time to buy a macbook pro

[ringo747]

guys, thinking seriously about going for a 15.4" macbook bro..

Can get one for £1500 student discount.. anyone here recommend them?

Was going to go for new macbooks but need the gfx cards for video/photo editing + gaming.

Have used windows up till now and would still use my beast of a desktop as a file storage machine.

Any tips are welcome!

Jonny

 

[ringo747]

There a thread on the macbook just below this one.

Also, I don't think you can use games on Mac's

as far as i know u can use some games! wouldnt be a major issue tho.

Is 15.4 almost the same as 17" except for screensize?

Were they released together/same problems???

 

[ringo747]

doesnt matter you can use bootcamp to boot into xp.

of course u can! i dunno what i was thinking!

to run bootcamp do u partition the disk and use one Operating System per partition?

 

[ringo747]

i can use my big desktop for games but its still nice to know that (hopefully) once bootcamp is sorted and all the driver issues are resolved then gaming should be no problem. I am so tempted to hit the buy now button but think i might hold off for a wee while. Uni dont start till late september but then again the guy I was talking to at apple said no changes will be made to any macbooks in the next 6 months.

My mate says I will have no regrets about going down the apple road.. I hope he is right!

J

 

[ringo747]

another question?

Did u all go for the glossy screen? Which is best for gaming?
Which is best for video/photo editing (not quite broadcast stuff im doin so doesnt need to be perfect)

just off fone with apple..

final prices
15.4" - £1512
17" - £1747


This is with further education discount.

Im still thinking 15.4.. cant really afford the 17" and its probably not as portable

 

[ringo747]

Glossy screens are really nice for general use, but not good at all for graphics/video editing. The colours are over saturated and the contrast is usually wrong too. Matte screens are much better for graphics use.

However, if you're not planning on doing many graphics, then glossy may be cool. From my experience, glossy screens show finger prints much more than matte screens.

The 17" is very portable IMO. It's only 1" wider physically than the 15.4... it doesn't seem overly large. The screen resolution is worth the increase with width/depth for me.

thanks for the advice..

dvds etc look better on a glossy screen?

ive never had a mac b4 so im not wanting to go for 17" just yet as its just too much cash but I can always plug it into my 19" TFT here and use it for editing/graphics.. it means i wont need a mac desktop as well as laptop..

I hate having to make these decisions!

 

[ringo747]

DVDs look great on glossy screen. Remember though that you will get a lot of reflections unless you sit directly in front of the screen.

Web browsing and general applications do look very nice on glossy screens... but you should probably go to PC World or something and have a look at a laptop with a glossy screent to see if you like it before making up your mind.

Personally, I prefer matte screens. Finger prints don't show up as badly as on a glossy screen. A good Matte screen has superior colour accuracy compared to a glossy screen. Matte screens don't suffer from reflections as much.

Glossy screen came out because when you see some screens lined up in a shop, the glossy ones stand out, and this gave an advantage to the laptop manufacturer (Sony etc.) in shop displays. Because of this almost all laptop manufacturers now include a glossy screen... but this doesn't mean its better than what they had before with matte screens.

are TFTs usually matte??

 

[ringo747]

They used to be... nowadays, TFT screen are still mostly matte, but most laptops are glossy. Pro TFTs are always matte.

glossy would be nice for dvds etc like u say and for browsing net.. im gonna keep my big desktop machine for file storage.. I have 700gb of space on it.. If I was to preview my output video/photo on the matte TFT then im sure it would solve any saturday/color balance problems.

Will maybe hold off a week or two before buying.

 

[ringo747]

Watch out if you buy Mac versions of games, they might be PowerPC binaries in which case the performance will be a lot worse than booting into XP and running them through that.

Don't forget your XP licenses either

what u mean about xp licences?? u mean u should have two different copies of xp? I think thats what ** saying

 

[ringo747]

You need an XP licence for each machine that you run XP on. This includes XP running under BootCamp on a Mac.

im sure everyone on here complies with that!