i wanna mac.

DanielB

so i'm done some thinking and being that i get a 10% student discount i've decided on either of these...


17" iMac 1.83GHz intel core duo 1 gig of RAM, 160gig Hard Drive, ATI Radeon 1600 128mb, etc... for 1,289

13" MacBook 2.0 GHz intel core duo 1 gig of RAM, 80gig Hard Drive, etc... for 1,334

so is the extra portability and .17GHz worth the loss of 80gigs on the hard drive, 4" of display and the $45 difference?

DavidTO

DanielB wrote:

so is the extra portability and .17GHz worth the loss of 80gigs on the hard drive, 4" of display and the $45 difference?

The only things that matter, IMO are the portability vs. the larger screen.

You can always get a little portable self-powered drive, the ghz difference is nothing, and $45 is a nice dinner, but when you're investing in something like this, it's really nothing.

You need to weigh the two. You will find the 13" display confining. You will also find being chained to your desk confining. Decide.

W.W. Webster

DanielB wrote:

so i'm done some thinking

Have you budgeted for an external disk drive for backup? It should be something you have and use from day one, not added later (which might be too late).

DanielB

DavidTO wrote:

The only things that matter, IMO are the portability vs. the larger screen.

You can always get a little portable self-powered drive, the ghz difference is nothing, and $45 is a nice dinner, but when you're investing in something like this, it's really nothing.

You need to weigh the two. You will find the 13" display confining. You will also find being chained to your desk confining. Decide.

well i already have the 17" flatscreen CRT... so its portability with 13" and 17" vs. 17" and 17"....

also i'm thinking that if i can take my laptop to school next year it'd be great cause i can just put my photos and such on that and take them back and forth... cause our school only has 15 iBooks and 45 Journalism/Photojournalism/yearbook kids to rent them to.

DavidTO

Oh, well then, get the MacBook.

DanielB

DavidTO wrote:

Oh, well then, get the MacBook.

but its also got 30 G5's, with thirty 20" mac monitors

oh, 2 HP's, and 3 G3's:D

DavidTO

DanielB wrote:

well i already have the 17" flatscreen CRT... so its portability with 13" and 17" vs. 17" and 17"....

I was referring to this part of your post.

DanielB

DavidTO wrote:

I was referring to this part of your post.

ah

DanielB

DanielB wrote:

ah

ahhh i know how much i'll need the portablility but i also know how much i'll need the dual 17" i can't make up my minddd.

DanielB

okay, so this is making my decision easier. while i was gone at a camp for 10 days my computer screwed up. we got everything we needed off my Hard drive like all my photos, we went out and bought a new Hard Drive, this ones a Western Digital 160GB 7200RPM, and then because my parents want to build a new one for them we bought me a new ATI Radeon X1300 256mb and we're putting my older 128 in their computer. so that takes care of all my gaming stuff. so it looks like the laptop i'll be getting will be strictly photoshop and uploading and storing all my photos. which will significantly increase the speed of my computer since i have about 30 gigs of photos so far. now its what laptop to get. obviously i'll want about a gig of RAM just to help it speed up Photoshop

heres the 2 i'm thinking of:

a 1.83ghz 13" macbook with 1gig of RAM and a 120gig Hard drive= 1364

a 2ghz 15.4" macbook pro with 1gig of RAM and an 80gig hard Drive, since i could always get an external Hard Drive = 1889

so is the $525 really worth the 2.4" and loss of 40gigs in Hard Drive? or is there another reason i'm missing why to go with the Macbook Pro as opposed to the Macbook.

thanks guys,
Daniel

DavidTO

Daniel,

Can you wait? No promises, but I don't see the MacBook/Pro line-up staying as it is for long. The specs are too close, and Intel is supposed to have a 64 bit chip coming out in a month or two, followed closely by new MBP's IMO.

As for what there is right now...I'm not sure that you could rationally say that the MBP is worth the extra dough, but I would get it over the MB. The screen size will help with processing images, the case is nicer, IMO, you get some other nice goodies like the ambient light sensor and backlit keyboard, and the graphics card doesn't share the main RAM as in the MB.

So much depends on you and your perspective. I mean, for the price difference you could get a cheap PC lappy, so it's not some small chump-change. But for me, I would get the MBP.

bwg

DanielB wrote:

okay, so this is making my decision easier. while i was gone at a camp for 10 days my computer screwed up. we got everything we needed off my Hard drive like all my photos, we went out and bought a new Hard Drive, this ones a Western Digital 160GB 7200RPM, and then because my parents want to build a new one for them we bought me a new ATI Radeon X1300 256mb and we're putting my older 128 in their computer. so that takes care of all my gaming stuff. so it looks like the laptop i'll be getting will be strictly photoshop and uploading and storing all my photos. which will significantly increase the speed of my computer since i have about 30 gigs of photos so far. now its what laptop to get. obviously i'll want about a gig of RAM just to help it speed up Photoshop

heres the 2 i'm thinking of:

a 1.83ghz 13" macbook with 1gig of RAM and a 120gig Hard drive= 1364

a 2ghz 15.4" macbook pro with 1gig of RAM and an 80gig hard Drive, since i could always get an external Hard Drive = 1889

so is the $525 really worth the 2.4" and loss of 40gigs in Hard Drive? or is there another reason i'm missing why to go with the Macbook Pro as opposed to the Macbook.

thanks guys,
Daniel

you said your laptop will be your photoshop machine? get the pro. the pro has dedicated graphics while the regular macbook shares system memory.

DanielB

DavidTO wrote:

Daniel,

Can you wait? No promises, but I don't see the MacBook/Pro line-up staying as it is for long. The specs are too close, and Intel is supposed to have a 64 bit chip coming out in a month or two, followed closely by new MBP's IMO.

As for what there is right now...I'm not sure that you could rationally say that the MBP is worth the extra dough, but I would get it over the MB. The screen size will help with processing images, the case is nicer, IMO, you get some other nice goodies like the ambient light sensor and backlit keyboard, and the graphics card doesn't share the main RAM as in the MB.

So much depends on you and your perspective. I mean, for the price difference you could get a cheap PC lappy, so it's not some small chump-change. But for me, I would get the MBP.

i see, oh yeah i can wait. lol i've waited this long. i'm gonna need it by the end of august of begining of september though cause thats right around when school starts and Photojournalism will kick in. so what your saying is the MBP just has alot nicer build quality and screen and ascetics? so whats the technical standpoint behind the two. and if i added more RAM on the MBP without sending it to apple wouldn't that void the warranty?

what do you think would change due to Intel's 64 bit chip? isn't that what the Intel core duo chip is? how would it affect the MBP besides upping some of the specs. and the price tags

DavidTO

DanielB wrote:

i see, oh yeah i can wait. lol i've waited this long. i'm gonna need it by the end of august of begining of september though cause thats right around when school starts and Photojournalism will kick in. so what your saying is the MBP just has alot nicer build quality and screen and scetics? so whats the technical standpoint behind the two. and if i added more RAM on the MBP without sending it to apple wouldn't that void the warranty?what do you think would change due to Intel's 64 bit chip? isn't that what the Intel core duo chip is? how would it affect the MBP besides upping some of the specs. and the price tags

No, you can add RAM all you want without voiding the warranty. But the current MBP only allows up to 2gigs. A 64bit machine allows more, because the system can address more.

I buy my RAM at crucial.com, and install myself. Easy peasy. Well, one hard push is all it takes, but the rest is peasy.

DanielB

DavidTO wrote:

No, you can add RAM all you want without voiding the warranty. But the current MBP only allows up to 2gigs. A 64bit machine allows more, because the system can address more.

I buy my RAM at crucial.com, and install myself. Easy peasy. Well, one hard push is all it takes, but the rest is peasy.

is there more need than 2 gigs? i've heard macs handle photoshop slow but 1 gig should speed it up shouldnt it?

my dad always gets nervous when i build computers and i can just pop in the Processor or the RAM. on most laptops i know of though if you modify it in anyway then they void the warranty. same idea with reformatting your computer.

DavidTO

DanielB wrote:

is there more need than 2 gigs? i've heard macs handle photoshop slow but 1 gig should speed it up shouldnt it?

my dad always gets nervous when i build computers and i can just pop in the Processor or the RAM. on most laptops i know of though if you modify it in anyway then they void the warranty. same idea with reformatting your computer.

Right now the MacIntels are running PS through emulation called Rosetta. When Adobe releases CS3, it will run natively. So in the meantime, you're taking a performance hit. 1 gig is an absolute minimum, IMO. And if you're running PS, anything to avoid using the disk cache is a good thing, so more RAM is good.

Read this and page 84 of this PDF.

DanielB

DavidTO wrote:

Right now the MacIntels are running PS through emulation called Rosetta. When Adobe releases CS3, it will run natively. So in the meantime, you're taking a performance hit. 1 gig is an absolute minimum, IMO. And if you're running PS, anything to avoid using the disk cache is a good thing, so more RAM is good.

Read this and page 84 of this PDF.

thanks, i was talking to my brother about all this and stuff but i'm wondering how long would i need to wait before the new Macbook Pro came out, and how much a preformance/price difference do you think there will be. could i survive after all the new advances that are going to be coming out with an outdated Macbook Pro? can't remember but something he said in like 4 weeks is going to be a new 64bit chip coming out and the Intel Core Duo is going to be slowwwwww compared to it. so should i wait until after this is released and apple comes out with their new motherboard to support the new chip so i can get a faster more efficient MBP or should i take the hit later on when everything will run slow on a current version of the MBP.

DavidTO

I would wait until, if possible. Seems like you're in no rush, so what's the harm? There's always something new, and you can always argue for waiting, so I usually ignore that and would just buy when I want. But I think in this case it's warranted. I believe that the chip coming out is what Apple originally wanted to put in the MBP, and just couldn't wait for. But yeah, I've heard July/August for the chip, so September for the new MBP is not unreasonable, IMO.

DanielB

DavidTO wrote:

I would wait until, if possible. Seems like you're in no rush, so what's the harm? There's always something new, and you can always argue for waiting, so I usually ignore that and would just buy when I want. But I think in this case it's warranted. I believe that the chip coming out is what Apple originally wanted to put in the MBP, and just couldn't wait for. But yeah, I've heard July/August for the chip, so September for the new MBP is not unreasonable, IMO.

but do you think there will be a big price difference? and if so will it justify it?

DavidTO

Apple doesn't change the price points much. They just change up the features. you're gonna have a MBP at around 2k, 2.5k and 2.7-3k.

Daniel, I don't *know* any of this. It's all rumor and who knows what Apple's really gonna do. I have no idea how much you have to spend, etc, but you'll be fine with a current MBP. Just fine.

knight777

DavidTO wrote:

Apple doesn't change the price points much. They just change up the features. you're gonna have a MBP at around 2k, 2.5k and 2.7-3k.

Daniel, I don't *know* any of this. It's all rumor and who knows what Apple's really gonna do. I have no idea how much you have to spend, etc, but you'll be fine with a current MBP. Just fine.

If you can, hold out until the next mac conference in early July. Usually rumors are confirmed or dispelled during a conference.

I'm holding off an on a Macbook Pro until the fall since I really don't need it until then.

CatOne

knight777 wrote:

If you can, hold out until the next mac conference in early July. Usually rumors are confirmed or dispelled during a conference.

I'm holding off an on a Macbook Pro until the fall since I really don't need it until then.

It's the worldwide developers conference August 7-11.

DanielB

the PC is looking apealling again:uhoh ..... i could get this for 1155 because my brother has a 30% off coupon for dell and he could use his college student discount too

Dell 17" Inspiron E1705
2GHz/667MHz FSB Intel Core Duo Processor
17" UltraSharp Wide Screen
2GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz
100GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive
256MB NVIDIA® GeForce™ Go 7900 GS
and a 4 year accidental Damage plan for the entire computer

look at that and tell me that doesn't sound like it'd give an apple a run for its money as far as hardware goes...

wxwax

Of course it would, that's an excellent price.

DanielB

wxwax wrote:

Of course it would, that's an excellent price.

that was my response...

wxwax

DanielB wrote:

that was my response...

Looks like you should change the thread title to "I thought I wanted a Mac.."

DanielB

wxwax wrote:

Looks like you should change the thread title to "I thought I wanted a Mac.."

:nah still determined to get a mac, but its good to know i can have a good PC laptop lined up in case the mac idea falls through with the parentals.

Macs got a Refurb 15.4" MBP 1.83GHz Intel core Duo
667MHz frontside bus
512MB (single SO-DIMM) 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM
80GB 5400rpm Serial ATA hard drive
Slot-load SuperDrive (DVD±RW/CD-RW)
ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 with 128MB GDDR3 memory

for 1549

W.W. Webster

DanielB wrote:

still determined to get a mac

The risk is that you will get confused between price and value. Whatever the specs, a Ford will always be a Ford.