Help buying a mac

[brettallica]

Originally Posted by Hammie

You are so obsessed with this dual core MBP. I'm getting scared.

I know, dude. I know.

My obsession severalfold:

1. My laptop, which is THE computer in the house (with the exception of our two Dell HTPCs), has seen more than its fair share of usage in its four-plus years of life. I simply need a new computer. We had a PC as part of a sweet KVM setup with another Apple desktop at one time, so my laptop wasn't getting used as much, but we discarded all evidence of a desk at our house in favor of more living room space; so since then my iBook has really seen a lot of use. My wife is almost strictly PC-literate, although to her credit she has done well to learn the Mac OS. She basically used only our IBM when we had our desk. Since the Great Brettallica Desk Purge of 2008, the laptop has just been used to death -- almost literally. You should have seen me working with multiple apps open last night. It was BAD. I thought I was at a pinwheel parade.
2. I can't run a lot of the apps that require Intel chips, to say nothing of the fact that simple OS core proucts like the new Safari run like crap on my rig.
3. My other ventures are requiring more and more computer usage, and as such it's further pushing the usage limits of my old G4.
4. I will not get "burned" "again" (using those words lightly, mind you) by the Apple Curse of Obsolescence like I did with this computer. I bought mine literally just a few months before everything was Intel dual-core minimum! If I recall correctly, the Intel chips started at 1.8GHz x 2 (I could be slightly off with that, but it's about right). My G4 is a 1.4GHz, so basically my rig was worthless less than a half a year after I bought it. I definitely won't play that again. That's why I'm not buying until I see a spec sheet that shows four cores.

[Show spoiler]Bonus bullet point: I haven't bought any expensive toys in a long time, so I'm getting an itchy spending trigger.