MacBook: weight and battery life

elite

elite

elite

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Hey, I'm looking into buying a MacBook with my student discount but unable to find its weight and battery life, im sure its on the apple website I just cant seem to find it.

I'm also having a hard time justifying spending £840 (I've added a few things to its spec) on a MacBook when this would cost me £700

Processor speed: 2 GHz
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo
Screen size: 15.4 inches
Storage (hard drive): 160 GB
Memory (RAM): 2048 MB
Graphics: 256MB GF7600

Just what does the MacBook have that costs £140 more and doesn't have as good spec?

Im also looking to use MSN on the MacBook and Microsoft Office do these work without any other programs needed to support them?

Will a MacBook has the power to run Photoshop and other Abode programs for my uni course?
 
elite said:
Processor speed: 2 GHz
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo
Screen size: 15.4 inches
Storage (hard drive): 160 GB
Memory (RAM): 2048 MB
Graphics: 256MB GF7600
Click to expand...

The screensize and graphics tell me that that's a MacBook Pro, however there isn't a 2Ghz C2D MacBook Pro.

Where are you getting this information from?

Are you sure you've been to www.apple.com/ukstore ?
 
No your right that spec isnt a MacBook Pro its a normal Laptop. Im just wondering whats best for the money as the £700 Pc Laptop owns the MacBook on spec.
 
Ah right, I understand now.

Well to me it's a few things. Of course the spec is high up there as what I'd be looking for, but other things appeal to me too.

All of my Apple laptops have been superbly built and have never let me down. My 3 year old iBook's worst problem was needing a new hard drive after 3 years of abuse (I dropped it a few times).

My MacBook Pro feels like it did the day I got it. The build quality is superb and whilst I do most of my heavy grafting on my PC, I find Mac OS X perfect for the simple things that I do on my MBP. Browsing - a bit of design and code and most of all sorting my huge music collection and organising my files (I'm a bit obsessive).

When I briefly had a MacBook; I found it to be an awesome little machine. It feels unbelievably powerful and well built. It feels like its worth well over £1,000 and I ended up treating it extremely well.

In my friends and family's' experience with comparable laptops such as Dells, HPs and Packard Bells, they don't seem to have the power/durability. 4/6 friends laptops CD drives stopped working after about 6 months of heavy student use. The hardware feels like it was chucked together and the amount of rubbish pre installed is cringe worthy.

With a bloated version of Windows lumped on them to me they always felt a bit slow and prone to crash, indicating that they weren't a very professional job.

Sure, I haven't really played with a more pricey Windows laptop, but from what I've seen of these £500-£800 common branded laptops - they feel cheap and weak.

Apple think a lot about design, with people like Jonathan Ive working on these machines a lot of common problems have been addressed well. They don't just think about what it needs, they think about why things are needed and about the usability and functionality of each feature.

Incorporated with one of the most stable OS's to boot, the MacBooks and MacBook Pros really are solid, stable and powerful machines. I don't know anyone who regrets buying one.

I do however know 6 friends who regret buying their laptops.

Of course this all my opinion, but I thought you might value some input from my experience.
 
elite said:
Hey, I'm looking into buying a MacBook with my student discount but unable to find its weight and battery life, im sure its on the apple website I just cant seem to find it.
Click to expand...
The tech specs page will tell you everything you ever wanted to know.

elite said:
Just what does the MacBook have that costs £140 more and doesn't have as good spec?
Click to expand...
Hardware-wise, with a MacBook you get downright superb build quality, added bonuses such as the magnetic lid, magsafe power connector, built-in webcam/bluetooth/WiFi/firewire/digital audio connectors/gigabit ethernet and the Front Row remote control thrown in. The trackpad (extra large, two-fingered scrolling, two-finger+click right clicking, etc.) is a dream to use, and the keyboard is much nicer than any other laptop keyboard I've tried. Then there's the fact that the whole package looks drop-dead gorgeous...

Software-wise, you get a brilliant operating system and a fantastic range of applications out of the box in the form of iLife. Once you set it up you don't need to spend hours reinstalling the operating system to get rid of pre-installed bloatware, you don't have to purchase third party anti-virus/spyware/adware/firewall software, you don't have to take every other weekend off to reinstall the operating system and/or defrag your hard drive. You get a superb web browser out of the box (Safari), a photo library application which is more than adequate for the most hardened novice (iPhoto), iTunes to cover all of your music listening needs, iMovie HD for that spot of movie editing, Exposé to make multi-tasking the stuff of dreams, Front Row to organise your media collection...

elite said:
Im also looking to use MSN on the MacBook and Microsoft Office do these work without any other programs needed to support them?
Click to expand...
Adium will take care of all your instant messaging needs (MSN/AIM/Y!IM/ICQ/Jabber/Bonjour/Google Talk...) in style (and for free), and the student/teacher edition of Microsoft Office for Mac 2004 can be had for ~£95.
 
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First off with respect to MSN:

It really depends what you and your friends use it for. If you just use it for IMing and ONLY that, no other bells and whistles at all then Adium is fine and an extremely slick client. The problem with Adium though is that it's built from (and dependent upon) libgaim which is extremely slow in adding MSN specific features.

MSN for Mac at least has some minor specific things such as personal messages and whatnot (if you need them). If you require things such as webcam/audio chat, sharing folders etc. then there isn't anything for Mac that can do them (yes there is aMSN/Mercury for webcam but they both suck IMO) with the MSN network.

MS Office:

I got the student version of Office 2004 and it works great, and then there's also OpenOffice (requires X11 but in the next few months there'll be a fully native version for Mac which'll be goood) which is good as well :) iWork has both Pages (seems to be a kind of DTP/Word Processing hybrid) that at least for word processing seems to be lacking in features compared to Word or OpenOffice. Keynote is amazing and if it wasn't for needing my presentations built in Powerpoint (although it does export to Powerpoint) i'd certainly use it a lot more. TBH I just haven't played around enough in iWork to fully comment on it.

Actual MacBook:

First off I will tell you the hardware problems with my MacBook (Core Duo), that you should be aware of, but ask here and other forums for other people's experiences since most won't be an issue with the newest Core 2 Duo ones.

Random Shutdown - this has been fixed by a software update and so isn't a problem at all now :)

Palm Rest discolouration - now here's where this was a potentially good thing for me as it got me to see how good they are in Apple Stores. I took it in, and after much attempted cleaning by the genius guy he took it in and replaced the palm rest within an hour :D Right now i have some darker colouredness there but i'm thinking it just needs a good clean since it isn't the yellowy colour like before :)

Flickering Backlight - this one still makes me wonder, as sometime (when only on mains power i think) the backlight will start flicking and then sort itself out again and i won't see it for ages.

Now i've got all the nastyness out of the way there are SO many good things about it. The hardware (apart from the problems above which you most likely won't experience) is fantastic! Magsafe connector, built in microphone and webcam (which as said before doesn't really work with MSN, but works beautifully with Skype), and just the general look and feel of it all makes it certainly seem better made than the Windows laptops i've seen and briefly used. The trackpad with its 2-Fingered scrolling/right clicking is a dream to use and means I occasionally find myself just moving to it randomly instead of my Mighty Mouse.

As has been said earlier and everywhere around this forum Mac OS X is amazing, not that I don't have my minor niggles with it but overall it feels smoother and faster than XP (can't comment on Vista yet...but we have seen Leopard yet either). For 95% of things you can do both on Windows and Mac...then there is another 1% of which I would need Windows for, and 4% which I would actually need Mac OS X for.

Basically hardware-wise you do get amazing quality and thoughtfullness with a MacBook - all you need to decide is what software you want to use and if you'll want to game a lot or not which could sway you to a Windows notebook.
 
MSN Mac Messenger serves perfectly well - but won't recognise the inbuilt webcam alas.

As noted above Academic Mac Office 2004 (<£100 at Amazon) is great.

I have nothing but praise for Apple Laptops (first an iBook now a MacBook). Just make sure you get Applecare.

http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/06/27/gartner_hardware_failure_rates/

Not because Apple Laptops are more failure prone. Industry wide Laptops have a 15% failure chance in their first year, 20% in the second et cetera. The first year is covered by the warranty.

Phone up and ask for a further discount! Sometimes you get better than the institutional one through the website.
 
I get a constant 4.5-5 hrs out of my 17" Macbook Pro on a full charge :cool:
 
I got around 5/6 hours on my MacBook - I was very very very impressed. I literally could go a whole day at uni and not have to worry about charging it.

My MacBook Pro is different, the battery is about 2/3 hours maximum, but that's the sacrifice I've accepted for having a more powerful machine. I bought a 2nd battery for about £30 off eBay so I'm sorted.

Oh and any gripes people have about Mac OS X, be prepared for Leopard, from what I've heard and seen - it's going to be awesome!
 
Well i wont be using it for games as I have a nice pc for gaming, it would just be for Uni (graphic design) and the normal email/msn/internet while in bed or on the move (I use trains a lot).

I was in the Apple store in Manchester a few weeks ago and was having a good look around and tbh i thought the 17" Pros looked to big and the 13" to small, I said to the guy who was working there dont these MB come with bigger screens, he replied, anything bigger then 13" needs a graphics card. aka no.

Just looking on the apple uk website and seen a black mb refurb, any idea if i can get student discount on refurb hardware?
 
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From when I bought my MacBook, you can't get any extra discount on refurb stuff. I only got my HE discount when I bought it from the normal store.

I've not experienced any issues with my MacBook either, I've got the Core2Duo Black version, and it's been flawless. Only problem I have with it is the trackpad acts up sometimes, it acts as if I've got two fingers on the pad and scrolls rather than move the cursor, even though I've got one finger on it.

Only other problem is drivers under Vista using Boot Camp, but that's being sorted in Leopard so it should be all good.
 
FYI: The 15.4 inch Macbook Pro is only 1inch smaller (width ways) than the 17" :cool:
 
Fillado said:
and then there's also OpenOffice (requires X11 but in the next few months there'll be a fully native version for Mac which'll be goood)
Click to expand...

Mate, you been hiding under a rock? NeoOffice tbh :p
 
Al Vallario said:
Hardware-wise, with a MacBook you get downright superb build quality, added bonuses such as the magnetic lid, magsafe power connector, built-in webcam/bluetooth/WiFi/firewire/digital audio connectors/gigabit ethernet and the Front Row remote control thrown in. The trackpad (extra large, two-fingered scrolling, two-finger+click right clicking, etc.) is a dream to use, and the keyboard is much nicer than any other laptop keyboard I've tried. Then there's the fact that the whole package looks drop-dead gorgeous...

Software-wise, you get a brilliant operating system and a fantastic range of applications out of the box in the form of iLife. Once you set it up you don't need to spend hours reinstalling the operating system to get rid of pre-installed bloatware, you don't have to purchase third party anti-virus/spyware/adware/firewall software, you don't have to take every other weekend off to reinstall the operating system and/or defrag your hard drive. You get a superb web browser out of the box (Safari), a photo library application which is more than adequate for the most hardened novice (iPhoto), iTunes to cover all of your music listening needs, iMovie HD for that spot of movie editing, Exposé to make multi-tasking the stuff of dreams, Front Row to organise your media collection...
Click to expand...

Well said, agree with every word. I've had my 2.0 C2D / 2GB Macbook for a few months now and I'm very impressed with it.
 
That's a fair summary. I've got a few build issues with my black MacBook, mainly that the lid appears to be coming away to one side - not that noticeable but it's definately there. The other problem is the finish on the MacBook appears to be peeling away around the sides, not sure if it's wear and tear related but it's there.

Apart from that, I'm very impressed with it.
 
my main beef with my macbook is the keyboard! how spectrum in feel, how fisherprice in looks and how much junk falls in the keys gap!

But the pro design is spot on - just needs to be smaller (one of the reasons I went for the macbook and not the pro). PLEASE APPLE BRING OUT THE 12" verison that everyone wants.
 
slinxy said:
my main beef with my macbook is the keyboard! how spectrum in feel, how fisherprice in looks and how much junk falls in the keys gap!
Click to expand...

You have a point there. I really like the fee of it, can type fast on it but I've lost of stuff between the keys. Typically small hairs. Eye lash or eye brow etc, lands on the keyboard, I blow and it vanishes under a key never to be seen again. Think of it as DNA marking if it's ever stolen!
 
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