Thinking of buying my first Macbook and have a few questions.

[allosunshine]

I'm seriously thinking of buying a 2.4GHz Macbook (if I can persuade the Mrs to let me) and then upgrading the RAM and HDD myself, but this would be my first one so I have a few questions.

RAM - RAM isn't that expensive but when you start looking for RAM for a Mac theres the generic SODIMM RAM which is reasonably priced and then theres Apple specific RAM which is a lot more expensive. I'm guessing that generic SODIMM ram is still OK to use but why does Apple specific RAM cost so much more??

Parallels or Boot Camp - I'm gonna put Windows 7 on it to help ease the transition and was wondering which is the best solution. I wouldn't mind being able to use both without rebooting but if Boot Camp works better, having to reboot wouldn't bother me so which is the Parallels or Boot Camp.

Partitions - I've already asked a question about partitioning but just wanted to clarify that having a Filestore partition in FAT32 would work no problem between OSx and Windows. I don't have any files more than 4GB in size I don't think so this isn't an issue.

Email - My main accounts are my Hotmail and Exchange 2007 accounts which I use Outlook 2007 as my client. How well does Apple's email app support the 2?? I'm guessing I won't find a email app as good as Outlook 2007 so is there any other Mac email apps that support Hotmail and Exchange 2007 well.

Cheers

 

[Will_3rd]

RAM - RAM isn't that expensive but when you start looking for RAM for a Mac theres the generic SODIMM RAM which is reasonably priced and then theres Apple specific RAM which is a lot more expensive. I'm guessing that generic SODIMM ram is still OK to use but why does Apple specific RAM cost so much more??

Most non-Apple provided RAM such as from Crucial, Kingston, Corsair etc will work perfectly fine. Apple charge that much because they make their profits from inflated hardware prices.

Parallels or Boot Camp - I'm gonna put Windows 7 on it to help ease the transition and was wondering which is the best solution. I wouldn't mind being able to use both without rebooting but if Boot Camp works better, having to reboot wouldn't bother me so which is the Parallels or Boot Camp.

Boot Camp would run at native speed, where as visualization via Parellels would be a near native speeds. But in real world usage there is a little difference, so the choice is up to you. I personally found virtualising Windows was much more useful.

Partitions - I've already asked a question about partitioning but just wanted to clarify that having a Filestore partition in FAT32 would work no problem between OSx and Windows. I don't have any files more than 4GB in size I don't think so this isn't an issue.

Will work fine between the OS' as you say the 4GB file size would be the only issue.

Email - My main accounts are my Hotmail and Exchange 2007 accounts which I use Outlook 2007 as my client. How well does Apple's email app support the 2?? I'm guessing I won't find a email app as good as Outlook 2007 so is there any other Mac email apps that support Hotmail and Exchange 2007 well.

Not sure on this one, think Apple Mail supports Hotmail and bits of Exchange. Would probably need Entourage (Mac version of Outlook) for full support AFAIK.