Mac Laptop advice

elite · 16 Oct 2006 at 18:13

Hey just started Uni, Im studying Graphic Design and I need to get a Mac computer, I would like a laptop but dont really know which one would be best for Uni and Home everyday. I have had a look through the Mac gallery and I seen a coreless mouse (I hate laptop touch pads) would a coreless mouse work on every laptop?

Also is it possible to overclock Mac's? Im looking at the MacBook and there is a £150 difference between the 1.83 Ghz and 2.0 Ghz specs which I would like to overclock.

Mr Jones · 16 Oct 2006 at 18:30

The cordless mouse you saw might be the Apple Wireless Mighty Mouse - which is bluetooth - will work with any system with bluetooth. I've got one and personally, I like it apart from using it for gaming - it's rubbish at that solely because of the way the mouse clicks. You have to keep the left mouse click area clear before you can right click or the mouse would think it's a left click. You cannot click both left and right together.

I doubt you can Overclock the MB, overclocking usually involve increase in heat and without sufficient heat removal on the MB after OC, it'll probably burn out fast.

The extra £150 ish is really for the extra umph and the Superdrive.

Since you're doing Graphics, I would suggest looking for something that has dedicated Graphics, like the Macbook Pro - but it might be out of your budget.

Hope these help.

elite · 16 Oct 2006 at 18:35

The top spec laptop will work out at around £1.5k with Higher Education Discount im guessing? If so ill do some research and read a few reviews and see what its like.

P.s what are you thoughts on macs? I used one for the first time this week and i felt like a noob all over again.

Mr Jones · 16 Oct 2006 at 18:39

Took me 2hours of playing about at Toys R Us display section and I totally fell in love with OSX. It's slightly different to Windows but one will pick it up fast, I've only converted over a month and I'm still learning all the tips and tricks to it, great fun tho.

It will work out quite expensive even with HE. I got my macbook with extended cover, 2GHz, 80GB HDD and 1GB RAM for under £830 with HE discount. I found it to be excellent value.

I can't really comment on the MB Pro.

Have you looked at the 17¨ Macs?

Do you really need it portable?

elite · 16 Oct 2006 at 18:48

Cheers for your replays, you said you got urs with upgrades? well where is the best/cheapest place to order a mac? I can only find them on the apple website.

Yes i looked at the 17" MBpro which are the ones that cost over £1.399.
also it must be portable for Graphic presentations at Uni

Mr Jones · 16 Oct 2006 at 18:56

Lol, I was talking about the 17¨ iMacs

Dont matter, so you definitely need the portablity.

How much grahics power do you need? What programs will you be running? The MB might be sufficient enough.

I got mine from Apple.com
I called them because that way, I get the Full HE unless I log in through my uni site. I like to talk to someone to order, I was offered a cheaply priced printer that the site didn't inc.

The waiting times for delivery is abit annoying tho, took 1 week to wait for the BTO MB and 2 weeks to deliver, I got mine during the rush for HE discount though.

Echo toxin · 16 Oct 2006 at 18:58

If you're a student then the cheapest place is definitely the Apple Store.
You should be able to access it from your campus network - http://apple.procureweb.ac.uk

elite · 16 Oct 2006 at 18:58

ok this is what I'd like to get, and I think ED takes the VAT off so it would work out at £1.786

elite · 16 Oct 2006 at 19:01

Dr Jones said:
Lol, I was talking about the 17¨ iMacs
Dont matter, so you definitely need the portablity.

How much grahics power do you need? What programs will you be running? The MB might be sufficient enough.

I got mine from Apple.com
I called them because that way, I get the Full HE unless I log in through my uni site. I like to talk to someone to order, I was offered a cheaply priced printer that the site didn't inc.

The waiting times for delivery is abit annoying tho, took 1 week to wait for the BTO MB and 2 weeks to deliver, I got mine during the rush for HE discount though.

Well if you look at my current pc, I do like a high spec machine and I'm very fussy about slow technology in general so the faster the better.

Echo toxin, ill have a look at that link tomorrow at Uni. Do you know if you can pay in installments? I dont want to use almost half of my 3 year student loan on a laptop (altho now i have a job maybe monthly payment could work?)

Echo toxin · 16 Oct 2006 at 19:01

Aye, your right. On the Apple Store for HE it comes up as £1782.95 delivered to your door.

Mr Jones · 16 Oct 2006 at 19:06

elite said:
Well if you look at my current pc, I do like a high spec machine and I'm very fussy about slow technology in general so the faster the better.

Echo toxin, ill have a look at that link tomorrow at Uni. Do you know if you can pay in installments? I dont want to use almost half of my 3 year student loan on a laptop (altho now i have a job maybe monthly payment could work?)

Yeah but £1700 :eek:

is a bit too much to burn don't you think?
As much as I like OSX, I think MB is value for money and MBP is atat too much for the asking. But that's just me, I've got a small wallet. :rolleyes:

The end decision is still yours but personally if the MB can run the stuff sufficiently with 2GB ram, I'll take that and save the £800 for rainy days.

Echo toxin · 16 Oct 2006 at 19:21

My thoughts on taking a laptop to uni are don't do it! It's a hell of a lot easier to nab a laptop than it would be an iMac or a Mac Pro. Or if you take it with you to lectures, then go for a jar or five in the afternoon, it's highly likely you'll forget you brought it and leave it behind somewhere.

But the decision is yours...

elite · 16 Oct 2006 at 19:30

I think the MBP would be better because it has a graphics card which means i mite still be able to play "some" online games which is what I spent a lot of time on and is one of the reasons i want to sell my pc so i can spend more time studying, but having a graphics card in the laptop means I can play for a few hours on the weekend.

Al Vallario · 16 Oct 2006 at 20:30

elite said:
I think the MBP would be better because it has a graphics card which means i mite still be able to play "some" online games which is what I spent a lot of time on and is one of the reasons i want to sell my pc so i can spend more time studying, but having a graphics card in the laptop means I can play for a few hours on the weekend.

You're still paying a ridiculous amount of money for a laptop, mind you.

If I were in your position I'd spend ~£850 for the baseline 1.83Ghz 13.3" MacBook (with an 80GB hard drive, 2GB of third party RAM and education discount factored in) then blow the remaining ~£1000 on a new desktop system (be that another mac or not). You've then got a sleek, highly portable laptop (A 17" laptop really isn't going to be suitable if you plan on moving it around a lot, taking it to lectures etc.) which is also very capable, and a very nice desktop system to do all your hardcore graphics work on.

You'll be able to play one or two games (World of Warcraft, for example, should be fine on the baseline MacBook) if you must, and to be honest spending ~£1000 above that for an extra 0.3Ghz of processing power (I don't know about the Pros, but the MacBooks adjust the clock speed on the fly for optimum power conservation and to decrease heat output — my 1.83GHz is currently running at 1.3GHz) and a graphics card which still won't be all that great for graphics work and gaming is just a tad insane.

shifty_uk · 16 Oct 2006 at 21:00

I'm a designer and I use a Macbook, it does the job pretty well, all my software from photoshop to 3D apps run great. The biggest problem is screensize. The Macbook is widescreen so it only runs a 1280x800 resolution, which is quite annoying at times. If I had the money I'd choose a MBP over the Macbook, due the screensize and titanium case(to me, the macbook feels too fragile). I'm not sure you would notice much of a difference between the Macbook and the MPB in terms of speed though.

I'm not sure if your aware or not, but games don't run on macs, unless you buy the mac versions(which you can only get for certain games). The only way around this would be to install a duel boot, and have XP on your mac. You would also need to find software thats compatible with the macs, because PC software doesn't run on them.

If you have the budget, and your not just buying one because it looks fancy, then go ahead, they're great machines.

The Macbook is a good computer, and it does everything I want it to do.