Indeed, You Are Not Alone.

I could do with a new Intel Mac - my old 2nd Rev 12" G4 PowerBook is showing it's age, after nearly 4 years faithful service - but my spidey sense is suggesting I should hold off for a little while longer.

Yeah, but who's foolish enough to buy an Apple 1.0 product?

Still, probably worth waiting anyways, if only for the price reductions on last-generation hardware...

I'm in the same boat. I don't want to buy now then spend another US $129 for Leopard. But I'll be holding on a bit longer than you, I suspect. I want the early buyers to tread the minefield of new hardware to let me know when it's safe to purchase something.

With a US $2300 budget I am looking at either a 24" iMac or a Macbook Pro, with additional RAM.

I'm not reading the right rumor sites, I guess. :)
Last night I placed an order for a Core 2 MacBook; did I jump the gun?

I don't mind buying Leopard after-the-fact, since I'll be buying a family pack to do all of my computers, but if I receive the machine and then an announcement is made for a flash-based sub-laptop, or something else in the MacBook price/performance range, I'll be annoyed.

So the question for you folks is this:
Should I cancel my order?

I’ve been using a flash-based laptop in conjunction with my desktop Macs for the last three years and I love it. It’s an AlphaSmart Dana, which cost $379, weighs two pounds, boots up instantly, and runs for over 20 hours on three AA batteries. It was supposedly designed by former Apple engineers, so many of the key commands are the same. (There are even two “propeller” keys.)

It runs the Palm OS, so I primarily use it for note-taking and contact management, but it excels at those. That said, I still have to lug an old Windows laptop around when I want to do e-mail and multimedia production on the road, so I would be interested in a compact yet capable Mac laptop. And like you, I’m happy to wait.

I though the same thing last fall. Then I said WTF and bought the 24" iMac anyway. 6 months of iMac/Tiger goodness later, I must say that even if a new iMac rev comes out tomorrow, I have no regrets.
I am still holding off on that Macbook Pro purchase though. We live in exciting Mac times.

I was in the same boat as you but I took the plunge and bought a 17" MacBook Pro in January. I love this machine! I also thought they were going to come out with something at MacWorld and when they didn't I was a little worried that something else would be around the corner shortly. It has been over two months and I'm not sure that they will release anything radically different until at least the summer. I think the next big thing with the MacBook Pro line will be the inclusion of Flash memory in some form or another along with Intels new processor architecture but I don't see that happening for at least a couple more months. You never know though. The bottom line is that you can't keep waiting or you will always be waiting.

As to the 1.0 version that someone brought up, I have done it twice. I bought the first dual processor G4 tower and I bought the 12" PowerBook G4 when it was announced. They both are still working great. My wife uses the PowerBook every day and I may give the tower to someone else. There are no stats that show the first revision of Apple products being any more prone to problems than any other revision. It is simply an urban myth that people like to propogate.

Later,
Frank

I do the opposite--buy an old model just after the new ones become available. You save the cutting edge premium and the bugs are known or resolved. Often, the only benefit I miss is some small percent of megahertz increase.

And besides, this old G4 PowerBook has a lot of life in it yet...

Amen to that! My 15" PB G4 still rocks! It's not even 2 years old, so my refresh date is still a while off. No regrets.

As for Leopard, while it seems to have some nice new features, I'll wait to see what the "secret features" are. It is rumored that it will have ZFS, the new filesystem from Sun. What will be the impact of installing that on a running, productive system? I don't need the disruption that might cause.

I usally dislike "Me too!" posts, but... Me too!

What I'm really hoping for is a portable or iMac with a beefier video card. I don't want to buy another monster tower... My last 3 Macs have been big, beefy tower enclosures, but I'd really like something with the video "oomph" of a ATI Radeon Mobility X1900.

The 7600 GT is the best you can do in the iMac, but only if you buy the 24" model, and the X1600 Mobility, while nice, just isn't up to the level I desire.

So that leaves me to wait for a little while longer to avoid paying the "tower tax" -- buying a computer too expensive and powerful for my needs just to get the good video card. Rumors about the MacBook Pro line getting a nice video upgrade are making me hopeful. I'd love to have a laptop after all these years with towers.

A great resource, which many of you probably know about, is the Mac Rumors Buyer's Guide (http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/)

They make recommendations based on product lifecycles and the rough expected date of the next release.

Mr. Sharumpe: According to them, the MacBook is in mid-life right now, so it was an OK time to purchase.

$2300 = 24" iMac w/ 2GB RAM and GeForce 7600 = my machine.

If you are looking for a desktop look no further.

Just got my 17" MacBookPro back from Colorware (it's a BEAUTFIUL candy apple red now).

No regrets. I've learned to *never* buy gen 1.0 from Apple.... the 17" runs *quiet*, fast (Parallels with XP boots faster than a dual 4GHz AlienWare!).

Apple makes good stuff -- I have never regretted not waiting. As for the $129 for OS 10.5: (1) That's cheap compared to MS crapware offerings. (2) I gladly fork the $$ over to Apple...doing my part to encourage quality OS development.

I was lucky, shortly after christmas my Mom and Stepdad gave me a MacBook for a not xmas present . This was a refurbed MacBook Core Duo and the little machine kicks butt. My step dad as several laptops including the high end 17' laptop with the G4. It is hardly used anymore compared with his core 2 duo MacBook Pro. I was a fan of the old G4 line of laptops and really wanted one of those than an intel laptop about 6 months ago. I was totally knocked out with the Macbook! The remote control has even been fun and the built in iSight is a blast. The speed of parallel desktop is another plus. Needless to say it was the best not xmas present I ever got.

I'm in the same boat, too. I was planning to replace my 4-year-old iMac G4 17" with a 24" iMac this March, and I've been thinking that since I first saw a 24" in person. But I was also expecting Leopard and iLife '07 to ship by now, and I want those installed instead of paying a few hundred bucks extra. I'm also wondering about the touchscreen iMac rumors, although the timeframe for those may not be until next year.

My iMac works great, although it's kept me from buying a new iPod, since it only has USB 1.1, and none of the current iPods use Firewire. So when Leopard and iLife ship, I'll probably be buying my 24" iMac and a new Red 8GB iPod nano a few days later, new iMacs or no new iMacs.

I know the feeling. You think you'll buy something later and you end up spending the money or buying something else instead. I've been trying to book a Canal boat holiday for three years now. I really hope this summer will be the one I go on that trip.

well, yes!I do allways have the same feeling... but couldn't wait much longer, so bought one for this Christmas!!! My second Intel Machine though, not the first! :D

I have a MacBook Pro and for me its simply perfect. No need for a new version, works just super for me :) My advice would be to just get one now, you won’t be disappointed. I’m sure!