I’m in the market for a new laptop and I purposefully waited for the new MacBooks to be released. I priced out a Dell XPS M1330 and once the features are matched up as close as I can make them, there’s a $60 price difference in favor of the Dell. $1599 vs $1533. The MacBook comes out ahead in GPU, FSB, and operating system (OS X > Vista because of Unix) and the Dell comes out ahead in terms of connectors (HDMI, Firewire, card reader, ExpressCard slot, etc.). I tried to configure a comparable Ubuntu machine, but the processor speed is fixed at 2.0 GHz and easily went over compared to the $1299 MacBook. The only competitor now is a late model 15″ MacBook Pro which for refurb starts at $1349—a very tasty price indeed. The MBP matches the advantages of the m1330 and has a better GPU, screen size, and resolution than the new MacBook. How much better is the GPU? Let’s see.

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I like to use my iPhone for viewing podcasts. However, managing them through iTunes leaves much to be desired because some podcasts I like to view and then trash them, while others I like to archive and have synced at all times. iTunes does not have an obvious way to set this up.

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January, last year, I had thought perhaps my switch to Apple would begin with the first rev iPhone. By the time the iPhone debuted it didn’t provide a good enough value proposition for me then. Fast-forward to July 12th, and you would have found me standing in line to buy an iPhone 3G.

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Are you really saving any money? Not really.

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