University - Macbook / Pro?

RandomTom

RandomTom

RandomTom

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I'm off to university in September and with the education discount I think I'll be making my first purchase towards the light side. The question is though should I go for a macbook or a macbook pro?

Macbook Base Model - £600
Macbook Middle Model - £705

For a start is the £105 worth it in between the two. With the Macbook I'd get 2gb of ram and an external 20" widescreen, such as the Dell 2007fpw. Or I could go for just the Macbook Pro, I'd be using it for photoshop, web editing, bit of movie editing, the usual mac stuff but also a possibility for gaming if I get bored...

Macbook Pro Base - £1100

What do you think is the best option? Any university goers now who went for either?
 
I think you should go for Macbook and beef it up..

whack 2gb in a macbook..

save your money, you will need it all..

Plus a macbook c2d 2.1ghz and 2gb memory will be as good as you will surely need..

Not unless you want to game all day and night
 
The hardware differences between the Macbook and the Pro are minimal, but if you want to play games, use video editting or 3D apps then you'd be best off with the Pro - the Macbook onboard Intel GMA is very weak, AFAIK FCP won't run without a dedicated graphics card.
 
I went for the MBP due to separate graphics card as I use 3D and video editing a lot, and that it was £1250 new for C2D 2.33ghz, 2GB ram :D

if I had the choice though I would still go for the MBP just for the graphics card, BF2142 would be a killer on a normal MB
 
Regarding the difference between the first 2 spec macbooks:

2ghz - 2.16ghz
80gb - 120gb
combo drive - super drive

Is that worth it in your eyes? I'll have an external 80gb hard-drive, I think I might save up and go for the middle spec version, seems like decent enough upgrades. How does CS:S run on the macbook?
 
super drive is a yes unless you have some other way of burning certain media.

The bigger HDD space is pointless if you store things on external drives, I store all my work and media on a fileserver/htpc so I never run out of space really.

ot sure about any real difference between CPU speed, there will be some leve lof difference but can't comment on it myself to whether it is worth £x
 
I would definitely go for the MacBook Pro and i would go for 2gb of RAM as a minimum!

The reasons for going for the MBP, Nicer Case, Much Better Screens, Not that much bigger than the MB, Illuminated keyboard, Firewire 800 (a must) and much better hardware inside e.g GFX.

I was going to get a bottom end MB then thought ill get the Black Book, then i thought the MBP wasnt that much more so stretched to that, then i though what the hell for the 17" top end model :p . Glad i did!!!

Josh
 
5bjoshua said:
The reasons for going for the MBP

Nicer Case, Much Better Screens, Not that much bigger than the MB, Illuminated keyboard, Firewire 800 (a must) and much better hardware inside e.g GFX.
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Debatable / a nice external screen trumps both / true / bleh / since when? / bar the graphics I doubt you'd notice a difference in performance. :p
 
RandomTom said:
I'm off to university in September and with the education discount I think I'll be making my first purchase towards the light side. The question is though should I go for a macbook or a macbook pro?

Macbook Base Model - £600
Macbook Middle Model - £705

For a start is the £105 worth it in between the two. With the Macbook I'd get 2gb of ram and an external 20" widescreen, such as the Dell 2007fpw. Or I could go for just the Macbook Pro, I'd be using it for photoshop, web editing, bit of movie editing, the usual mac stuff but also a possibility for gaming if I get bored...

Macbook Pro Base - £1100

What do you think is the best option? Any university goers now who went for either?
Click to expand...

I was in the same dilemma as you. I decided that if I wanted a macbook it would be best to get the 600-700 one, because they are smaller and easily transported to lectures in the cool sleeves you can buy. The MacBook pro is not worth it, save the money for other stuffl; or, if you have the money to burn and not miss it, i'd recommend getting a laptop from rock direct.

Edit: Oh and belive me. I was a total game/anime nerd with no friends (ok OTT) and spent my time playing on the PC all day on mmorpgs. However, once I went to uni, and after buying a 1000 GBP 8800 GTX machine to take with me, I didn't use it ONCE except for assignments.
 
Exactly...

Unless your going to uni to join some LAN party team i wouldnt bother with gaming pc's

I had a pretty decent gaming pc... Never used it since september.. always on me laptop or going out, or computers at the uni labs.

Personally i think for your needs over £1000 is a waste of money when you can spend around £800 for a very good laptop in a macbook...

But thats my thought :)..
 
lemonkettaz said:
Exactly...

Unless your going to uni to join some LAN party team i wouldnt bother with gaming pc's

I had a pretty decent gaming pc... Never used it since september.. always on me laptop or going out, or computers at the uni labs.

Personally i think for your needs over £1000 is a waste of money when you can spend around £800 for a very good laptop in a macbook...

But thats my thought :)..
Click to expand...

Agreed.
 
wush said:
Debatable / a nice external screen trumps both / true / bleh / since when? / bar the graphics I doubt you'd notice a difference in performance. :p
Click to expand...

It is a nicer case? I'd rather have the aluminium case than a plastic one/ who lugs a external monitor around with them?/ Firewire 800 is awesome for external drives and professional sound cards etc....

They were points that made myself go for a MBP rather than a MB.

Josh
 
At the end of the day its personal preference, if you're tight for spending on a MBP get a normal one, nowt wrong with it, much better than some windows counterpart :P
But if you can stretch to the MBP then you won't be disappointed atall, like I said, I only got a MBP as I found one cheap at the time otherwise I'd still be saving now :p

MBP does have its advantages over the normal MB, but its whether your personal use can justify the cost. Will you use the extra features/get the most out the faster CPU / dedicated graphics card?
 
5bjoshua said:
It is a nicer case? I'd rather have the aluminium case than a plastic one/ who lugs a external monitor around with them?/ Firewire 800 is awesome for external drives and professional sound cards etc....

They were points that made myself go for a MBP rather than a MB.

Josh
Click to expand...
It looks nice but it's an older design (metal hook latch rather than magnetic, a lot harder to access HDD/RAM). He mentioned getting an external monitor. FW800 is a bonus but it's hardly "a must" over USB2 and FW400 for most people.. :)
 
It's a tough one. You will find yourself going from the basic MacBook right up to the basic MacBook Pro or middle MacBook Pro and trying to justify the cost.

Having done the same myself last December, I ended up with a MacBook Pro and it's a beautiful machine. In saying that, someone else in my college class got a MacBook (black) and it looks really nice too. It's lightweight, portable, has a good battery life due to the small screen - but the small screen may also be something that puts people off.

It's a boring answer but it really is preference - if you're using it to take down notes and do very basic stuff then the MacBook is a really good choice - if you're wanting to do some gaming, photoshopping or video editing - then the onboard gfx of the MacBook are going to make that a less than best experience.

And the lower end of the MacBook Pro gfx will cater for that in a much better way - even if not to the obvious desktop levels.
 
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