Buying a MacBook

[chevy]

Hello, this is my first post here and it's about my first Mac.

I need a laptop and I need it now so I'm leaning towards buying the new 1.67 ghz MacBook, though many of you don't seem very impressed by it.

I would just need some recommendations from more experienced Mac users.

1. Do you think it's worth the extra money to upgrade the harddrive to 100 GB/7200 rpm? Does it make a big difference fort the performance? Could it shorten the battery time and make the computer noicier?

2. Do you think the fastest Mac Book is a better deal? The difference in price is really big, but maybe it's worth it?

I will use the computer for music production and maybe some video work.

Would be grateful for any help

Cheers

 

[kretzy]

First off, welcome to Mac and MR!

1. The extra speed will make a bit of a difference, thought I can't imagine it would be hugely significant. It could decrease battery life however.

2. The "better" option, could be worth it considering you get more RAM, VRAM and processor speed, which could come in handy for your intended purposes.

Hope this helps.

 

[iMeowbot]

I will use the computer for music production and maybe some video work.

Find out first if the programs you want to use are supported under Rosetta, and if not, when they will be available in universal form. If it's going to be more than a couple months to get the software you want, you may want to delay your hardware purchase until then. The whole Apple product line is to be converted this year, so things are going to change fast! It would stink to find out that a better machine is up for sale before you can really use the one you have.

 

[MRU]

Hi...

1) It is a hefty price increase alright. What it will do for you is give a little boost in speed when accessing your applications.

If your planning on doing serious video editing then the chances are you will have an external firewire HardDrive 7200RPM. You could just choose to install heavy apps like Final Cut on that. Final cut Studio takes up around 35GB to install with all templates, which you may not want to clutter up your small (by comparison to desktop HD) laptop hard drive...

All you music and video will be stored on external drive so disc acessing should be fine, simply make sure Final Cut or ProTools or Logic don't use the main HD, you can do this in the preferences of those apps.

I'm trying to decide whether to go for the 100gb 7200rpm or 120gb 5400rpm drive myself.

Make sure you max out the memory. If your going for the 1.66 with 512stock, don't bother paying apples prices and buy 2x 1gb from Crucial. For the price of 1gb on 1stick apple config, you could almost buy the 2x1gb from crucial. Installing memory is simple.

However if your going for the 1.83 make sure you choose 1gb on 1 stick and just buy 1extra gig from crucial..

Either of those ways will save some money.

2) 1.66 - 1.83 is .17 (170mhz) faster. What difference this makes we will only ever know in true benchmark tests which aren't available yet.

The 1.67 G4 was pretty robust and I'd say would match my G5 1.8 in single processor tasks on a day to day basis. Therefore I'm hoping the dual core 1.66 will match my G5 Dual 1.8 - if so I'd be delighted. I'd say the 1.83 might match the Dual 2GHz.

The Jan 2004 Dual Powermac G5 1.8 compared to the Jan 2004 Dual PM 2.0 ghz represented very minor 1-3% difference in benchmarks and real world usage, so I'd guess that may be the case with the 1.66 - 1.83 duo core.. (it's the reason I chose the dual 1.8 over the dual 2 and there was a 500 euro price difference then too)..


I hope that all makes sense.

 

[TheMasin9]

macbook pro

From what i can deduce, it seems that the higher end macbook pro would be a better performer than the lower end. 2x ram 2x vram and a slightly faster processor. In rosetta i am assuming that apps will run as fast as they did under a 1.33-1.5 ghz g4 pb. It isnt blazing, but still, fast enuf for now.

 

[iMeowbot]

In rosetta i am assuming that apps will run as fast as they did under a 1.33-1.5 ghz g4 pb. It isnt blazing, but still, fast enuf for now.

Eek, no! Apple have listed the current versions of their pro apps (Logic, Final Cut, Aperture, etc.) as not supported under Rosetta. Pro users won't even be able to use their MacBooks until the universal versions ship. Apple are saying March for those programs, for third party programs one will need to check with each vendor.

 

[dazey]

if thats true then a Macbook could be a lot more expensive than it looks, as you will have to pay to 'upgrade' all your apps just to get the universal binaries. For me the killer is really the loss of the PCMCIA slot. My tibook may not have USB2, FW800 ETC, but I can add them if I want. It may be slower but its more functional to me

 

[MRU]

if thats true then a Macbook could be a lot more expensive than it looks, as you will have to pay to 'upgrade' all your apps just to get the universal binaries. For me the killer is really the loss of the PCMCIA slot. My tibook may not have USB2, FW800 ETC, but I can add them if I want. It may be slower but its more functional to me

Most updates will be free or small charge.. Steve said $49 for FCStudio.

Express slot should be able to do the same as the PMCIA slot expansion wise.

If the whole range is meant to change to intel, paying for updated apps in the long run is inevitable anyway.

Just the same as when people moved up from os9 - osX.