Hi,

I'm strongly considering buying a Macbook pro.

I'm a LAMP (PHP) developer.  Currently I use Mint on a Dell.  Both 
laptop and desktop. I do have a Dell laptop that runs M$ 10.  Was a bad 
move upgrading from M$7 to M$10... another story for another day.

The reason for my desired move is I want something that just works.  I 
do not have the time nor do I have the expertise to maintain Linux Mint 
when there is an issue.  For instance Dropbox does not launch correctly. 
I have a work around, but do not want to have to figure this stuff out.  
JoinMe.com does no work completely on my Linux desktop and I need it so 
I use my Windows laptop.  I can watch but I cannot become the presenter.

Moving to Mac is purely a business decision.

Up to this point I have bought cheap on sale Dell.

I also need Virtualbox because I need to develop using PHP 5.6 and PHP 
7.

In doing my research I have narrowed my search to the Macbook Pro 13.3 
or 15.4 inch models.  I'm leaning towards the 15.4 since it has 16GB of 
RAM.  I suspect with the SSD drives these Macs have to sing.

My shock is the $2000 price tag.  Yikes.  I'm used to cheap dell 
hardware that I pay $300 to $400 for on sale.  I can see Best Buy is 
selling the MacBook at a slightly discounted price.

If I can be just a little more productive the Mac will pay for itself in 
no time.

The other thing I like about the Pro is it allows for driving two 
external monitors.  At the resolution the Pro provides that should be a 
lot of real estate give the laptop monitor makes 3. The only downside I 
am aware of is with the external monitors the refresh rate drops to 
30Hz.  I think someone on this list brought that up and they did not 
like that low of a refresh rate.

I think I would find iMovie and Pages useful.  And I could add an iPhone 
to the mix and utilize those benefits.

If I buy the Mackbook pro 15.4 inch with 16GB of RAM what would be a 
reasonable life expectancy in a production environment?  What would I be 
able to reasonably expect working it 12+ hours a day, day in day?

Any and every thought is much appreciated.


-- 
Keith Smith
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