I'm thinking of going Mac
I'm about to change laptops. Of the ones that I have seen around, nothing grabs me, or excites me. Most of the laptops I have seen lately in meeting rooms include the usual suspects: Dell, Acer, Lenovo. They all look boring - the same thing I've been using for the last few years. Thats nothing that inspires you, something akin to a new cell phone.
I've briefly considered getting a laptop/tablet combo, something like the Samsung Ativ. But I am not sure if I will quickly get over the novelty of the touch screen. Then the only thing I will be stuck with is Windows 8.
So I am really thinking about getting either a Macbook Pro, or Macbook Air. The new Macbook Pro's come with Retina display, but the Airs had the SSD. The other possible factors are the lack of DVD drive on the Air (have not used a CD/DVD this year), and a few other things. What really has driven me towards Mac is that I will have a shell easily accessible. Parellels or some other virtulasation software will allow me to run Windows apps (Visio and Project) and Ubunutu in a VM, without having to dual boot.
I have never used an Apple product before, so thats what makes me uncertain. For that last 3 years, I have been using a Lenovo R400 - a 14.1 inch Dual Core sorry excuse for laptop. Performance is dreadfull - Visio and Excel open together is enough to make the machine hang.
Prior to that, I used a HP 17 inch laptop for about 3 years. I was generally impressed with it. But that was 2009 - I doubt a heavy laptop, with lots of USB ports and a DVD writer is what I am looking for now.
I think what I want is something light, with a decent screen (15") and lots of power, and a shell closeby. Ubuntu is not ready for enterprise use full time, so thats why perhaps Mac sounds like a good choice.
Whatddya think?
November 2017 update - after almost 4 years, my MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Late 2013) with 2,8 GHz Intel Core i7 and 8GB RAM and SSD is still going strong.