have found my self diving into this head first downloading many cool pieces of freeware aswell as using the great apps supplied by Apple.

Following a recent holiday, we had wanted to make a book to document the trip. We found a couple websites where you downloaded their software, made a book, sent it off to get printed and voila. Turns out, we never got passed the first couple of pages without getting irritated with the software and giving up. A year later, I get my mac and decide to play around with the iLife suite. I was amazed! I put all my photos into iPhoto, used it to create a photo book, then exported it to apple. Simple! But then, feeling yet more adventurous I decided to see what else I could do. Turns out I could use iDVD to make an entire video of the book I had made, including menu page complete with my own animations and music, aswell as a fully animated virtual book! In short, the software on these computers is nothing short of astounding.

Concering the compatibility issues people worry about when asked about switching, I have encountered relatively few. Office documents can be easily loaded in the mac version of office (however I will soon be purchasing the new iWork '08 which will do the same, but better!). Image files are more or less the same, aswell as audio and video. I have quite alot of media, including divx encoded avi videos and mp3's. All work fine, with maybe only a couple add-ons installed to quicktime. But as I mentioned before, there is ALOT of freeware available for macs. I'd definitely recommend a browse of 'opensourcemac.org' if this interests you. App's like democracy player will play nearly all video files available with no hassle.

Pretty much the only issue I've had is concering an external hard drive and it's formatting. Windows formats drive's to NTFS standard. Mac's can read this but cannot write to it (not as standard anyway - as I said before, there are many useful app's that can be downloaded...). This causes issues when you have a friend to come round and wants to give you some files from his HDD and then wants some in return! I've got around this issue on my drive by simply formatting to FAT32 standard. There are a few small limitations to this but it is pretty much universally compatible, therefore solving my problem.

When I used windows I was a fairly keen gamer and am now happy with the level of games that are available for the macs. This is becoming even better with the announcements of much greater support from iD and EA - two big industry names. However, if there really are apps that you need that are purely for windows then you can simply use windows! Bootcamp can be used to boot either OS - I haven't tried this myself, but I will in the near future. When deciding between Mac or PC, consider this: Why pay more for a similarly spec'd windows laptop/desktop that can only ever run windows, when you can buy a cheaper laptop/desktop from apple that can run both? It just makes sense.

And there again lies another reason why these laptops are great - their value for money. This may sound strange when talking about a near 1.5k laptop - but for a similarly spec'd laptop, you would not get anything near this price.

Finally - the jewel in the crown (as far as I'm concerned). My rather reasonable education discount! I managed to save alot of money when buying this laptop due to this. I was also worried about not having any care on the laptop after the alotted freetime from Apple. Basically, after (I think) 60 days, the free phone support stops. Even if you have to call up to ask how to turn on your machine, you will be charged £35 to do so. Considering 3 year cover from apple (Applecare) on this product is somewhere in the region of £250, I was unsure. However, due to my education status they sell it at a mere £58. An absolute bargain in my eyes and definitely worth the money, afterall these are complex machines.

These laptops are absolutely brilliant: they're lightning fast, have great software, a very smart and good looking design, aswell as being great value for money.

I'd recommend one of these to anyone willing to pay good money for such a quality piece of equipment.