Thinking of taking the plunge and buying a Macbook Pro...HELP!

[jduffey]

I currently use a DELL laptop with Vista and sync my Blackberry Bold with Outlook 2007. I use it 95% for business. I've searched, Googled and Forum-ed my way around the internets and haven't seen many good reports on being able to sync Entourage calendars, contacts, tasks, etc. with a Blackberry. I have over 1,600 contacts in my phone and in Outlook and feel this will probably be my biggest headache when switching to a Mac.

Has ANYONE taken this plunge? I went to my local Apple store and no one there was able to answer my questions about making this switch. My questions are pretty basic:

1. I've read about headaches when syncing Macs to BBerrys. Pocket Mac vs. Missing Sync? Read bad things about both.

2. Is Entourage basically as functional as Outlook 2007? What about Apple Mail?

3. For those that have made the switch, what were you not able to do with a Mac that you could do on my PC, Outlook 2007, etc.?

Thanks for any help. I'm itching to buy a Mac but from what I've read online I think I might be giving up one headache for another...

 

[Duncan Fowler]

Hi,

I have a BB Storm and a MacBook Pro with Entourage I do use Pocket Mac for
Syncing with Entourage 2008 as well as iTunes for things such as Podcasts.

But I have also installed Boot Camp and Parallels where I do use the BB
Desktop for full backups of my Storm. (If your dumping the Dell, save the
Operating system disks as they may work in Boot Camp. You might have some
driver issues.)

Clearly Pocket Mac is a compromise and they keep promising to update it but
I have been waiting since December. I understand that PocketMac is not a BB
application. But for me, it works for most things. When I need the backup
I go to Boot Camp and that is also where you would goo to update your Os
unless you can do it OTA.

If you have not found it, I suggest you look at the forums in Crackberry.Com
See if they have a Mac users section for the Bold. They do for the Storm.

I do like the reliability of the Mac after years using and buying hundreds
of thousands of $ of PC's and Windows applications. Vista made me convert
many machines.

I use Vista for BB Desktop, some mapping programs, Publisher and Quicken.
(The Mac version really sucks)

BTW, unless you get your Mac Store to migrate all of your software for you
(Apple stores will do it for free) you will want the shareware utility to
convert your outlook files to Entourage. Look for O2M at
http://www.littlemachines.com/

There is a program out now that will let you tether your laptop to your BB
for wireless access. See: Teatherberry.com

Good luck with your decision

Dunc