Ask HN: Is it worth switching to a Mac?

My current Dell system is in need of replacement and I'm considering switching to a Mac with VMWare. I am a long time Windows user and my work involves mostly web development, research and technical writing. I use Eclipse, UltraEdit, SQLYog, WinSCP, TortoiseSVN, Adobe CS3, Camtasia Studio, MS Office and a local WAMP server for most of my work.

I've done quite a bit of research on hardware/software, but it's been hard to find objective opinions on switching to Mac. I'm especially interested in experiences from other web developers that recently switched to a Mac -- did you notice an appreciable improvement in workflow to justify the learning curve (OS, keyboard shortcuts, etc.)? Has your overall experience been positive?

Edit: To clarify, I would prefer using native Mac software over the VM wherever possible and have found equivalents to everything except Camtasia Studio.

I am a long time mac user, not a new switcher, but I am a web developer on a mac. If you are going to heavily rely on VMware to run all of you windows apps you might want to grab a pro or the top of the line macbook, the bare minimum is to juice up the RAM. I have an older white macbook and I love VMWare, but just for running on operating system at once, I usually have a ubuntu server going and when I try using a winxp system it does get a little sluggish on the computer.

In terms of mac version of the software they are equally good, MS Office for mac is usually pretty responsive and doesn't crash. In my experience massive excel files sometime bomb out excel, I'd say the PC version was a little more stable. People have also said the newer version of Adobe CS seem to run better on PC then mac. I have not really had a problem, though. I never heard of mac version of UltraEdit, SQLYog, WinSCP, Camtasia Studio, Although for Camtasia there are some decent mac screencast recorders, but not to my knowledge ones as feature rich as camtasia.

I know a few people who have asked for my advice for buying a computer and being a good apple fanboy, i've recommended macs, once they got the hang of it and the little differences they've really liked it.

I know for me having access to the unix underpinning/programs is a great thing that has help me as well as being able to install pure linux programs, pending dependencies and all that. I've gone the VMWare route for running my windows things and not using boot camp. If I wanted to use the windows side of things for longer periods of time I would use that setup.

All that said, with more market share that macs are gaining it's great using one because most of the system is well thought out and can be pretty powerful when you need it to be. I can develop sites on my system like I am developing on the linux box I am going to deploy to, test sites with in safari, firefox, ie6, ie7 and have a generally secure computer that I can kill any process or program that is freezing up on me.

Just my thoughts

Will you be doing ANY mac work?

If you're just going to be running everything in Windows anyways, you can get more machine for your dollar by buying another Dell or a Thinkpad.

I use Mac, Linux & Windows at home; most of the development I do is Windows based though, so I use a Vista / Ubuntu dual boot laptop (Thinkpad T61P. I LOVE it.) for when I need to go on-site.

As a developer I like running software that is similar to my production environment. OS X is close enough to Linux that most applications work the same. This makes me more productive and makes development easier.

When I switched it was frustrating. It took me 2 weeks before I felt comfortable navigating the OS.

After that 2 weeks things began to feel comfortable. I feel much more productive on my Mac now than I ever did on a Windows box.

I think I am actually a little less productive on a Mac than I was on Linux. However, if you are developing web applications that will be hosted on a *nix server, OS X is much better than Windows.