PC user wanting to swap to Mac has some queries.

Shootist007 wrote:

Really what is your major malfunction.

The same as Col Carol Matthews'. It's a sad affliction…

Do you always act like this?

Invariably. It's what being "A voice of reason" is all about.

Do you have any real friends?

Amicus Plato -- sed magis amica veritas!

Or just acquaintances?

Just acquaintances. That's why I try so hard to ingratiate myself with the participants in this forum. It's my Dale Carnegie moment.

Thanks.

You're more than welcome. I particularly treasure personal attacks. They do illuminate so much…

Thank you for pointing all that out.

Good Bye.

snerkler1 wrote:

Sorry guys

Hardly your fault -- no need to apologise.

I can safely assume that running basic word and excel functions on Office for Mac will be compatible with Office on a PC

Yes. For the tasks you described, I should expect no problems. Moreover, Office Mac comes with compatibility checker

<http://mac2.microsoft.com/help/office/14/en-us/excel/item/71638f37-030d-43f0-884 f-99c90e2cc974>

And if you look over this MS help doc

Best practices for working with Windows

<http://mac2.microsoft.com/help/office/14/en-us/excel/item/7acce321-36fb-48d6-8c7 6-12cb3a0063ee>

and compare it to your own work you'll get a good idea of the extent to which you might be affected, which I suspect is very little if at all.

running office on a windows partition?

As eww said, this is no different from running MS Office on a PC.

snerkler1 wrote:

I can safely assume that running basic word and excel functions on Office for Mac will be compatible with Office on a PC, as will running office on a windows partition?

Mac Office and Win Office are not completely identical, for example para 4 of

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Office_for_Mac_2011

You can see what kinds of problems Mac Office users run into in the MS forums

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/mac/forum/macword

snerkler1 wrote:

Just wondering if anyone has the answer to the questions I posted before (page 2 about half way down) regarding the 2.2GHz vs 2.4GHz processors, and the graphics card?

The 2.4 with better GC and 1GB VRAM will run faster then the 2.2 w/512MB GC. But how much faster and is it worth the difference in cost is up in the air.

Just wondering if anyone has the answer to the questions I posted before (page 2 about half way down) regarding the 2.2GHz vs 2.4GHz processors, and the graphics card?

Even if the higher-priced machine always did everything 9% (.2 /2.2) faster than the other (which it doesn't, because all the other components that the two machines share work to reduce the speed differences), that's a barely perceptible difference in real day-to-day usage. You'd have to have the two machines side-by side running exactly identical processes simultaneously to see the difference at all. And with the actual difference more likely to be 3-5% in all tasks that aren't extremely graphics-intensive, I wouldn't expect you to derive nearly enough benefit to consider the extra money well spent for the work you anticipate doing with your MBP. If you were a gaming fanatic, the equation would be very different, and you'd want the more powerful GPU with extra VRAM.

Yes to some extent. It all depends on the program you are using. Some offload work to the graphics card more then others. I suspect that video editing rely on graphics more then still image editing and of course word processing.

More is always better. More money is always better then less money. At least for me it is.

Do not forget that you will (if you are smart) be buying ApleCare for your MBP ... $350. Better to spend it on AppleCare than on slightly more powerful hardware.