spec my dad a Mac

S.A.S

S.A.S

S.A.S

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Joined
10 Jan 2009
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756
Location
London
my dad wants a new laptop and was looking into Macs and asked me for some help.

he doesn't want to spend more than 1500 pounds

he travels daily and was not sure if the little air book is tough enough to take the knocks and bumps off a train journey and walk through London in the rush hour.

he does archutechtural presentations on big screens, using all different pieces of software, that he has found works on mac, but they are GB HUNGRY

SO NOW HES THINKING OF THE MACBOOK OR MACBOOK PRo

couldanyone spec one please
 
Check out the refurb store as well as they often have aluminium Macbooks on there. Also don't ever pay £80 for RAM from Apple as that is about £50 more than if you upgrade it to 4gb yourself and sell your existing 2gb RAM. It's an easy upgrade (battery removal then a few screws) which I did on my one.
 
thats not true anymore, now that they are using DDR3 its only about £10 or so dearer. Much easier just to tick the box.
 
BluZiff said:
thats not true anymore, now that they are using DDR3 its only about £10 or so dearer. Much easier just to tick the box.
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I'm sorry but you're wrong. I should know considering I bought a unibody Macbook two weeks ago and did this very upgrade immediately.

£60 (inc P&P) for Kingston's Macbook specific DDR3 memory (I can't link as bought elsewhere)
minus £30 the amount I sold my 2gb for

= £30 extra for my 4gb upgrade which makes it £50 cheaper than just ticking the box, well worth it.
 
Wicksta said:
sold my 2gb for
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I hope that you never have any problems with your laptop that are traced to memory. Personally I'd rather pay the extra and have Apple supplied and warrantied memory (and that's what I did).
 
Feek said:
I hope that you never have any problems with your laptop that are traced to memory. Personally I'd rather pay the extra and have Apple supplied and warrantied memory (and that's what I did).
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Fair enough, if I do have a problem indirectly related to memory I'll just buy some Apple memory again and the price is only going to go down.

I'm quite capable of diagnosing faulty memory to be honest. At worst I've still saved £20 even if I have to buy some 2gb RAM at the price I sold mine for but I've more than likely saved £50. Also if anything goes wrong with my 4gb Kingston memory I will just RMA that without having to send my whole MacBook back to Apple and worry about backing up or deleting sensitive data. Simples.

So to round up I personally can't really see any advantages for paying Apple £50 more than necessary, even on the odd chance something goes wrong I'm still quids in and could actually have less hassle. :)
 
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i thought apple did not void the warranty if any third party RAM was installed that is Apple specific to that type of Mac?

i think he's going for the macbook 2.4ghx with 4gb of RAM, hes not one to take the back covers off things, so its probably the easiest option
 
S.A.S said:
i thought apple did not void the warranty if any third party RAM was installed that is Apple specific to that type of Mac?

i think he's going for the macbook 2.4ghx with 4gb of RAM, hes not one to take the back covers off things, so its probably the easiest option
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No warranty will be voided. It's a matter of removing the battery and 6 (easy) screws if he wants to save the money. Even if he keeps the old RAM then it's still a £20+ saving for 5 minutes work plus then you have a spare set of RAM.

I understand a lot of people aren't techie enough to want to do this kind of thing though, no matter how easy it might seem to some which is why I guess Apple can get away with charging a £50 premium for the extra 2gb.
 
when i bought my macbook apple knocked 30 quid off the ram upgrade for me. 50 isnt too much i think for ddr3 ram i mean look how much pc ddr3 costs in comparison.
 
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Feek said:
I hope that you never have any problems with your laptop that are traced to memory. Personally I'd rather pay the extra and have Apple supplied and warrantied memory (and that's what I did).
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I don't get it. It's RAM - it conforms to a specification. You could even buy the exact same memory that Apple would use. What's the point paying £50 extra for someone like you to do exactly the same thing you would do with essentially the same product?
 
Mattus said:
I don't get it. It's RAM - it conforms to a specification. You could even buy the exact same memory that Apple would use. What's the point paying £50 extra for someone like you to do exactly the same thing you would do with essentially the same product?
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Apart from retaining your warranty on your fancy kit? No point at all.
 
vonhelmet said:
Apart from retaining your warranty on your fancy kit? No point at all.
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Replacing RAM voids no warranty, Apple even give instructions on how to change it both in print form and online.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1651

All this warranty nonsense is just FUD by people trying to justify spending £50 more than they needed to. As I've already explained if you are completely paranoid you can keep your old RAM and still save money, plus RMAing RAM is a lot easier than losing your laptop for a while and worrying about backing up etc.

If someone can actually justify with a real reason why anyone technically enough minded would have any advantage by paying £50 extra for 4gb from Apple then I'm all ears, but I've yet to hear a compelling reason and have explained above why it's actually a disadvantage.
 
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Wicksta said:
Replacing RAM voids no warranty, Apple even give instructions on how to change it both in print form and online.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1651

All this warranty nonsense is just FUD by people trying to justify spending £50 more than they needed to. As I've already explained if you are completely paranoid you can keep your old RAM and still save money, plus RMAing RAM is a lot easier than losing your laptop for a while and worrying about backing up etc.

If someone can actually justify with a real reason why anyone technically enough minded would have any advantage by paying £50 extra for 4gb from Apple then I'm all ears, but I've yet to hear a compelling reason and have explained above why it's actually a disadvantage.
Click to expand...

Sorry, forgot we were talking about Macs that you're actually allowed into.

Stupid hermetically sealed Mac Mini...
 
Well it was only £10 difference between apple and 3rd party when i specced up my macbook pro a month or so ago. Due to not having £80 at the time I decided not to.

Just to reiterate, apple was £80, buying 4gb of laptop ddr3 new is £70.

Id like to know where you got £30 for the 2gb kit from, nobody buys 2gb of ram anymore, especially ddr3 as generally 2gb is what is standard in most machines.

And yes replacing the RAM or HDD of your new mb or mbp is still covered under apple warranty. I do agree that the amount apple charge is a lot considering that the cost of the 2gb kit should be excluded from the cost of the new RAM. But hey they are a business that makes money, cant hold it against them for doing what they there for.
 
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