Apple Macbook Pro???

kingkongo

kingkongo

kingkongo

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Joined
19 Mar 2005
Posts
116
Location
Penarth in Wales and Bristol
Hi

Im looking to buy a macbook pro 15" but not sure which variant to get.

Ive been looking at the 2.4Ghz and the 2.5Ghz, which have the 8600 256mb and 8600 512mb GPUs respectively.

Can anybody tell me if the differences between these two models justify a £300 price difference?

Im leaning towards the 2.5Ghz because if im going to drop over a grand on something which i will most probably use everyday, then an extra £300 isnt so bad. BUT (a very big BUT), obviously if you guys and girls really think theres not a discernable difference then i would be happy to save some money.

Im a Creative Product Design student and will be using Creative Suite 3 mostly as well as CAD packages (e.g. rhino - which i will run on xp). Also, the usual internet browsing, media etc...

Does anybody have experience with using the higher education student discount?

how much discount did you get?

thanks for the help
 
Both of those are rather CPU intensive. The extra video RAM wouldn't hurt when using rhino either. I'm sure that you'd be happy with either.

Perhaps a powerful desktop and a smaller, lighter, less powerful laptop would better for your use?

IIRC, the Higher Ed discount is 14%.
 
Like you said the extra £300 gives you and extra 100mhz, 50GB of hd space and 256mb of GPU ram. Only you really know whether the cost is worth it. If you are not going to be playing any games and using an external Hard Drive its probably not worth it, however you don't want to regret your decision so if you can afford it maybe go for it.

Higher Education Discount is good. You want to order online so you get the extended three year warranty.

Macbook pro prices are as follows.

2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
1440 x 900 resolution
2GB memory
200GB hard drive1
8x double-layer SuperDrive
NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT graphics with 256MB SDRAM
Ready to ship: 2 days
Free Shipping
£1,104.50
(£940.00 ex VAT


2.5GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
1440 x 900 resolution
2GB memory
250GB hard drive1
8x double-layer SuperDrive
NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT graphics with 512MB SDRAM
Ready to ship: 2 days
Free Shipping
£1,359.48
(£1,157.00 ex VAT)


2.5GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
1680 x 1050 resolution
2GB memory
250GB hard drive1
8x double-layer SuperDrive
NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT graphics with 512MB SDRAM
Ready to ship: 2 days
Free Shipping
£1,528.68
(£1,301.00 ex VAT)
 
Thanks for the prompt reply

I do already have a nice powerful windows desktop at home which handles all the programs i need with ease.

The reason for the laptop purchase is that i commute back and for to Bristol from Cardiff and need a computer to do work while im in Bristol.

Do you think either laptop will handle CS3 and CAD packages with ease?

I might be interested in the 17" as well. Other than price and size is there anything against buying the 17"?
 
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I would say that you would be happy with the basic model as they will not have a noticeable performance difference btween them. I have the 2.2Ghz MBP and it is nippy and runs everything very well (aperture 2, games, VMware -XP can be slow but what do you expect).
 
I loved my 17" MBP.

If you want a laptop with plenty of grunt and a nice working area then the 17" is champ.

I'd recommend getting the HD resolution option so you can work at 1920x1200 :)
 
lloydsj said:
Do you ONLY get the extended three years if you order online? or can you get it via ordering through the HE telephone number too?

Cheers
Click to expand...

Not 100% sure on this one. When i was buying my MacBook i did some research and i found out that that you always get it if you order online. I don't think you get it if you buy it in store and i'm not sure about over the phone. I didn't want to risk it so i ordered it online.

Hopefully someone else may know as a few people do order over the phone because they are not officially in 'HE".
 
kingkongo said:
Thanks for the prompt reply

I do already have a nice powerful windows desktop at home which handles all the programs i need with ease.

The reason for the laptop purchase is that i commute back and for to Bristol from Cardiff and need a computer to do work while im in Bristol.

Do you think either laptop will handle CS3 and CAD packages with ease?

I might be interested in the 17" as well. Other than price and size is there anything against buying the 17"?
Click to expand...

MBP would work a treat in that situation.

17" is a beautiful laptop but quite a large thing. Might prove to be a bit impractical.
 
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