Heading for an Apple laptop. Need HE discount prices.

Feek

Feek

Feek

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Right, to complement the beast that's sitting under my desk I'm seriously considering a laptop.

So with my budget (I think around £1,200 to £1,300) I have a number of options but it depends on the HE store prices.

Either a top end Macbook, a bottom end Macbook Pro or perhaps a refurb Air.

Can someone give me the full range of laptop HE prices please so I can ponder them for a couple of weeks and decide what I want.

I don't think I need the 15" screen but I could be persuaded depending on how the prices go. It's really an expensive toy for sitting around the house and doing general stuff such as mail, browsing and things like that. I don't want the plastic one and I do want the fancy bits like the illuminated keyboard.
 
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Thanks Justin. Can you scare me with the Air as well please.

/edit - And what's the score with the screens these days. I remember a while back that there were comments that the Macbook screen is pants compared to the Pro. Is that still the same, and what about the Air?
 
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OK, those prices are very interesting, thanks and give me a better idea of what I'm considering. But (and there's always a 'but') I have some more things I need to know.

How does the new Macbook Air compare to the old one, temperature wise? I know the old Air gets very hot and I want to know if the new one does the same.

What are the screens like? I've read that on the pre 'unibody' range that the screen on the Macbook was inferior to the Macbook Pro. Is that still the same? How does the screen on the Air compare to the Macbook and the Macbook Pro?

Is it still worth buying memory from a third party? I see 4Gb Crucial for about sixty quid but it's only just over eighty to get 4Gb fitted to a Macbook Pro from Apple (at discount prices). Is there any benefit getting this from Apple rather than retro-fitting it later.

Same with getting a slightly larger and faster hard drive? If I were to put a 7200 drive into a Macbook Pro instead of the supplied 5400 would I notice much of a difference in performance?

Now I've spent some time looking, I'm definitely leaning towards the base model Macbook Pro with 4Gb RAM and a bigger/faster drive but I'm still potentially about a month away from ordering so could be swayed.
 
Feek said:
Now I've spent some time looking, I'm definitely leaning towards the base model Macbook Pro with 4Gb RAM and a bigger/faster drive but I'm still potentially about a month away from ordering so could be swayed.
Click to expand...

You'll be surprised at the level of ability - I do everything with mine and I'd suspect that your power beast will become redundant for 80% of the work you do..

I have the 5400rpm drive. It's ok does most normal tasks well but this will be my next upgrade to an SSD once they're sorted.
 
The new Uni-MacBook screens are a hell of a lot better than the old WhiteBook screens.

I'd say given you have a Mac Pro that you really don't need the power of a MacBook Pro and so that narrows it down to a MB or MBA.

Now at the time when I got my WhiteBook there was not Air, however I can say that given what I do with my WhiteBook (browsing, accounts, email) I'd have got an Air. The new model is supposed to run a lot cooler and has a decent video card so could be used for things like Aperture etc.

Hope that helps.
 
It does, however I just looked at some pictures of the Air and it appears to have a mouse button rather than the whole pad being a pushy clicky thing, is that right?

If so then it really means my only choice is going to be the MBP. I need to get to a shop and spend some time there.
 
Feek said:
It does, however I just looked at some pictures of the Air and it appears to have a mouse button rather than the whole pad being a pushy clicky thing, is that right?

If so then it really means my only choice is going to be the MBP. I need to get to a shop and spend some time there.
Click to expand...

Not seen a new Air so couldn't say. I wouldn't let the fact it has a button rule it out if it was me...(if it does)

However I personally think the MacBook Pro (or any 15" screen laptop) is a little too large for on the lap web browsing and light computer work.
 
Feek said:
It does, however I just looked at some pictures of the Air and it appears to have a mouse button rather than the whole pad being a pushy clicky thing, is that right?

If so then it really means my only choice is going to be the MBP. I need to get to a shop and spend some time there.
Click to expand...

Yep - it's got a mouse button, rather than the fancy entire-trackpad-is-a-button.
 
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