Tax-Free Weekend Woes

Because this weekend is the Tennessee Tax Holiday, it's a prime opportunity to do what I was discussing earlier and migrate while saving some cash. Having a week's overlap with two machines available will help with migration issues, too.

There's a $1500 limit on the price of the machine you can get without paying sales tax, however--I was hoping to migrate to OS X, but there's a couple of problems. The issues:

Mac option:

• Smooth, clean user interface
• Not constantly asking if you really want to do something
• Some photo, audio, and video software built-in
• Less memory-hogging garbage
• Really need the desktop machine if I plan to play World of Warcraft (or anything else, for that matter), as laptop doesn't have video card at $1500
• Can't run AutoCad on Mac (bad news for mechanical engineers)
• Minor legacy software issues; nothing I can't live without, however
• One-year Apple warranty

PC option:

• Less smooth, less clean user interface
• Third-party photo, audio, and video software available, or the Microsoft version of it
• Plenty of memory-hogging garbage
• Can get a Wow-capable laptop with video chipset, 2 GiB RAM, and 240 GiB hard drive for $1500 limit
• Can run AutoCad
• Can also play everything else on my game shelf, not that I play much of it
• Two-year Costco warranty, which is great because in my experience HP laptops are crap

I wanted to avoid Vista for as long as humanly possible, but new machine (and the need to run AutoCad) pretty much means I'm stuck. So I'm gonna mow the lawn, then off to Costco, I think, where they won't try to sell me an extended warranty because they provide it free of charge. Suck on that, Best Buy!