To bite the Apple or not

[subucni]

[THE SHORT VERSION]

• Should i buy myself a Macbook/Macbook Pro?
• Any reason why i shouldn't get 1 from the US and save £300?
• Any differences between US & UK versions that could cause problems?

For more info see the long version below.


[THE LONG VERSION]

Shall i buy myself a MB/MBPro or not? I can't make up my mind.

Let me fill you in on how i got to this point. To start off with i should tell you that i have always hated macs, haha. This stems from the only time i've every been forced to use them when i was at college and they were only g3 emacs which probably explains a lot about why i never liked them. Never could get on with the things and never used them since.

Anyway, onto my reasons why i seem to be coming around to the idea;

• Firstly i've heard the OS has improved a lot and good things about 10.4 tiger.
  
  
• This is the big reason, it's the fact that i want to get into some sort of video production career, would love to make a living from music videos and my own films etc... but more realistically, something at a production company. The only thing is, a lot of them use avid and final cut pro, now they don't expect you to have experience with avid but final cut pro is often essential in all the placements i've been looking at. So i can see that at some point i'm really going to need to get myself a mac and start learning final cut pro. I've found a couple of articles like this one that have reassured me that they are quite capable. Obviously a desktop Mac Pro would be a better option for this but that could be outweighed but the next point.
  
  
• I don't own a laptop (working one that is) at all, so a laptop could come in quite handy
  
  
• Bootcamp!!! The fact that i will be able to run XP on it aswell means there are a lot less reasons to say no.
  
  
• Would make taking my pc too friend's houses for lan games of cs:s, dod:s, age of empires 3, company of heroes a whole lot quicker and easier. Not to mention the on the move football manager benifits Other than the extra power, ram etc... this is one of the main reasons i'm swinging towards the cheapest MBPro over a MB for the ati x1600 over the intel gfx

All that said though, i've pretty much talked myself into the fact that it's a good idea for me now, so i suppose i'm left looking for reasons NOT to get one.


Assuming no-one gives me a good reason for not getting one, i then have another dilemma, My parents go to the US on friday for 2 weeks which means they'd have the opportunity of picking me up Macbook Pro costing £1349 here in the UK for approx £1060 over in the states which really sweetens the deal and makes things a little easier to swallow. Has anyone here done this? Does anyone know if there is any difference between the US and UK MBpro besides the obvious fact of the @ and " symbols being on different keys as for almost £300 i think i could live with that (i'm assuming the keyboard layout can be changed in the OS from english US to english UK just like XP, so it really would just be the symbols on the keys. Correct me if i'm wrong.)


The Power Supply. Would this be just a simply case of getting a US to UK plug adaptor? The specs page does say it accepts both 100v or 240v. So to me it seems that it would be straight forward but having not seen a macbook power supply close up i can't be sure.


I've had a look at the warranty info and i can't see there being any warranty issues with it being bought in the US if it should need fixing etc... (touchwood) after having read this sentence under the "Obtaining warranty service" section

Apple or its Apple Authorized Service Providers will provide warranty service on products that are tendered or presented for service during the Warranty Period, as permitted by law. If the product is portable, meaning that it can operate independently without a power cord, you may obtain warranty service worldwide. However, service will be limited to the options available in the country where service is requested. If the product is not portable, warranty service may be restricted to the country where the product is purchased.

Unless there is any other hardware differences the only other problem i can see might be my parents transporting it home, do the MacBooks come with the batteries connected already? Or are my parents going to need to disconnect it before flying? If so, is it like most laptops and slide a switch and the battery comes off, or is it like an ipod with the battery is completely inside?





Any input on all of this is appreciated. Sorry for it being such a long read.


Cheers,

Bres.


:edit: anyone reading this now, i posted by accident rather than previewing so it's not finished.

:edit2: All finished now.

[awm]

I'd go for it. I love my mac. Now that you can dual boot there you can get the best of both worlds. The one catch is the price, especially if you need decent graphics and go with the MacBook Pro. I guess my advice comes down to price, though if learning Final Cut Pro makes you more employable it might be worth it.