The MacBooks are out!

Beansprout · 13 Jul 2006 at 21:21

\o/ ordered a refurbished Macbook Pro for a bargain £928 inc VAT+del :eek:

It's the older model but the only difference is the CPU speed (1.83Ghz) which I really couldn't care less about.

31% discount :eek:

punky_munky · 13 Jul 2006 at 21:38

Beansprout said:
\o/ ordered a refurbished Macbook Pro for a bargain £928 inc VAT+del

It's the older model but the only difference is the CPU speed (1.83Ghz) which I really couldn't care less about.

31% discount

Nice one, you don't have to bother about matching pairs of RAM for the Pro either

Fillado · 15 Jul 2006 at 20:25

sloth said:
Has anyone had any corruption of graphics at all? I've got a wonky icon in system preferences:

Stays there after a reboot. Any ideas how to fix it, or how it got there?

Since I needed to fix it, and I found out how in another forum, i'll post up the solution here

Close System Preferences, then look for a file called "com.apple.preferencepanes.cache"...I think it's in in <your user directory>/Library/Caches. Drag it to your Desktop and then try opening System Preferences again. If all looks well, you can go ahead and trash the file you dragged to your Desktop.

sloth · 16 Jul 2006 at 01:54

Fillado said:
Since I needed to fix it, and I found out how in another forum, i'll post up the solution here

Huzzah! Fixed! Thanks.

RobH · 24 Jul 2006 at 21:54

Just ordered mine, the 2.0GHz White version, £773 with student discount. Planning to upgrade to 2GB of RAM and a 120GB HDD when I can afford it.

shifty_uk · 24 Jul 2006 at 22:46

Anyone got any idea how to turn off the annoying sound the macbook makes when you turn it on?

Matt · 24 Jul 2006 at 23:04

shifty_uk said:
Anyone got any idea how to turn off the annoying sound the macbook makes when you turn it on?

I'm not sure, but i never hear it as i rarely turn mine off

It just sleeps instead.

BeatMaster · 24 Jul 2006 at 23:35

I'm so tempted by a MacBook but I was wondering how it would perform compared to my current laptop.

Toshiba Satellite Pro SM30-742
15.4" WXGA Widescreen TFT
Intel Centrino 1.7Ghz
512Mb DDR
60Gb Hard Drive
Nvidia FX Go 5200
8x DVD+/-RW
Built-in Wireless 54Mbps
Infared
Card Reader
LAN
Modem
3x USB
1x Firewire
Parellel Port

Prefer the smaller screen as it is more portable, but compared to the actual specifications. How quick would Windows be, as that would be a fair test comparison.

Cheers,

BeatMaster

Fillado · 25 Jul 2006 at 00:46

The CPU would perform loads better, but the graphics definitely wouldn't

Other than that it's mostly even.

cb_linus · 25 Jul 2006 at 12:57

There's a rumour that the MacBook pros will start to feature the new Intel 2 Duos (soonish?). Good enough reason to hold off for a while, methinks.

punky_munky · 25 Jul 2006 at 15:09

Fillado said:
The CPU would perform loads better, but the graphics definitely wouldn't

Other than that it's mostly even.

You reckon? I don't know what the performance of the Nvidia Mobile graphics are like but I know the GMA950 is much better than the Radeon9200 in my older Mac Mini.

RobH · 25 Jul 2006 at 16:03

cb_linus said:
There's a rumour that the MacBook pros will start to feature the new Intel 2 Duos (soonish?). Good enough reason to hold off for a while, methinks.

That's true if your after a MacBook Pro, wait until after the Monday of WWDC (less than 2 weeks away) because Apple should announce any changes they are making to their product lineup.

However, if your after a Macbook then your probably not even considering spending more to get a Pro, I don't see Apple changing the MacBook until 2007.

Fillado said:
The CPU would perform loads better, but the graphics definitely wouldn't

You'd be suprised, you can Run World of Warcraft on a MacBook without much problem, something which the 5200 struggles to do on a desktop.

BeatMaster · 25 Jul 2006 at 16:18

RobH said:
You'd be suprised, you can Run World of Warcraft on a MacBook without much problem, something which the 5200 struggles to do on a desktop.

Me thinks this MacBook might be a perfect replacement for this ol' laptop me thinks

Cheers,

BeatMaster

Fillado · 25 Jul 2006 at 16:42

RobH said:
You'd be suprised, you can Run World of Warcraft on a MacBook without much problem, something which the 5200 struggles to do on a desktop.

Oddly enough i've just bought WoW

I can *just* run it on a default 2Ghz MacBook, minimum graphical settings and 800x600 res. I get about 18FPS in areas with lots of people, and 25FPS+ in more open ones.

I have a feeling it's my 512MB RAM that's letting me down

punky_munky · 25 Jul 2006 at 17:15

Fillado said:
Oddly enough i've just bought WoW

I can *just* run it on a default 2Ghz MacBook, minimum graphical settings and 800x600 res. I get about 18FPS in areas with lots of people, and 25FPS+ in more open ones.

I have a feeling it's my 512MB RAM that's letting me down

I would say that's definately the problem. The GMA950 takes about 80MB of system RAM to do it's business.

RobH · 25 Jul 2006 at 17:59

Yeah, the RAM does hold it back, quite a bit too. I found some benchmarks a week ago comparing 512MB to 2GB and the difference was quite significant, the FPS was somewhere in the 30's with the extra RAM. I'll post the links when I have found them, unless someone else can find them first. Apparently a 7200RPM drive does nothing to increase performance it just makes your MacBook hotter.

The MacBook is quite a good notebook, even compared to equivelant PC notebooks. Most PC based notebooks at a similar price only offer the low end mobile ATI/Geforce if your lucky, most use intergrated graphics, the GMA 950 is probably one of the better integrated solutions.

Here are the links, note it is running on OSX with the universal binary. Would be nice if we could get a comparison to WoW running under bootcamp in XP too.

Stock Macbook: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=204543
2GB Macbook: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=207176

A quick graph based on the results the guy in the thread got:

What we don't know is how well it performs on 1GB and also under XP with bootcamp.

ikillbears · 25 Jul 2006 at 19:00

Fillado said:
Oddly enough i've just bought WoW

I can *just* run it on a default 2Ghz MacBook, minimum graphical settings and 800x600 res. I get about 18FPS in areas with lots of people, and 25FPS+ in more open ones.

I have a feeling it's my 512MB RAM that's letting me down

playing it on my 2.16 MBP it runs like a beaut but i guess having 1gig ram and a dedicated gfx card helps ;D

Fillado · 25 Jul 2006 at 19:09

Blimey

Now all I need to do is find a decent & cheap pair of 1GB modules and save up!

sticks-stones · 25 Jul 2006 at 19:44

Beansprout said:
Thanks 2Gb probably, looked around and found 1Gb sticks for £57

wow! is that what you ended up going for? and are they just for MacBook Pro or MacBook as well?

RobH · 25 Jul 2006 at 19:50

sticks-stones said:
wow! is that what you ended up going for? and are they just for MacBook Pro or MacBook as well?

They are for MacBooks too (both use the same type of RAM), it will cost you about £120 to get 2GB of RAM in a MacBook, that's £180 cheaper than if you asked Apple to do it for you. Plus you can also sell the memory you got with the MAcbook and get something back.