Macbook

Darwin

Hi, I'm a long time PC user thinking of making the jump to Apple. I'm happy to hear any opinions on this. I'm looking at buying a new Macbook unibody (13"), and I can get the 2.4Ghz version for just under the price of the cheaper 2Ghz model. The snag is it has a Swiss/Finnish keyboard. It still has a QWERTY layout but things like curly braces, @ symbol etc are not where you would normally expect them.
Now I'm used to using US keyboard layouts and it doesn't bother me and I realize the keys can be remapped to an Irish/UK layout. I will be using the machine for software development alongside email/browsing etc.

Just curious if anybody thinks the 500 euro saving is worth it?
Also is Vista easy enough to setup on the Mac?

Thanks in advance

J-blk

A €500 saving with the only down-side being the keyboard layout? Yep, I'd definitely say that's worth it!

Like you said though, the keyboard layout can be remapped anyway and especially if you can touch type without looking at the keyboard much, you won't even notice what's printed on the keys after awhile. It might however somewhat affect the resale value of the Mac in Ireland, as it may put some people off, but still, if you're saving so much now, you can probably sell it at a relevant discount to sweeten the deal when the time comes.

Both XP and Vista can be installed very easily via Apple's Bootcamp and you can then dual boot any of them with Mac OS X. You can also easily install XP or Vista in a virtual machine these days, using Fusion or Parallels. If you're just starting to use Macs though, I'd almost recommend against installing Windows at all for the first few months (unless there is something critical you need to use), to force yourself to get used to Mac OS X, rather than falling back on what you know.

It's a fairly easy transition, very much worth it IMO (I only use Macs at home now ) and there are plenty of helpful knowledgeable people here to help you out with any questions you may have...

Red Alert

Personally I'd go for virtual machine rather than a dual boot configuration. I've run XP in Parallels and I now run it in VMWare, the performance is fine even for Visual Studio. Take a look also at the Macbook Pro; if you're a heavy user the graphics may be worth it.

EDIT: just to add the transition is definitely worth it. I used to have a dual-boot Linux/XP laptop (it was too slow to try VMWare on it) and it's great having all my UNIX-ey software dev stuff beside iTunes!

ant043

500 euro savings sound great, I'd say go for it. I have one of the unibody macbook pros myself and build quality is just unreal. It's worth the price alone. Plus osx has to be the nest operating system on the planet. So if you are a switcher you'll never look back. Yes you can boot windows xp or vista on the mac. I use Xp through bootcamp myself just for gaming. bootcamp comes with the software package so all you need to get is a cheap oem license and you're ready to go. vmware fusion and parallels are programmes you can buy which allow you to boot into windows while still working in osx. Very useful cause it means you don't have to shut down and reboot into windows. These programmes are not good for gaming however as the system resources are shared between both operating systems. Hope that helped a bit and enjoy your new mac http://static.boards.ie/vbulletin/images/custom/cloud/icons/icon7.gif

Darwin

Thanks for the very informative replies everybody, very useful. I'm not too worried about gaming as I have a desktop for that. I've decided to go with it - I was thinking of a used Macbook Pro as well, but the savings on this are too good to ignore! (In case anybody is interested, I sourced this from ebay UK, drop me a PM if you want to know more as the seller has 9 left!)