Ordered a new Macbook, now a few questions....

[yoda13]

Well, I am finally taking the plunge. My family gave me enough money for my birthday today to purchased a new Macbook. I have been wanting to get one so that I can run some Windows based programs at work, and completely get rid of the crappy 5 year old dell in my office and just use my own laptop, which my university is really cool with. I went ahead a put a couple of hundred of my own dollars with it so that I could get the black one. I am really excited about it. My current 1.5ghz Powerbook has served me quite well for the last two and a half years and I not getting rid of it by any means. I plan to use it as a backup computer and perhaps make an iTunes server, etc. out of it.

Anyway, I am really excited about my purchase, I have a store credit over at OWC that I am going to use to max out the RAM. Anyway, what I want to know is this, for a guy that is just now making a switch to Intel, what should I expect to me different? I believe all of my apps are UB, except for Office....

Can I play any games on it at all? (Note I have XBox 360 for gaming, am just curious) Is there anything I need to be on the lookout for? Is there anything I can get to clean the inevitable grease smudges that will show up on the black case? Finally, I take good care of my laptops, BUT scratches do happen from time to time and I am wondering if the case is painted black, or if it is molded black plastic and scratches will just gouge into more black?

I really appreciate you guys commenting on my questions and putting up with my excitement...

 

[quicksilverpdx]

Lets just hope they dont botch your order up and loose your macbook like they did to me! Congrats

 

[GoneFishing]

hey yoda, i just placed my order for the MBP 15" today. I'm going to be hoping you get yours, but not until I get mine first!



gees, yours parents are cool. my parents want me to buy them a computer instead.

Some how, life becomes so much more expensive once you start making money.

 

[yoda13]

Lets just hope they dont botch your order up and loose your macbook like they did to me! Congrats

Thank you, I ordered from Amazon, did you order from Apple directly or from a reseller. I have always preferred to order from Apple directly, but my family gave me gift certificates to Amazon, so there I am...

Anyway, thanks for the well wishes and I hope you get it cleared up.

hey yoda, i just placed my order for the MBP 15" today. I'm going to be hoping you get yours, but not until I get mine first!



gees, yours parents are cool. my parents want me to buy them a computer instead.

Some how, life becomes so much more expensive once you start making money.

Hehe, I hear you. Once I started making my own money, I was shocked at how expensive life really was. My parents are retired and have nothing to spend their money on...so, sometimes my brother and I get really nice gifts...

 

[XP Defector]

MacBook for graphic intensive games like first person shooters won't really deliver much. This is a consequence of having a integrated graphics card. However, I imagine for games such as Baldurs Gate etc, it would run fine. Some people report playable framerates on World of Warcraft as well... Though ultimately the MacBook lacks in any real graphical capability. You'd be best sticking with your XBox 360. Though for everything else, the MacBook will deliver, it's an awesome notebook in every other respect.

 

[b.hicks]

Well, I am finally taking the plunge. My family gave me enough money for my birthday today to purchased a new Macbook. I have been wanting to get one so that I can run some Windows based programs at work, and completely get rid of the crappy 5 year old dell in my office and just use my own laptop, which my university is really cool with. I went ahead a put a couple of hundred of my own dollars with it so that I could get the black one. I am really excited about it. My current 1.5ghz Powerbook has served me quite well for the last two and a half years and I not getting rid of it by any means. I plan to use it as a backup computer and perhaps make an iTunes server, etc. out of it.

Anyway, I am really excited about my purchase, I have a store credit over at OWC that I am going to use to max out the RAM. Anyway, what I want to know is this, for a guy that is just now making a switch to Intel, what should I expect to me different? I believe all of my apps are UB, except for Office....

Can I play any games on it at all? (Note I have XBox 360 for gaming, am just curious) Is there anything I need to be on the lookout for? Is there anything I can get to clean the inevitable grease smudges that will show up on the black case? Finally, I take good care of my laptops, BUT scratches do happen from time to time and I am wondering if the case is painted black, or if it is molded black plastic and scratches will just gouge into more black?

I really appreciate you guys commenting on my questions and putting up with my excitement...

Congrats on the new macbook!

I think you will really enjoy the intel machine. I have a Macbook CD with 2GB ram and have been really impressed by the performance, especially when multitasking. Mine is white and cleans up very well with a microfiber cloth and an isopropyl alcohol based lcd cleaning fluid. I had a pretty good look at the black ones and I believe they are not painted. They appear to molded from black plastic.

As for gaming, I wouldn't expect too much from the GMA950 but I do play Call of Duty II UB all the time and it plays very well at moderate settings. However, I have found the most games run better under bootcamp. Command and Conquer Generals and Return to Castle Wolfenstein run very well under bootcamp.

If you haven't seen parallels desktop, give it a try for your windows programs. I run autocad 2007 through parallels and XP and it flies along great.

Anyway, congrats again.

I think you will be impressed by the intel macs.

 

[yoda13]

Thanks for the heads up. I don't plan on doing any real gaming, I was just curious. I have since found several useful threads on it.

I think I will check out parallels. I don't know that I want to reboot if I am not going to go to the trouble of gaming using bootcamp.

Anyway, I am really excited, it is supposed to be here tomorrow. Hope it gets here before I have to go to work so i can play with it.

I am getting more and more excited...I will post back with some thoughts after I get a chance to play with it. Anymore comments are always welcome as well.

 

[phungy]

Congrats! Man, I wish I could place my order but I need about $150 more cause I want to opt for the 'free' printer promo. One more week!

So you ordered from Amazon? What shipping method did you select? I'm assuming 2nd day air?

 

[Irish Dave]

Congrats! Man, I wish I could place my order but I need about $150 more cause I want to opt for the 'free' printer promo. One more week!

So you ordered from Amazon? What shipping method did you select? I'm assuming 2nd day air?

Hope you make your deadline.

The MacBook is awesome.

Greetings from Ireland

Dave

 

[yoda13]

Congrats! Man, I wish I could place my order but I need about $150 more cause I want to opt for the 'free' printer promo. One more week!

So you ordered from Amazon? What shipping method did you select? I'm assuming 2nd day air?

Actually I sprung for the overnight shipping...

I am greedy, but it was mainly a birthday present, so I wanted it here ASAP...

 

[Encanto]

Congrds on your purchase. I just made the switch from windows and all I can say is WOW! I love my MBP, its a wonderful machine. You will love the power that the intel delivers with your macbook. Enjoy.

 

[yoda13]

Well, I have had it for about 24 hours so far. I love it! I can't wait for my RAM to get here though. Anyway, love the glossy screen, it is so much better in the dimly lit areas I usually use it. Don't know about my office yet, as I am off for a month for the holidays. Keyboard takes some getting used to compared to the Powerbook. It doesn't seem to get as warm as my powerbook either, I was shocked at that bit of info. I loved how the setup assistant copied all that I needed over to my MacBook from my Powerbook for me. The screen is obviously smaller than my 15", but it doesn't bother me like the 12" I had before this powerbook did. I haven't really used any Rosetta apps yet, I bet those aren't going to be fun with the stock one gig of RAM. Anyway, I will post more when I have had more time to mess with it. I was so sick last night, that I didn't have the energy to really dive into it. Perhaps this evening....

Oh yeah, the isight is better than I thought it would be...

 

[Asar]

i love my macbook! got mine last week. got a black refurb for $999. the good thing about it, it looks brand new, they gave me 1gb of ram, and a 100gb hd!!! thanks apple! they hooked me up!

 

[avihappy]

Yea...

I love my Macbook (Pro) a lot. Use you Xbox for games (like I do) and leave the rest to your shiney new mac.

 

[yoda13]

Just wanted to say that I still love this thing after having it for a while. It has restarted a couple of times when I close the lid, but only after heavy use where it has gotten really warm. I am going to upgrade the RAM soon, as I haven't gotten around to that yet. But I just wanted to say how pleased I was with my black macbook after having it for a while...

 

[myshoeshurt]

I love reading threads like this, because I'm only a week away from my own MacBook! I'm currently using an iBook G4 (final rev) and I find it hard to believe there could be a better notebook... it better not disappoint me!

 

[RSXer]

Congrats on the new macbook!

I think you will really enjoy the intel machine. I have a Macbook CD with 2GB ram and have been really impressed by the performance, especially when multitasking. Mine is white and cleans up very well with a microfiber cloth and an isopropyl alcohol based lcd cleaning fluid. I had a pretty good look at the black ones and I believe they are not painted. They appear to molded from black plastic.

As for gaming, I wouldn't expect too much from the GMA950 but I do play Call of Duty II UB all the time and it plays very well at moderate settings. However, I have found the most games run better under bootcamp. Command and Conquer Generals and Return to Castle Wolfenstein run very well under bootcamp.

If you haven't seen parallels desktop, give it a try for your windows programs. I run autocad 2007 through parallels and XP and it flies along great.

Anyway, congrats again.

I think you will be impressed by the intel macs.

Hey I was wondering by any chance do you know if there is any problems running autocad on bootcamp as oppose to parallels?

 

[ShermDog]

My wife has a Black MacBook, and she loves it (upgraded from an iBook G4). It's molded plastic--and it stands up pretty well to abuse. My wife is pretty rough with it, but the only thing I notice on the exterior are fingerprint smudges (which can be cleaned with a wet cloth). There is both hard plastic, and softer rubbery stuff on the exterior. I would think that if you really scratched the rubbery stuff hard, it would gouge it, but the hard plastic part will hold up well. She runs Office 2004 on it, and it runs just fine.