Help needed, Vista or OSX

[carinatauk]

Right I am a complete numpty at PCs and I desire the considered opinions of the collective.

I am currently looking at a laptop, choices so far are Sony or Toshiba with Vista Home [approx £800] or splashing out on a Apple MBP [£1299]. All John Lewis options [ps they recommend MBP]

The key issues are that I am currently running XP which is sufficient for my software. Regrettably, this software will not port over to Vista [well according to the Microsoft site] because of its age. If this is so then I will have to fork out for this as well, hence the Apple option.

The software I use is:

Microsoft Office
Microsoft Visio
Adobe Photoshop, Elements and CS2
Itunes
Tom Tom Home
AOL
Windows Live Messenger
McAfee AV and Firewall
Some games [civilisations etc]

I have heard some poor things about Vista and tbh I am not a great fan of what I see. Option 2 is to use a MBP with parallels or the Microsoft [XP] equivalent to run all my windows software until I can afford a total change. I am assuming that running a windows based software on the MBP may lead to a virus issue in time?
What are the options of protection?

Key thing is the Office, Photoshop and TomTom software [and Garmin when it arrives].

Which is the way to go? And if MBP, which one and would you increase the memory?

Many Thanks

Edited to say I will also use this for online banking etc and work

Edited by carinatauk on Saturday 18th August 16:08

[carinatauk]

Thanks for the info. Software that apparently doesn't work on Vista is:

Adobe Photoshop, Elements and CS2 [at the very least problematic, and at > £1000 I am not prepared to update]

Software that apparently doesn't work on the MBP [but does under Vista] includes:

Tom Tom Home
Garmin Mapsource

I understand that I could get a super Vista machine at £1299, not that I would know where to look at the mo.

I like the idea of running both system is tandem, particularly given the Adobe issue. Where would I get a "cheap" version of XP?

Thanks again

[carinatauk]

The XP version is OEM and came supplied on the Evesham pc [without the disks].

CS2 comments were based on an extract from the MS site:

"Adobe Creative Suite 2 (Superceded by Adobe Creative Suite 3 Design Premium)
Version: 2.3
Vista Compatibility: Adobe Creative Suite works with Vista but there are issues with installing updates.
Issues: Adobe Update Manager can cause error messages when installing updates, but the updates install fine.
Vendor Support: Unsupported. Adobe has discontinued Adobe Creative Suite 2 and replaced it with Adobe Creative Suite 3 Design Premium. See the document How Adobe Products Support Windows Vista for more details on Adobe Creative Suite 2 and Vista"

Hence my thoughts of MBP with parallels. This will be a personal computer and as such I don't want to spend shed loads on software when the earlier versions I have are more than adequate [ie Acrobat v4 which won't work on Vista] and work with XP.

Is the extra money, MBP, worth it to upgrade from the £1299 version to the alternate £1500 ish version??

[carinatauk]

Thanks a bunch guys

This is the response from my bank, as all my banking is electronic it may decide my destiny:

"Thank you for your e-mail about using Internet banking.

We do not support specific computers, however, we do support Netscape Navigator 6 and above or Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 and above. If your system has one of these browsers you will be able to access Internet banking using your Apple Mac"

Being a bit of a numpty, am I to assume that the software that is used under OSX isn't going to work for the purpose of connecting to online banking?

[carinatauk]

Brill......

Bank is Lloyds TSB

Well it is now down to choice, so off to view the toys tomorrow

Thanks again