As I approach the purchase of a new computer I am struggling with my choices.  Over the last few years I have stayed with notebooks and currently have a 15″ HP and a 13″ MacBook but now want something with a larger display.  If I stay with the notebook format my considerations are a Hewlett Packard with an 18″ display or the 17″ MacBook Pro.  I am also considering an all-in-one and here the options are 23″ HP or the 27″ iMac.  The display on the 27″ iMac is unbelievable however the choice of a Mac, either the iMac or MacBook Pro, creates some compromises with software.  While a goodly number have Mac specific options, some like Microsoft Office are short of some of the functions that are available in the PC versions.  Others, like one of my favorites PDF Converter Pro, is not available for the Mac. By the way, there is a program with some of the features of PDF Converter for the Mac, deskUNPDF PDF Converter, but here again it is missing key features, principally converting a PDF file to a MS Word form, something I find very useful. I have used QuickBooks since it first was introduced and the Mac version does not share a common file format with the Windows version which creates issues with all of my historical data.   I guess one can modify the data to some extent but that entails a very laborious manual conversion of file names and the like.

So it appears that if I decide on a Mac I am destined to run most of my applications in Windows on the Mac which kind of defeats the purpose of having a Mac.  Also, my understanding is that if you run Windows on a Mac you eliminate one of the Mac’s strengths, the virus resistance.  Having said all of this, it appears that while I love, and lust for, the display on the Mac it makes little sense to go that way.  My current Mac – the 13″ MacBook – is my traveling computer which is light and when on the road I seldom get involved in the more feature intensive tasks and do none of my financial work.

My computer experience runs the full gauntlet.  I started with an Apple 2E in 1979 and over the years have had just about everything – the original IBM, the first Macintosh, a Toshiba laptop with the gas plasma display (all 13 pounds of it), dabbled with an Osborne, even had a brief experience with the first Compaq (it was called a portable but was better described as a lugable) and for the last 20 plus years have been a PC guy.

So now I feel that I have to decide on the 18″ HP notebook or the HP all-in-one.  I would like someone out there to mount an argument for me to choose the Mac.  Given my limited experience with a Mac recently I may be missing some key points that would change the equation.