Ask HN: A TL;DR Macbook Buying Guide?
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Hello fellow HN-ers.
I am looking to purchase an Apple laptop and would like to call upon the hive-mind of Hacker News to save a bit of time (and possibly save the time of others in a similar situation).
I will be starting a 3 year CS degree later this year so I'll be looking for something to fill the following criteria:
-Document creation
-Web browsing
-Multimedia playback (Hi-def video/ music)
-Design (Photoshop/Illustrator)
-Java, C/C++, Obj-C, Ruby, Python
-iPhone /Android Dev
-Output for at least a single external monitor
-Enough graphics power to play the occasional game of Half Life 2 (at least)
The reason I'm looking at the Macbook is mainly for the iPhone development capabilities. An alternative would be to buy both a Mac Mini and a more powerful Windows laptop but I would rather have an all-in-one package and in terms of power, I doubt I would even need something much more powerful than a Macbook.
I'll be buying a used machine and I'll have a budget of around $1000.
This will be my main machine for both home and university.
Thanks!