Buying a Mac out of Necessity

[FlyingMongoose]

Yeah... necessity. I need to develop for iPhones, iPad's, and Macs, I need to develop for *nix, and I need to develop for Windows. I work at a company and provide support for employees who run on Macs...

I am trying to do it under a budget, I keep eyeing mac-mini's, (with an upgrade to RAM of 8-16 GB) as I do intend to run VMWare/Parallels ,or whatever virtualization on it for Windows support.
Also, the Mini's are cheaper.

Anyone have any input on this particular facet of the market as I have never willingly bought a mac.

[HeK]

Why not just run OSX in a VM?

Otherwise, just buy a MPB and be done with it.

[FlyingMongoose]

1: I work in the same company as my mother and she also does some very basic troubleshooting and support as well.
With that I have to show her.

2: I don't have the space on my work computer (laptop).

3: I'm going to run OSX on a VM, so that I can show people how to run Windows on VM because our applications all run windows? (Kind of pointless and will take up excess space due to VM space reservations).

It is more worth it for me to get a Mac... so you're saying macbook pro huh? Ultimately I don't need the portability, I have a Chromebook, a laptop, an android tablet, and my mobile phone. Plus it's more expensive, albeit more powerful than the Mac Mini, I don't think I will be developing graphically intensive products on this mac.

[KarthXLR]

1: I work in the same company as my mother and she also does some very basic troubleshooting and support as well.
With that I have to show her.

2: I don't have the space on my work computer (laptop).

3: I'm going to run OSX on a VM, so that I can show people how to run Windows on VM because our applications all run windows? (Kind of pointless and will take up excess space due to VM space reservations).

It is more worth it for me to get a Mac... so you're saying macbook pro huh? Ultimately I don't need the portability, I have a Chromebook, a laptop, an android tablet, and my mobile phone. Plus it's more expensive, albeit more powerful than the Mac Mini, I don't think I will be developing graphically intensive products on this mac.

The reason Hek says Macbook Pro is arguably because they're pretty much the best Apple offers. iMacs are extraordinarily overpriced and the Mac mini is more useful as a server from what I hear.

[Mission Difficult]

[quote author=FlyingMongoose link=topic=6936.msg266409#msg266409 date=1368132940]
1: I work in the same company as my mother and she also does some very basic troubleshooting and support as well.
With that I have to show her.

2: I don't have the space on my work computer (laptop).

3: I'm going to run OSX on a VM, so that I can show people how to run Windows on VM because our applications all run windows? (Kind of pointless and will take up excess space due to VM space reservations).

It is more worth it for me to get a Mac... so you're saying macbook pro huh? Ultimately I don't need the portability, I have a Chromebook, a laptop, an android tablet, and my mobile phone. Plus it's more expensive, albeit more powerful than the Mac Mini, I don't think I will be developing graphically intensive products on this mac.

The reason Hek says Macbook Pro is arguably because they're pretty much the best Apple offers. iMacs are extraordinarily overpriced and the Mac mini is more useful as a server from what I hear.
[/quote]

Macbook Pro is just a really well built computer. Mac Minis are good for (slightly expensive) HTPCs or maybe some kind of home server but there isn't any redundancy unless you buy two and you can't add cards unless you get one of those Sonnet xMac rack mounts or some kind of thunderbolt expansion chassis. I'm hoping they will consider updating the Mac Pro line once Haswell is out but it seems like Apple doesn't care about desktops anymore. Would building a hacknitosh be an option?

[FlyingMongoose]

[quote author=Karth link=topic=6936.msg266410#msg266410 date=1368144306]
[quote author=FlyingMongoose link=topic=6936.msg266409#msg266409 date=1368132940]
1: I work in the same company as my mother and she also does some very basic troubleshooting and support as well.
With that I have to show her.

2: I don't have the space on my work computer (laptop).

3: I'm going to run OSX on a VM, so that I can show people how to run Windows on VM because our applications all run windows? (Kind of pointless and will take up excess space due to VM space reservations).

It is more worth it for me to get a Mac... so you're saying macbook pro huh? Ultimately I don't need the portability, I have a Chromebook, a laptop, an android tablet, and my mobile phone. Plus it's more expensive, albeit more powerful than the Mac Mini, I don't think I will be developing graphically intensive products on this mac.

The reason Hek says Macbook Pro is arguably because they're pretty much the best Apple offers. iMacs are extraordinarily overpriced and the Mac mini is more useful as a server from what I hear.
[/quote]

Macbook Pro is just a really well built computer. Mac Minis are good for (slightly expensive) HTPCs or maybe some kind of home server but there isn't any redundancy unless you buy two and you can't add cards unless you get one of those Sonnet xMac rack mounts or some kind of thunderbolt expansion chassis. I'm hoping they will consider updating the Mac Pro line once Haswell is out but it seems like Apple doesn't care about desktops anymore. Would building a hacknitosh be an option?
[/quote]

I've noted the hardware specifications of macbook pro's actually usually outweigh that of their other similarly priced products primarily in the graphics field, otherwise the mini's are comparable.


While a hackintosh is KIND of an option, it's "not quite". Basically the big issue is the ability to directly provide exact input as an example (we use screen shares for work often) to the people I need to help set up. Ultimately this means a "real mac" is my only real option. Because I need to be able to show people "start to finish" on setting up the use of our applications.

Basically in my work place, we do not furnish your equipment, but as you are considered contracted in almost all facets (some even with commission), almost any purchase used in the use of business can be written off for taxes. Many of the people I have to assist set up are mac enthusiasts and want to be able to work from their mac computers, despite the fact that 100% of our applications are developed for and are used within Windows, meaning they have to run from a virtualization.

Ultimately, I need a mac to provide exact input options to the people I train on our software when setting up a virtualization, but I also want to be able to develop mobile applications for any platform. (I know seems pointlessly redundant), need a mac, to set up virtualization, to set up windows on it. But I need to be able to provide accurate support across the board, and I have little experience with mac (though decent experience with *nix, it's not quite the same).

I know I should have at least 8GB of RAM though, I've run into it over and over with some people and even with windows compy's they notice lots of slowdowns until they upgrade their RAM, to run all the apps we use I recommend at least 8GB to our people.

Anyway, yeah, budget, Mac, 8GB of RAM, need to be able to use virtualization, and would prefer space over speed. Would prefer 15" over 13" if possible, but I can always plug in a monitor for external output. I really don't want to hit the $2k mark, but from what the macbook pro prices are (even for refurb), I probably will. I would rather keep it $1500 or less, the price of the mac mini is the most appealing to me.