What type of budgeting is defined by the parameter "within reason" at your new company ... $2K, $3K, or less?

If you can run up to the $2,500 - $3,000 range, there is always this.

Quad Core (Core 2 Extreme), 2GB, 256Mb Nvidia, Bluetooth Input Devices, etc... Runs about $3200 but scales up and down nicely.

As for the mac, I defer to the mac guys here.

BTW... the $3200 includes a 20" Unltrasharp. I go with the Dual Panels at work, but I do a LOT of comparison in my daily duties... and like everyone else a lot of multi tasking (plus porn looks great spread across two screens).

I've never much had a need for anything alrger than 20" in the office, but I'm not a graphics guy... guys tasked to positions like seed and yourself might require the bigger panels.

Yeah, that's about the level I'm looking at. I rock the dualies at home - might be a good idea for the office, too.

Awesome. Anyone else? I'm wondering about the Intel Macs and their ability to run XP. Will they run Vista? Is Vista still so far off that it doesn't matter?

I know I'm going to get the gong on this...but so what...

I'm putting my cash on an Apple Cinema Monitor from now on. I've had a 23" at home for the past couple of years, and it is beat to hell--on for long durations, on and then on frequently. At the same time, I've had a wide range of experiences with lesser monitors at the office gigs.

It beats them to hell and back. The picture is better than my HDTV. Angle viewing is great. In fact, the dots are so small that I cannot see any dead pixels, and I'm sure there a few there. They've come down quite a bit since the $1700 I shelled out for this model.

I would also recommend a dually. If I have the space here at home, I'd definitely do it.

And as far as the PC thing goes, I cannot work on one for extended periods of time. I get itchy and I start to think how cool desktop images are.

Though, I am strongly considering a closet model that I can whip out for the occasional PC proof on the web site of things.

Rumor has it that CS3 should be better for the Intel Mac Pros. Though, it doesn't seem to affect the Power PC models much, if any at all. Which does not matter a bit. I'm not in the market for another couple of years.

And not to down play this at all...but is anybody else not that impressed with faster and faster CPUs? I drive these things fairly hard at home futzing with 150Mb 16 bit PSDs and what not. I'll do some correcting, pixel pushing whatever...my machine is two years old and it's still fast enough to where I cannot even get a good day-dream in while I'm watching the aqua bar creep.

I'm just saying...

Oh and hey, a mighty cheers to the new gig. Is this the place we spoke about right before I switched lanes?

Pfft. I'm on a Ti PowerBook G4 with a gig of RAM and a whopping 1GHz processor, and it takes a solid 4 minutes to open MS Word. I'm one guy who's impressed with CPU speed. That's why I'm drooling over the quad. That with 2G RAM and a decent video card will make Billy happy for a good long while.

Are there any laptops with anywhere near stellar specs? I'm wondering if I can get one with what I need and portability to boot.

Seed, do you have any experience with running windoze on an intel mac? Works in a pinch or true multi tasker?

Thanks for the congrats. No, this one came out of the blue last Tuesday, I scheduled the first interview for Wednesday, after which I passed along my references and scheduled the 2nd interview, and met the executive team on Monday.

6 days, intro to offer, including a weekend.

And for all of you who hate me right now, I've been looking for over a year. This one came from a recruiter who found me on career builder.

I am running Vista through Parallels on my Macbook. Dual core 2.0ghz, 2 gigs ram.

Vista runs ok on it. Not stellar by any stretch. Windows Xp runs just fine on my Mac Mini, like a XP native computer of about 2 years ago or so.

It does take forever and a day to install programs on the vista. I installed Office '07 on it and it took like 30 years. Of course this could be from various issues due to running 4 virtual machines on this notebook. None of the new exciting(ha) aero feature work on it, but the macbook has integrated graphics. Don't know how it would run on a Mac Pro or Macbook Pro.

Seed's comments on processors is right for most people. If you are not a power user, then you would be fine with just about anything. If you are running graphics apps and burnings dvds and coding and all that then I always say to go with the best you can afford. Sure it is overkill in the beginning, but the software will catch up in 2 years or so and then it will be average. IMO the bigger better faster more thing is a marketing ploy.(unless you are doing complex computations and shit) "look this is 20% faster than our last model, you need this!" Well the last model was 50% more than I needed anyway so why spend the thousands to upgrade. At some point, how much do you need.

Memory, in my opinion, is a different story. While there is a point of diminishing returns, I always advise customers to get as much RAM as possible. Computer starts and stops faster, you can work with multiple programs faster, and well it sounds cool to say u have 4 gigs of ram. (tho expensive) I opened about 30 programs on this macbook and still saw little difference it the way it ran.

Depending on what they are using for remote access, you should have no need of a notebook. (unless you like to sit on the toilet and work like I do) I use all types of remote access (vnc, vpn, terminal service, log me in, gotomypc, citrix) and they all work pretty well. Don't know that I'd want to be running intensive apps remotely, but it depends on what they're usin.

Myself, I have to have a notebook. I would have gotten a Macbook Pro, but given the costs and the fact that I take my notebook out about 30 times a day I was worried about wear and tear. I went for the cheap one because I have dropped my last 2 machines.

What version of adobe stuff do you need? I think the new version is only in beta for the intel Macs, and the old version runs like shit through rosetta.

um, you didn't post THESE comments on the shitter, did you Charles? *shudder*

I like Dutch's suggestion for the 710 + dual 20" UltraSharps. Not tip-top of the line, but plenty beefy to avoid obsolescence for a number of years. Sprinkle in 2 gigs of ram and dual DVD drives and I'm a happy guy.

I need the Adobe Creative Suite for Designers (for windows, natch), but I don't want to intentionally buy the old version. CS3 is coming out in April, so I'm planning on preordering that. Anyone see any problems with that? Should I get 2.3 just because it's currently available and stable?

I recently purchased an Intel iMac. I'm running a gig of RAM and 250gig hard drive. I love it almost as much as I love my kids.

"I'm on a Ti PowerBook G4 with a gig of RAM and a whopping 1GHz processor, and it takes a solid 4 minutes to open MS Word."

Really??? My 733mhz G4 opens it in a few seconds.

One of the things I like about Macs is that they don't feel outdated the second you get them home, the way Windows computers tend to. I'm still going strong on a computer I got six or so years ago -- graphics, video editing... no problem. (video encoding? Okay, fine get it going and go to bed....)

Fewer problems, runs the programs you mentions quite well, and you get to use programs such as BBEdit and CSSEdit for Web programming.

Quantify "feel outdated the second you get them home" for me. I have a two month old vista machine... still don't feel the urge to run out and buy something more up to date though I've had it a staggering ~5.27 e6 seconds...

This is why I hate the Mac/PC debate. Instead of sticking to actual measurable metrics, people tend to start saying things like "PC's feel out of date" or "Macs aren't serious enough for business"

Huh?

It's as if people feel personally attacked if you tell them a model of computer works better for you than the one they happen to enjoy using.

I guess my bottom line is that people should get what works for them. The reality of the situation is if you buy a mac or a pc with comparable hardware and software sets, keep them both secure (easier with a Mac I'll grant you) and keep them healthy, you'll probably be ok either route.

Given a realistic sample size of machines, used in varying situations I'd imagine you will find ample amounts of examples on both sides of the fence that work great for five + years without any effort, or seem to bog down four months after purchase.

Leave the idiosyncratic comparisons to Hodgman and Long.