New Laptop For school.

[kovalchuk71 212]

Going to University this fall and am looking at getting an Apple Macbook/Macbook Pro. Anyone have any experience/insight about the 2 notebooks. I have used IBM my entire life (parents work there), and want to get something new. Im just curious on experiences people on here have with the MB and MBP. Is it really worth upgrading to the PRO? Im not doing computer graphics or music/video production.Thanks for the help guys. Right now I am looking at the top of the line Macbook or the Middle of the line Macbook PRO.

[TheBert 0]

If you have any intentions of playing graphically-intensive games or apps, then get the Pro model. The trade-off is that the Pro is bigger and heavier, and the hard drive requires a few more steps to upgrade. I've had a MacBook since 1st gen and I was wary of the polycarbon plastic being not durable at all -- not the case. The only thing I've had to really do to keep it looking decent is buy one of those Mr Clean cleaning pads to keep the thing from turning from white to off-yellow.

[troy 12]

I just got a new 2.4ghz MBP for school, the girl told me that for what I'm doing I really didn't need the Pro, but I wanted it anyway. It really depends on what your budget is and what you're going to be doing with it.

[D3nZ 0]

I personally purchased a MBP about 6 months ago and I love it. For school though I just recommend you the regular MB and you should be fine.

[strosedefence34 175]

like others before have said including you if you aren't doing any video, graphic, or music production and if your not a gamer you don't need the MBP unless you want to spend the extra money or if you want something bigger then a 13 inch screen. They are both great machines I do know people who run graphic programs on the top of the line MP though and they seem to have no problems. I don't think you will be disappointed with your choice though they are both great computer. I just recommend that you get applecare its worth the extra money pretty much anything that happens to your computer with the exception of you dropping it or spilling a drink on it they will fix it for free.

[TheBert 0]

Good point about the AppleCare. I think it's ridiculous that they'd charge you the extra for AppleCare, but they treat you like royalty if you do have it -- as they should.

[strosedefence34 175]

Good point about the AppleCare. I think it's ridiculous that they'd charge you the extra for AppleCare, but they treat you like royalty if you do have it -- as they should.

well its an optional extended warrantee its pretty much like any other electronic extended warrantee. You get either a year or 90 days without it I can't remember off the top of my head

[TheBert 0]

You get a year out of the box. Additional 2 years with AppleCare. I've appreciated the "no-questions-asked" exchange/repair service that comes with it.

[lotus 2]

If you're looking to game at all then you don't want a mac to begin with. In fact, if you're looking at gaming, don't get a laptop at all. Spend a quarter of the money on a desktop that is much more powerful. But assuming gaming isn't your motive: (the title does say school and all).

If you really want to go apple, I would recommend the regular Macbook. I myself just recently bought a dell xps 1330. The similarity is 13" design compared to standard 15.4" or even the absurd 17s. The portability of a 13" vs a 15.4" is very nice. In addition to this, the battery life will be much better. A 15.4" may not sound much bigger than a 13", but it is, and it takes more juice to power that display.

I know you're set on apple but I wanted to give you something to compare to:

My view on macs is that if you don't need it don't get it. And by need we're talking video and audio editing, things like final cut. Apple is also notorious for making you pay for everything they can make you pay for.

You said your parents work for IBM...make no mistake about it, Thinkpads are excellent notebooks. In fact, in terms of a windows based notebook, I would rank IBM/Lenovo near the top. Their downside has always been pricing, but I'd assume you can get a killer deal.

All that said. I don't buy into the apple hype that they 'just work' and don't crash and never get viruses, trust me, they do. Regardless of that, I don't want to take anything away from a very solid product that Apple puts out. It's a clean OS, very user friendly, and they offer numerous cool incentives. I believe if you are a student and you buy one soon, you'll also get a free ipod, in addition to the either $100 or $200 discount they'll offer. The price is still intimidating, but they have numerous other features to attract you, my favorite the magnetic power cord.

I went with my Dell because I favor windows, I did not like the macbooks 'scrabble' keyboard, and it was more powerful for less money, with similar battery life.

In the end, personal preference. I bet you're sick of seeing IBM crap all around the place anyway. If you're going Apple I put my money on the 13" Macbook, although I'm assuming you're just doing general activities, word processor, web browsing, instant messaging, etc. But if you do, be careful with the apple store upgrades. Like I said, they'll knock up the prices big time and grab whatever money they can from you. To upgrade RAM...their prices are insane. Buy it from newegg for a quarter the price, and it's the easiest install you'll ever have to do. ( I believe it also comes with the intel core2duo t8300 chip, which is what I run. Don't waste your money upgrading to the t9300 unless you're doing some sort of encoding. Also, they jacked the price up on that too, way big)

Hope I was of any help, just my opinion from being surrounded with both apple and windows-based products all my life.

[kredmore 2]

Yes, the employee discount for a Lenovo I think is 20% - that's what I have.

I always think of laptop is a few categories:

1) Cheap, basic, good for normal use, turnover sooner since the price is lower. This is what my wife has at home.

2) Best - big screen, fast, pricey.

3) UltraPortable - average performance, very small, pricey. This is what I have.

4) Combo of #2 and #3 - good performance, not too expensive. This is usually the standard issue at most companies via Dell, HP, etc.

Keith

[Engine37 0]

If I was getting a new laptop for school (which I'm not), I'd stick with a plain ol' Macbook too. Maybe upgrade memory if/when you decide you need to, but for most of the basic stuff it'll work just fine. I know several people that have had their laptops for over a year and still really like the base model Macbook.

[Tricky4L 0]

I recently made the switch to a Macbook in January and haven't looked back since. My personal recommendation is to just go for the basic Macbook but deck it out with the best processor and largest HD available but wait to buy memory from a 3rd party site as apple memory upgrades are obscenely expensive.

If you don't mind lugging around a larger laptop then the MBP is a great machine but for school I couldn't imagine trying to carry around a machine any larger than the standard 13'' macbook. I always feel bad for any of my classmates pulling out some monstrous wide screened laptop as though they only bought it thinking about how awesome it was going to be to watch movies on a 17'' screen.

As for macs themselves, I said bollocks to Macs my entire life up until I bought an iphone and needed a new machine for school and wouldn't dare buy anything that had Vista pre-installed. Yes it was more expensive, yes games are comparatively nonexistent to PCs, yes it took a bit of getting used to and yes I'll even concede that OS X and the machines themselves are a touch over hyped... but honestly it is perfectly simple and refreshing so much so that I'm alright with having to jump through a couple hoops to play some games which isn't all that hard anyway with bootcamp & VM fusion. As soon as Netflix gets compatible with the Mac I will be totally content.

And by the by, build and buy it online... The people at the store apple stores will charm you in such a way that you'll find yourself walking away with extra accessories you'll never need or use... damn those hot techie ladies!

[mack 44]

This reminds me of how I can't wait for the new MBP.

[troy 12]

Damn I should've done some more research before I bought mine. When are they expected to be released?

[lotus 2]

I have to strongly disagree with the recommendation to get the best processor and largest HDD. The difference between t8300 chip and t9300 is the up from 2.4 ghz to 2.5 if i remember correctly, you won't even notice. But the important up is the 4mb cache becomes 6mb cache. The few things this will make a difference in is things like video encoding, or other processes that require large amounts of data to be accessed quickly (Thus more is stored in the cpu cache for easier access, and less time pulling from a hard drive is required). I don't have the webpage open but I'm sure Apple will want at LEAST $300 more for this upgrade. I wouldn't be surprised if it came closer to $500 more. Senseless. (come to think of it, I don't even believe you have an option to upgrade the processor on the regular macbook. Just choose the white or black platform, in which case I recommend the black one, which presumably has 2 or less gigs of ram. Upgrade this aftermarket as they'll want closer to $100 per gig)

The large hard drive is unnecessary if we're talking much over 200gb. I have 250gb and it is so unlikely I will ever fill this. In addition, if you ever need more space, you can get an external which will be more than handy. But it's not worth upgrading something if you're not positive you'll need it, especially not with apples bloated prices. But I wouldn't start looking above 300+gb for their build. Lower than that and the price might not be so bad.

[pat19 0]

I'm looking at the same thing for next summer, I'll probably be getting a macbook pro, so this thread is helpful but I have a question. Is it easy or worth it to dual boot Vista and OS X? I'm not a gamer and I don't think there's any programs that I need Vista for but it's just something I'd like to do if it's not too hard or risky.

[Thockey17 1]

I'm looking at the same thing for next summer, I'll probably be getting a macbook pro, so this thread is helpful but I have a question. Is it easy or worth it to dual boot Vista and OS X? I'm not a gamer and I don't think there's any programs that I need Vista for but it's just something I'd like to do if it's not too hard or risky.

Leopard has BootCamp included. All you do is insert your Windows CD, and you're good to go.

There really is no need for it, unless you really need some non OSX compatible programs. If not, dont waste your time and space.

[Tricky4L 0]

I have to strongly disagree with the recommendation to get the best processor and largest HDD. The difference between t8300 chip and t9300 is the up from 2.4 ghz to 2.5 if i remember correctly, you won't even notice. But the important up is the 4mb cache becomes 6mb cache. The few things this will make a difference in is things like video encoding, or other processes that require large amounts of data to be accessed quickly (Thus more is stored in the cpu cache for easier access, and less time pulling from a hard drive is required). I don't have the webpage open but I'm sure Apple will want at LEAST $300 more for this upgrade. I wouldn't be surprised if it came closer to $500 more. Senseless. (come to think of it, I don't even believe you have an option to upgrade the processor on the regular macbook. Just choose the white or black platform, in which case I recommend the black one, which presumably has 2 or less gigs of ram. Upgrade this aftermarket as they'll want closer to $100 per gig)

The large hard drive is unnecessary if we're talking much over 200gb. I have 250gb and it is so unlikely I will ever fill this. In addition, if you ever need more space, you can get an external which will be more than handy. But it's not worth upgrading something if you're not positive you'll need it, especially not with apples bloated prices. But I wouldn't start looking above 300+gb for their build. Lower than that and the price might not be so bad.

Ok so let me elaborate then... I was pointing out the upgrades to the basic macbook model without going into detail... sorry. Basically on the Apple store website, the black macbook is already hooked up to the max as far as the HDD and Processor goes. If you're doing any ripping or coding of music or video you'll notice the difference between the 2.1ghz and 2.4ghz and you'll also notice a difference if you're running anything through bootcamp as well.

As for the 250gb HDD, yeah I also said that I would never fill this as well but here I am with only about 20gb remaining and a stacked itunes library after converting my vinyls to mp3. Also if you know about torrents, and if you're at university chances are you might, just play it safe and get the max just in case you start getting greedy.

For the RAM, as I said before order your machine from apple with the minimal and then get upgrades from a 3rd party. Apple charges outrages amounts for their branded RAM which from my own experience isn't any better than most outside sources. I went through Crucial to get mine and its locked, stocked, and primed.

The post a couple above me, I don't even run Vista on bootcamp. I stuck to XP sp2 and it works great. I assume I'll probably have to convert over eventually but I'll wait till the absolute last minute when the bulk of developers no longer support XP.

[lotus 2]

It's not hard, but there's not much a purpose to using bootcamp. You will be able to play some games however like this, so it's a cool option. Ones that utilize newer drivers(or maybe even some way older) wouldn't be pretty though.