You don't need anything fancy, save as much as you can, and buy additional ram (possibly from a 3rd party site for much cheaper rates). I have 2 gigs and frequ

You don't need anything fancy, save as much as you can, and buy additional ram (possibly from a 3rd party site for much cheaper rates). I have 2 gigs and frequently go to the limit with the number of apps I have open. Slowdowns due to lack of ram can really kill your flow. I have a regular macbook, mainly because of OS X, which gives me unix tools with an OS that just works. Apple's hardware is ok, not great. I've had issues with 3 out of 3 notebooks. That said, the issues have become smaller (so Apple's QC seems to have improved). If I could run OS X on cheaper hardware, I would do it in an instance. I don't need to show off at the coffee shop. :)