As I thought about replacing the tablet, I thought to myself, “Hey, what about a Mac?”Macs, after all, are celebrated for their multimedia management, and I thought I might be able to shift my a/v editing tasks from the desktop to a new MacBook, thus extending the life of the desktop for another year or two.

I was concerned, of course, about compatibility with Windows systems. After all, my primary use for a notebook is to run my IT consulting business while I’m out of the office, and that’s a Windows world. Not only are all my clients using Windows, but some of the cloud services I use require Internet Explorer for full functionality. Some quick research convinced me that this would not be a problem. Not only does the Mac OS have a bunch of features designed to facilitate networking with Windows – including BootCamp, which allows the Mac hardware to boot into Windows — but by using Parallels, an inexpensive software program, I could easily switch back and forth between Mac and Windows environments.

With my compatibility concerns assuaged, I started looking at pricing. My wife is a college professor, so we’d be eligible for an educational discount from Apple. I spec’d out the following system:

• 15-inch MacBook Pro (Hi-Res Antiglare screen)
• 2.66 GHz Intel Core i7
• 4 GB RAM (2 DIMMS)
• 500 GB SATA drive, 7200 RPM
• DVD +/- RW
• Aperture and Final Cut Express (photo and video editing)
• AppleCare Protection Plan
• One year One-to-One membership at the Apple store (figuring I might need some help with the OS transition)

Total price: $2,875.00

That’s a good chunk of change, so I started wondering what it would cost to solve my performance problems while staying on a Windows platform. First, the laptop, a Dell Studio 14 running Windows 7 Home Premium:

• 14” Hi-Def screen (including facial recognition for logging on – cool!)
• 1.6 GHz Intel Core i7 (2.8 GHz Turbo Mode)
• 4 GB RAM
• 500 GB SATA drive, 7200 RPM
• DVD +/- RW
• Adobe Photoshop Elements and Adobe Premiere Elements
• 1 GB ATI Mobility Radeon HD video card
• 3-year warranty with on-site support

Total price: $1,328.00 … and that’s street price. As a Dell reseller, I should be able to get a better deal.

Having halved the cost of the laptop, it occurred to me that I might be able to replace the desktop as well. I priced out a Dell Vostro 430 running Window 7 Home Basic (as a Microsoft partner, I can upgrade the OS at no charge):

• 2.8 GHz Intel Core i7
• 4 GB RAM (2 DIMMS)
• 160 GB SATA drive, 7200 RPM (I already have two 250 GB 7200 RPM drives that I can re-use)
• DVD +/- RW
• 1 year warranty

Total price: $890.00

So if I got a new Windows laptop AND and a new Windows desktop – both of which should be crazy fast compared to what I have now – I’d spend $657 LESS than if I bought a comparably spec’d MacBook Pro.

Can anyone make a compelling case for why I should go Mac?