Mac Laptops

ikillbears · 24 Apr 2006 at 00:41

Hi , i am eligable for a laptop through my council for being dyslexic. Im surrently doing Graphic Design at uni and as such mac is probably the way to go as its the industry standard and thats what we use at uni. Now heres the question. I could get a iBook free, but i could put some money in myself and make this better say to a PowerBook or a MacPro. My question is , is there point ? there obviously faster but at the end of the day will it make that much difference.

Also will the fact that Apple have signed to Intel mean that having the MacPro will be a future safe bet or not?. The dual boot abilities would be pretty welcome so that i could play a few old windows games on my laptop.

Any advice most welcome

Founder_film · 24 Apr 2006 at 09:06

I would see if you could get an Intel based Macbook Pro for the futureproofing reason and the dual booting would be good if your using OSX for the first time. The new Intel based iBook (probably going to be called Macbooks) should be out in the not too distant future so it might be worth hanging on till they come out as you would not have to add any extra cash yourself. The Intel iBooks will be smaller of course probably 13.3" widescreen and will not be as fast as the Macbook Pros. The iBooks game wise might not be a good idea though as they are likely to come with lower rated graphics (probably integrated

).

I would suggest going the Intel way. Some people might argue that as Adobe are not releasing photoshop etc for x86 (Intel) for a while you might get annoyed with the poorer performance under emulation untill they are released. But once they are out you will be sorted for the future.

Hope this helps.

earlyflash · 24 Apr 2006 at 09:10

As a confirmed Mac and PC user, I'd definitely say to get a Intel based Mac. However, if you want a Intel you have to buy, currently, the MacBookPro (for laptops) which are very nice, but quite expensive.

As is always the case with computer hardware if you can wait a bit, the MacBook (replacement for iBook) is due in the summer, which might fit your needs better.

lay-z-boy · 24 Apr 2006 at 12:01

intel baised mac or a nice high end dell

, also get an extended warrenty, you will understand when the damm thing dies 3 days after the warrenty expires

ikillbears · 26 Apr 2006 at 21:17

cheers for the advice so far guys , most appreciated. On the game front i was wondering if games such as WoW and BF2 would run fine on these. Having the graphics on low isnt a problem for me as im currently on a 1.4GHz , or rather a 1700 AMD , so im used to it.

Also i was wandering how come its essentialy 2 processors ( or so i believe ) in one and yet the speed is only 2GHz on the top model. I tried searching the net but find it ruddy hard to understand it in robot, would be much more helpful for a human answer

earlyflash · 9 May 2006 at 13:38

zhx said:
On the game front i was wondering if games such as WoW and BF2 would run fine on these.

There is version of WoW for Mac, but there is no BF2 for the Mac so far. However, you can boot windows by using BootCamp (I have played oblivion using Windows on the Intel Mac), but performance isn't going to be as good as the Windows laptop.

zhx said:
Also i was wandering how come its essentialy 2 processors ( or so i believe ) in one and yet the speed is only 2GHz on the top model.

The intel core duo in the MacBook Pro is a mobile chip. This means that although it runs at 2GHZ it produces less heat than an equivalent desktop chip. To make it do this there are some tradeoffs, so the speed tends to be limited and the performance is often a shade under the same speed desktop chip.

The rumour sites say that the Macbooks (not Pro) will be available tomorrow (9th May).