Macbook Buying Advice: To wait or not to wait.

[barr08]

Hey guys, heres my situation:

I currently own, and am in love with, a 20 inch intel iMac with 2 gigs of ram. It is a beautiful machine and I would marry it if I could. But I can't.
Anyways, I am a college student, and one of my majors is web design. Before I bought this comp, I used an iBook to do my work. I brought it to some of my classes, it was nice. It is now dead though, I think it's a logic board issue. RIP.

So now that you know my life story, here is my question. I want to buy a macbook 2.0 ghz to take around with me places. Nothing fancy, but maybe something I can use to play WoW when my iMac is busy, to take on airplanes, and of course take it to class.

I have two questions.

My first is, how easy is it to transfer info between two comps? Can I use bluetooth? A firewire cable? How does that all work. I know I could just use my external as a liazon between them, but there must be an easier way.

My second question is whether or not it's worth waiting a month or so to see if they put the core 2 duo into the macbooks. I know it's a long shot, but I figured since there's really no rush to get this 'book, why not wait a month or so to see.

I would really like your opinions on my little situation. What do y'all think?

 

[barr08]

From what I'm reading, it sounds like merom in the regular MBs is just wishfull thinking. Oh well.

 

[JAT]

The speed upgrade won't be that much. If you want one, buy it. Nobody knows whether the MB will get Merom this year.

To transfer between: You can use airport, ethernet, an external drive, or just reboot the MB as a firewire target drive. Hold down the T when booting. http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=58583

 

[gadgetgirl85]

Just buy it now. MBs are unlikely to get the merom update and even if they do it wont render your computer obsolete. Go on do it! I saw someone buying a white MB the other day I was jealous

 

[mini.boss]

Unless you need it now, just wait a month. One thing about Apple is that the pricepoints dont change, but out of nowhere suddenly the specs do. And considering next month seems to be pointing at a revision on the Pro, it can easily also result in a revision in the Macbook.

Ive been dying to make the switch but I just have to wait. Since i plan on having this for the next few years I dont want to get stuck with any issues like overheating, shutdowns, moo-ing or anything like that.

And also, i have a feeling that Black will make its way down the line since its so stupid to charge that much just for a color. So it would be nice to CHOOSE black rather than settle for white.

 

[Zorkon]

My first is, how easy is it to transfer info between two comps? Can I use bluetooth? A firewire cable? How does that all work. I know I could just use my external as a liazon between them, but there must be an easier way.

The short answer is super-easy.

You have your choice. You could use Bluetooth, but bluetooth is a slow network protocol. It's not really meant for transferring large files. Instead, take advantage of the WiFi (aka Airport) capabilities of both the iMac and the MacBook.

You create a computer-to-computer network by clicking on the Airport icon in the menu bar on one of the computers (let's say the iMac) and selecting Create Network. Then on your new MacBook, you'd click the Airport icon and join the network you just created.

Turn on Personal File Sharing in the Sharing preferences panel, and that's it. You will then be able to drag and drop files between the two computers over a wireless network.

You could also use a firewire cable - basically hook the two machines up, and boot one up while holding the T key down. That puts the machine into "target disk mode", which basically means that it will act as a big external hard drive.

I like the wireless method myself, since I don't have to reboot either machine to use it.

Hrm. This would make a good article for my site ... I'll have to toss something together.

My second question is whether or not it's worth waiting a month or so to see if they put the core 2 duo into the macbooks. I know it's a long shot, but I figured since there's really no rush to get this 'book, why not wait a month or so to see.

You could wait and see. I doubt they'll do it, since the MacBooks are quite new. If anything, I would imagine that they might put that processor into the MacBook Pros to differentiate them from the MacBooks. I work for an Apple reseller, and it's hard to sell MacBook Pros right now because the MacBook does almost as much, for much less money.

 

[barr08]

You create a computer-to-computer network by clicking on the Airport icon in the menu bar on one of the computers (let's say the iMac) and selecting Create Network. Then on your new MacBook, you'd click the Airport icon and join the network you just created.

Turn on Personal File Sharing in the Sharing preferences panel, and that's it. You will then be able to drag and drop files between the two computers over a wireless network.

Perfect. This is exactly what I wanted to know. Thanks!