MacBook Pro-Collegelike Decision

[TDPHunter]

Hey everyone,

I am debating between the 2.2 MBP and the 2.4MBP for college. I will most likely be running i'work 08 for all of my assignments which I know won't be a strain on the 2.2 or 2.4. But now it comes down whether or not the 2.4 would be a better in terms of longer use and gameplay. Im a fan of games from blizzard and I would like to know if the 2.4 shows a significant difference in World of Warcraft then the 2.2. As in, is the 2.4 really worth it? What is the longevity of each device?

Now, I have also seen a glossy screen on a HP laptop and from a few feet away I could only see the reflection of the user. I was wondering if the reflection dies down depending on how close you are. Might be a stupid question, but I thought I might ask. I'm not really familliar with the differences between a matte and glossy. My 52" tv has matte I think, its a Flat screen with a huge butt.. like the old cathrobe tube tvs.. and it looks nice.

Off-topic: Anyone know why a blue light would start appearing on the bottom right of the tv? it's all along the bottom right and bottom.. Kind of annoying.

Anyway, please if you can, answer my questions as best as you can and I would greatly appreciate it because college doesn't start till september, well, late august and I would like to place an order soon.

Also, how long does it usually take for an online order to reach its destination in the United States?

Then, for those who are the fans of the college discount. Can I use someone else's credit card that is not a student and still get the discount?

 

[Aea]

Im a fan of games from blizzard and I would like to know if the 2.4 shows a significant difference in World of Warcraft then the 2.2.

No, WoW is an old game the difference will be minimal.

Now, I have also seen a glossy screen on a HP laptop and from a few feet away I could only see the reflection of the user. I was wondering if the reflection dies down depending on how close you are. Might be a stupid question, but I thought I might ask. I'm not really familliar with the differences between a matte and glossy. My 52" tv has matte I think, its a Flat screen with a huge butt.. like the old cathrobe tube tvs.. and it looks nice.

I have an older glossy laptop in addition to my matte MBP, the glossy is fine most of the time, but when you can't control the lighting and you have to strain to read,

Also, how long does it usually take for an online order to reach its destination in the United States?

Don't know, probably a few weeks judging by peoples reports, I went to the store for mine.

Then, for those who are the fans of the college discount. Can I use someone else's credit card that is not a student and still get the discount?

99.9% yes.

 

[fsckminix6]

for the discount yes you can use someone elses credit card.

 

[Lock]

I am debating between the 2.2 MBP and the 2.4MBP for college.

I'm a grad student and I've decided to go for the 2.2 and use the savings for an external monitor and a firewire 800 HD. I was also worried about longevity, especially with the 128 vs 256 vram, but I sure that both of them will last longer than the four or five years that I'll need them to last.

...glossy screen...

I think the glossy/matte debate is overblown. I've used the new pro with a matte screen and a macbook and they both looked great.

Can I use someone else's credit card that is not a student and still get the discount?

I've done exactly that in the past when I didn't have a card and will do it again as my card can't handle a 2500+ purchase.

 

[TDPHunter]

Hey everyone,

Thankyou for the time you took to answer my questions. Everyone helped a lot and Lock did a good job in putting things in perspective.

However when it comes to my decision, I think I'm going to continue to do some more reasearch in other areas. As of right now the 2.2 seems like the best choice though.

If anyone else has anymore input, feel free to drop a post. I would like to hear everyone's thoughts.

Thanks!

 

[Raska]

I went with the 2.2 Ghz MBP. I'll be doing a lot of programming and graphics on mine being a Computer Science major, and I'm 100% confident in my decision.

I ordered mine 8/5, and Apple says I should have it no later than 8/24.

 

[Freyqq]

Hey everyone,

I am debating between the 2.2 MBP and the 2.4MBP for college. I will most likely be running i'work 08 for all of my assignments which I know won't be a strain on the 2.2 or 2.4. But now it comes down whether or not the 2.4 would be a better in terms of longer use and gameplay. Im a fan of games from blizzard and I would like to know if the 2.4 shows a significant difference in World of Warcraft then the 2.2. As in, is the 2.4 really worth it? What is the longevity of each device?

Now, I have also seen a glossy screen on a HP laptop and from a few feet away I could only see the reflection of the user. I was wondering if the reflection dies down depending on how close you are. Might be a stupid question, but I thought I might ask. I'm not really familliar with the differences between a matte and glossy. My 52" tv has matte I think, its a Flat screen with a huge butt.. like the old cathrobe tube tvs.. and it looks nice.

Off-topic: Anyone know why a blue light would start appearing on the bottom right of the tv? it's all along the bottom right and bottom.. Kind of annoying.

Anyway, please if you can, answer my questions as best as you can and I would greatly appreciate it because college doesn't start till september, well, late august and I would like to place an order soon.

Also, how long does it usually take for an online order to reach its destination in the United States?

Then, for those who are the fans of the college discount. Can I use someone else's credit card that is not a student and still get the discount?

ms office for mac is better than iwork for college

 

[kellah]

ms office for mac is better than iwork for college

i second that notion. although ms office sucks on rosetta. i vote for NeoOffice

 

[Lock]

i second that notion. although ms office sucks on rosetta. i vote for NeoOffice

I've been using NeoOffice, but I'm going to try the trial of iWork to see if it's worth the investment. Office is alright, but I recommend people try NeoOffice to see if it works for them. If it doesn't then you're no worse off then before. I can get access to Office in one of the university's labs if I really need to pull something off with it, which happened a few times during undergrad.

 

[TDPHunter]

Well, I am a big fan of NeoOffice and have used it a lot but Iwork seems like it has all the features I need. What does it lack compared to MS Office?

We now have a spreadsheet app : )

 

[erikistired]

i'm using a 2.33 x1600 (256) for college, but i'm not your typical student. i'm 31 and all of my classes are distance, so i don't visit campus often. i do use my laptop for everything tho, more so because all my classes are online.

as far as wow, it doesn't run the greatest on my machine, but i have a feeling that's due to the video card. it runs fine, but i can't jack the settings up and still get the frame rates i'm used to from running a windows gaming maching with a 7900gt video card. however, i raided on it with no issues, just had to tweak the settings.

i have ms office 2004 which i'll be uninstalling as soon as iwork 08 gets here. it runs like a dog on the intel machines. i typed up some test papers and exported them to word files and opened them up on a few other machines and they look perfect. my english teachers so far have required word docs, any problems and they deduct from my grade, so i bought office when i had a g4. this should be fine tho, i'm not waiting for office 2008 for 3-4x the price.

i bought the matte screen, basically i went into the apple store and looked at them side by side, played a few movies, did some other stuff, i liked how this one looked over the glossy.

the college discount is nice as well!

 

[Freyqq]

ms office 2004 takes maybe 3 secs to start...but after that its fine

with my old 12" pb..it took 3 sec to start..so i don't really mind it

the reason why ms office 2004 is NECESSARY for college is b\c

1. every document that is given to you for courses will be in ms office format

2. if you need to turn in a paper..it needs to be in ms office format

3. even if you convert your neooffice or iwork document to ms office format, the formatting will almost always be off

 

[TDPHunter]

Thanks Freyqq I guess I will need to invest in ms office then. Then again my english teacher for this year is a mac user : P maybe I can sweet talk her lol.

 

[erikistired]

ms office 2004 takes maybe 3 secs to start...but after that its fine

with my old 12" pb..it took 3 sec to start..so i don't really mind it

the reason why ms office 2004 is NECESSARY for college is b\c

1. every document that is given to you for courses will be in ms office format

2. if you need to turn in a paper..it needs to be in ms office format

3. even if you convert your neooffice or iwork document to ms office format, the formatting will almost always be off

have you tried iwork 08 at all? i typed out a few quick papers and had no problem saving them (exporting) as .doc (word) files and then opening them in word, no format loss.

ms office 2004 ran much smoother on my pb 12" than my mbp. i also don't like working in the UI at all. but that's a personal pref. the one thing i don't like is that you can't make it default to saving as a .doc, but i guess that's a small thing.

 

[aquajet]

ms office for mac is better than iwork for college

Making sweeping generalizations about what people should be using without actually knowing what their needs are is not helpful.

the reason why ms office 2004 is NECESSARY for college is b\c...

I just finished writing a 30 page document for my summer class with a small group of people. I used iWork, they used Word. None of what you just said was ever an issue.

Office is definitely NOT necessary for everyone. I refuse to use Office on my personal computer because I like iWork much better, and I'm doing just fine.

 

[cleanup]

So there are no formatting issues between iWork and Office? Even when working with things like tables and embedded Excel graphs, etc.? I know that when I open a .doc in iWork 06, and it has tables, not only is it extremely slow, but there always seems to be formatting trouble.

I'm downloading iWork '08 right now. When I heard that Office was being delayed until 2008 I was like "Ahhh, bad for college students" and I went ahead and grabbed NeoOffice, which seemed to work fine. But iWork is even better, no?