I need to purchase a new computer since ive almost had it with my old thinkpad (pII 400 mhz) and my desktop pc (p3 700mhz). i need to get a decent laptop which I can actually rely on, speedwise and everything. I was thnking of buying apple mac, or a dell inspiron

After following macs in general for the past few months, and having a bit of a play with apple macs at Apple Regent Street, Im leaning more towards apple's powerbook 12" or the ibook 14". I just need to clarify a few things:

-Is it worth it, with regards to price-satisfaction and speed as these things are rather expensive
-My main uses for it would be Ms Office, surfing the web, listening to music, playing the occasional game and watching movies. I'd also use it in school for taking notes, and use it with my digital camera (Fuji Finepix A201)
-Is Office 2004 for Mac as good as Office 2003 on the PC? and have Apple or some other company got a similar application to MS Onenote which runs on the mac?
-Will i be able to use the same ISP as I use on my PC? Dial-up "Freeserve" (now Wanadoo)
-File transfers and networking between mac and windows PC - I've looked into this, but is it as easy to set up, and simple to use as apple and other sources claim?
-CD Drives on a mac - can i burn a ISO9660 cd on my windows box which will work on the mac and vice versa? or do the CDs have to be in the HFS/HFS+ format?
-Is Panther or Tiger as easy to use as windows. How long does it take a rather accomplised windows user (have used windows for 8 yrs) to 'master' the mac os?

Sorry if this post is a bit long, or in the incorrect forum, i just need to know from other people's experience whether or not it is worth the switch!

I probably wont buy until after the macworld expo.

Thanks

P.s: If any UK university/sixth form students own a mac, I would be particularly interested in their opinions.

a quick glance at the forums would summarize all of this for you rather than creating a new post

-Is it worth it, with regards to price-satisfaction and speed as these things are rather expensive

some say yes, some say no. i'm satisfied with my powerbook.

-Is Office 2004 for Mac as good as Office 2003 on the PC? and have Apple or some other company got a similar application to MS Onenote which runs on the mac?

office 2004 is better than office 2003. word's notebook feature isn't exactly onenote but it is capable

-Will i be able to use the same ISP as I use on my PC? Dial-up "Freeserve" (now Wanadoo)

i don't see any reason why not, unless you have to use some proprietary dialup software.

-File transfers and networking between mac and windows PC - I've looked into this, but is it as easy to set up, and simple to use as apple and other sources claim?

yes

-CD Drives on a mac - can i burn a ISO9660 cd on my windows box which will work on the mac and vice versa? or do the CDs have to be in the HFS/HFS+ format?

CDs are not burned in any file system but ISO9660. that's part of the CD spec.

-Is Panther or Tiger as easy to use as windows. How long does it take a rather accomplised windows user (have used windows for 8 yrs) to 'master' the mac os?

not long at all



a macintosh is a computer. it runs a different operating system, but it is still a computer, and capable of interacting with PCs and Macs alike over wired and wireless lans, CDs, flash drives, and anything else

Most apps you will be running is MS Office,

I suggest you go with PC rather than Mac...

I have been reading lots of problems from whom have installed Office 2004 on their Mac. (freezing, errors etc...)

But Mac is more reliable than PC...virtually virus/spyware free...

And using same ISP and networking shouldn't be any problem...

I have been extensive PC users for past like millions of years...

but I was able to adapt to Mac OS X Panther pretty easy...

For the things that you say you will be doing.... a 12" iBook would do you just fine.... dont go for the 14" as the resolution is exactly the same..... 1024x768. If you wanted something more powerful then you could jump to the powerbooks but they run a bit more expensive. Yes macs are great products, and they run great. Office 2004 is nice. This is comming from an avid PC user.... who had to switch to mac, because that is all they use where I work. I learned panther in probabally 2 days... very simple!