With the release of BootCamp yesterday, Apple removed the last objection I had to owning a Mac, so I bought a MacBook Pro at the local Apple store. Ouch. Can you say purchase regret? This should be the last thing I need to buy for my video/film empire, along with Final Cut Studio, which is shipping by FedEx.
Being able to run Windows solves several problems. The hardware is so strong on the MacBook that I can finally run apps like Visual Studio and Photoshop with a level of performance that is acceptable. The first laptop I ever bought was a Sony for $2,500 back in 1999, and it never let me down. In early 2003 I bought an HP that was totally inadequate. Early last year I bought a Dell that was extremely inexpensive, and great for Web browsing and Office, but not so good for the "real" stuff I do. So I priced a new Dell against the same specs as the Apple, and the Apple was actually less expensive (not to mention sexier, and it runs OS X, which the Dell would not). So I guess I'll put the Dell on eBay.
The most important problem solved is that I can finally edit HD. I'll probably need an external drive when it gets serious, but that's fine. I did some tests and it runs 1080p at full frame rate, no problem, in Windows and OS X. Wow.
Last night I installed some things on the OS X side like Firefox and such, and then installed Windows and Visual Studio 2005. Aside from a Blue Screen of Death after the driver install (awesome!) it generally went pretty smoothly.
Anyone want to buy a 1.6 GHz Pentium M with wireless, 1680x1050 15" screen, 60 gig hard drive? It really is a pretty sweet setup, just not an HD video editing setup.