Urgent Mac purchase help please..

robbiemc said:
rp2000, as there's a new MBP coming soon, can you wait? It'd be pretty annoying to buy one then have an improved model come out 6 weeks (or so) later.
Obviously you'll still be getting a great laptop, but faster/bigger processor Ram etc is always welcome.
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Is this definite? I mean I am looking at midrange edition. So with the savings in price, I am happy to get the 2.6ghz cpu upgrade, which surely will become the "middle edition" in the upgrade.

Do you know for certain about this upgrade? Is there some sort of Mac Expo in Jan?

Ironically one of my family works at Apple HQ in USA, so maybe I will tap him up to see if he knows more. (He told me about the ipod touch concept 1 year ago, and I laughed at him!!).


Still confused about this warranty issue, I deffo wnat the 3 yeasr hardware support, as Phaser had to pay.

The 20% thing is if you own your own company and pay for it through your company. You can't claim back VAT (bit of an urban myth and hard to explain really). But you can offset the cost against your corporation tax bill. An accountant will explain it much better, and confuse you (as mine has done to me!). Corporation Tax for small businesses is calculated at 20%. Obviously it is then an asset of your company etc. So I could buy something today for saay £1000 and when my corporation tax is calculated I would pay £200 less. Obvioulsy it is not like HE discount which you pay less up front, with this it's the other way round. Totally legitimate.


rp2000
 
rp2000 said:
Ironically one of my family works at Apple HQ in USA, so maybe I will tap him up to see if he knows more. (He told me about the ipod touch concept 1 year ago, and I laughed at him!!).
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If he knows anything he won't tell you, and anything he tells you won't be fact. Unless he doesn't like his job.
 
Goatyman said:
If you are not doing any media editing i would get the glossy, as you don't care if the image on the screen is artificially altered by the glossy finished. Things will just look prettier :)
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You could say that it's that "matte" screen that artificially alters things. Matte screens have the anti-reflective coating that diffuses light on to the screen, "glossy" is the absense of that.
 
rp2000 said:
The one thing that I am really unsure of is whether to get glossy or matte screen, but I guess that is a personal preference thing, and not something I can change once I take the plunge. I will watch some media content on it, but mostly be using as a Windows XP/OSX machine (boot camp or parallels etc). I do not plan on doing any photo/video editing so can anyone recommend the best screen based on that?


rp2000
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I recommend the glossy screen. That's what i have on my 17" model. I was so glad i went for the glossy, makes everything look clearer including simple colours etc.

Boot camp is very good and will run fine from my experience.

Any other question just ask.

Josh
 
rp2000 said:
Another quesition:

I have a mac mini 1.83ghz (pre core2duo with Tiger). I use that for Fontrow connected to HDTV and use the remote. Obviously I will get a new remote with *** MBP as well.

Will they interfere with each other? Is there a way to just use one? etc etc.

I'm sure someone here must have more than 1 mac product in their house.

Also what would happen If I bought a universal dock for my Nano (which also comes with the same remote!)

Options please.



rp2000
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You can set the remotes to indiviual devices. Think there is a way to do it, like hold play and menu or something like that. Mines linked to my MBP.

Josh
 
5bjoshua said:
I recommend the glossy screen. That's what i have on my 17" model. I was so glad i went for the glossy, makes everything look clearer including simple colours etc.

Boot camp is very good and will run fine from my experience.

Any other question just ask.

Josh
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Going shops tomorrow to compare in person. It's an entirely personal thing, I have used both glossy and matte before and I am undecided.

I am not buying till maybe Monday at the earliest.

Have you installed Vista via Bootcamp? Or XP. I know it is fine for XP as I have that on my mac mini, but it is Vista, which I wish to start to use. Currently I have it on a tower that never gets booted up, but I hope once it is on my everryday machine (the MBP) it may get used more.

I work in IT so need to stay up to date with current technologies. I will defeinitely be installing VMWARE and or Parallels as well to faff around with Windows server etc.

You know anything about future MBPs due?


rp2000
 
Never used Vista on it but im sure it works ok. Maybe google search for any problems.

Regarding the new MBP's, i have no idea, maybe just check macrumors or something like that.

Im sure you'll be happy with the MBP if you bought one now, the great thing about macs is that they hold there value, so if you bought one now and new one came out in 2 months and you really wanted that one im sure you could sell the one you bought for a very good price.

Go in to a apple store and have a play around, thats the best thing to do! Maybe ask a genius about vista?

Josh
 
5bjoshua said:
Never used Vista on it but im sure it works ok. Maybe google search for any problems.

Regarding the new MBP's, i have no idea, maybe just check macrumors or something like that.

Im sure you'll be happy with the MBP if you bought one now, the great thing about macs is that they hold there value, so if you bought one now and new one came out in 2 months and you really wanted that one im sure you could sell the one you bought for a very good price.

Go in to a apple store and have a play around, thats the best thing to do! Maybe ask a genius about vista?

Josh
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My 2.4Ghz MBP is running Vista fine under bootcamp.

It spends most of it's life in OS X, but there's a few programs that only work in windows and I wanted to run it natively so used bootcamp (instead of through virtual machines.)
 
rp2000 said:
You quoted a section that directly contradicts your statement.
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I think pretty much everyone saw a touch screen iPod coming. Anyone who works for Apple and leaks news about new products is either a liar, or won't be working for them much longer.
 
RE: New MBP

The rumors are for a new ultra portable "sub"notebook, in the region of 10-12" with no optical drive and flash based storage. It is meant to be an entirely new product so it won't affect the MBP as such.

If anything the might bump the CPU, however that's unlikely because its already JUST been bumped to 2.6 (3GHz might come out down the line in some months)

Also, you always used to get the 3 years hardware warranty as standard with HE purchases. Unless they've changed it then I'm mistaken. Unfortunately I'm on my iPhone and cannot check for the link.

I remember because there was a big thing about paying £ 50 for the telephone support, when, in reality you got cover anyway.
 
The Macrumours site is pretty good at buying advice as they track previous updates and give an analytical approach to buying. Currently the MBP was updated 180 days ago and they recommend only buying if you have to.
Check here to read up.
To be honest I would rarely recommend ever waiting for the 'next thing' (certainly in PC's or gadgets etc) but Apple tends to wait a fair amount of time in between upgrades, 180 days is certainly a mature product. No one can predict exactly what sort of update it could be, it could be a whole new case, or just a speed bump, but as the MBP has cosmetically been the same for a while now, I would've thought a major update would jut be around the corner. Sorry if that makes your decision process slightly harder!

I'm primarily a PC guy but am very happy running my Vista 64bit inside VMware, the performance hit is minor (yet still runs extremely well), but the features and flexibility of having OSX there are superb. (Vista 64bit won't work correctly on Bootcamp, but the 32bit has supported drivers.)
I'm also running 64bit Ubuntu Linux through VMware too and it's a doddle to set-up and maintain.
 
robbiemc said:
The Macrumours site is pretty good at buying advice as they track previous updates and give an analytical approach to buying. Currently the MBP was updated 180 days ago and they recommend only buying if you have to.
Check here to read up.
To be honest I would rarely recommend ever waiting for the 'next thing' (certainly in PC's or gadgets etc) but Apple tends to wait a fair amount of time in between upgrades, 180 days is certainly a mature product. No one can predict exactly what sort of update it could be, it could be a whole new case, or just a speed bump, but as the MBP has cosmetically been the same for a while now, I would've thought a major update would jut be around the corner. Sorry if that makes your decision process slightly harder!

I'm primarily a PC guy but am very happy running my Vista 64bit inside VMware, the performance hit is minor (yet still runs extremely well), but the features and flexibility of having OSX there are superb. (Vista 64bit won't work correctly on Bootcamp, but the 32bit has supported drivers.)
I'm also running 64bit Ubuntu Linux through VMware too and it's a doddle to set-up and maintain.
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Cheers, I just wanted boot camp so Vista has access to the full hardware set as in a virtual machine obviously only some hardware functions will be supported. But am willing to try in both.

I will speak to someone today re the update (obviously I won't post the details here). I too have thought the big upgrade will be a solid state macbook o mbp tbh and maybe it will be 14 inch etc.

For MBP I envisage 17" getting LED backlight and all the others getting a cpu boost of 0.2ghz. With the £500 saving I may get over retail price, I may get the 2.6 upgrade anyway. It is unlikely they will get a RAM boost as 4gb is overkill. So I will wait a day or two and see what happens.

As it stands I think I will get with through the HE offer and then try to offset against my company as well, so money won't be an issue. I guess the HE discount will still be aroun in Jan if I find out there is a new model coming.

Cheers for the help guys, I will keep this thread updated.


rp2000

robbiemc: can you give me some details about your vmware setup. I am familiar with Vmware on PC platforms as well as Virtual PC and MS Virtual Server. What reources do you allocate to it (what spec is your mac mahcine?). On a 2gb Machine, what would you allocate to the VM. Also what is actuall emulated in terms of the hardware functions of the actual Mac? (I assume virtual nic/vga etc but can it emulate anything like the camera, usb, remote etc). Also what is full screen access like? VNC style lag or does it feel like you are on the machine ala TerminalSservices/RemoteDesktop? Are you Leapord or Tiger? I have *** Vista Ultimate upgrade DVD (32&64bit) so I think vmware/paralleles may be my only option as the only way tomake it work is to install it over itslef to count as a valid upgrade, I don;t even know if boot camp would support that? It has been a while since I looked at it but may try the beta one on my Mac Mini if it hasn't expired!! cheers again.
 
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Sounds good.

I'm in the same situation as you and I'm waiting. I don't need a MBP right now as I've managed to fix the stability issues with my PC for the time being. Even if the spec increase is just an LED 17" panel and a cpu boost in January I'll be happy. If it's anything more than that (like a 2008 case upgrade) then I'll be ecstatic.

I'm not going to wait around after that because my legitimate claim on the HE discount will have run out by June/July when the next round of updates comes out. I could really use it for the final couple of terms of my degree as well.

Robbie, cheers for the info on Vista 64 and bootcamp. I didn't realise it wasn't compatible yet.
I was only going to get it to run games, is that possible with VMware?

Panzer
 
rp2000 said:
robbiemc: can you give me some details about your vmware setup. I am familiar with Vmware on PC platforms as well as Virtual PC and MS Virtual Server. What reources do you allocate to it (what spec is your mac mahcine?). On a 2gb Machine, what would you allocate to the VM. Also what is actuall emulated in terms of the hardware functions of the actual Mac? (I assume virtual nic/vga etc but can it emulate anything like the camera, usb, remote etc). Also what is full screen access like? VNC style lag or does it feel like you are on the machine ala TerminalSservices/RemoteDesktop? Are you Leapord or Tiger? I have *** Vista Ultimate upgrade DVD (32&64bit) so I think vmware/paralleles may be my only option as the only way to make it work is to install it over itslef to count as a valid upgrade, I don;t even know if boot camp would support that? It has been a while since I looked at it but may try the beta one on my Mac Mini if it hasn't expired!! cheers again.
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The past few weeks have been quite a learning experience for me with the macbook (Im running Leopard).

Ram resources
VMware allocates its own resources and seems to do an excellent job. I have a total of 4gb ram (at £90 for 4gbs, it seems silly not to) and it allocates 1gb for Vista, which seems to be ideal.

Hardware resources
The initial VMware setup seems to recognise most the Apple hardware with no problems once in Vista you then have the option of installing drivers for the Apple remote and the iSight. Vista recognises the remote and successfully installs the driver, but I presume Vista will need software to run it..I've not looked for that yet.
The iSight needs to use the Bootcamp drivers, but they don't have 64bit drivers at the moment, so I can't get that working.
It seems to run USB as 'passthrough' so should work as a generic PC should (that's in the marketing info too, so seems to be a key feature).
If you need to have Vista support for all the Macbook hardware, 32bit seems to be the only choice.
I'm running an external Vista PC as a Media Centre/Server and Fusion has no problem joining my workgroup and accessing servers, which was key to me.

General performance
Coming from a home-built overclocked Core 2 duo 6600 I was skeptical that Fusion would give me the performance I'm used to. I'm very pleased to say however that it's surpassed all my expectations!
I'm running my Macbook connected to an external 23" display and it will run Vista full screen on the large monitor (with OSX still running as an extended desktop on the laptopm screen) with ZERO lag. I'm familiar with how VNC runs (laggy mouse movement etc) but it's nothing like that at all, in fact I really can't tell the difference between my pc and Fusion whilst doing 'everyday' tasks in Vista.
I was honestly prepared to accept some compromises, but it really works so well I have no complaints at all. I can even run Ubuntu Linux, Vista and OSX alongside each other and VMWare does an excellent job of resource allocation.

Vista 'upgrade' install.
Although I've got an OEM version, I've just done some reading on this and it is possible, athough it's not as streamlined. Have a read of the VMWare forums here for a run down of how to install Vista upgrade (as you're in IT I'm sure you won't mind a small challenge!).

I think that's everything for now!
 
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Panzerbjorn said:
Robbie, cheers for the info on Vista 64 and bootcamp. I didn't realise it wasn't compatible yet.
I was only going to get it to run games, is that possible with VMware?
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I found this out to my cost! I ordered a 64bit version of Vista to run in Bootcamp only to find out that half the hardware didn't have any drivers, doh! I'm content running this in Fusion though, so I'm not missing the Bootcamp, I honestly can't think what I'd Bootcamp for that Fusion doesn't provide...except games.
Fusion says they've got DX9 compatible 'experimental' support (without shaders) so I'm guessing that would be acceptable to most casual gamers. Obviously the hardcore PC gamer won't like this, but I honestly think think that's expecting too much.
 
robbiemc said:
The past few weeks have been quite a learning experience for me with the macbook (Im running Leopard).

Ram resources
VMware allocates its own resources and seems to do an excellent job. I have a total of 4gb ram (at £90 for 4gbs, it seems silly not to) and it allocates 1gb for Vista, which seems to be ideal.

Hardware resources
The initial VMware setup seems to recognise most the Apple hardware with no problems once in Vista you then have the option of installing drivers for the Apple remote and the iSight. Vista recognises the remote and successfully installs the driver, but I presume Vista will need software to run it..I've not looked for that yet.
The iSight needs to use the Bootcamp drivers, but they don't have 64bit drivers at the moment, so I can't get that working.
It seems to run USB as 'passthrough' so should work as a generic PC should (that's in the marketing info too, so seems to be a key feature).
If you need to have Vista support for all the Macbook hardware, 32bit seems to be the only choice.
I'm running an external Vista PC as a Media Centre/Server and Fusion has no problem joining my workgroup and accessing servers, which was key to me.

General performance
Coming from a home-built overclocked Core 2 duo 6600 I was skeptical that Fusion would give me the performance I'm used to. I'm very pleased to say however that it's surpassed all my expectations!
I'm running my Macbook connected to an external 23" display and it will run Vista full screen on the large monitor (with OSX still running as an extended desktop on the laptopm screen) with ZERO lag. I'm familiar with how VNC runs (laggy mouse movement etc) but it's nothing like that at all, in fact I really can't tell the difference between my pc and Fusion whilst doing 'everyday' tasks in Vista.
I was honestly prepared to accept some compromises, but it really works so well I have no complaints at all. I can even run Ubuntu Linux, Vista and OSX alongside each other and VMWare does an excellent job of resource allocation.

Vista 'upgrade' install.
Although I've got an OEM version, I've just done some reading on this and it is possible, athough it's not as streamlined. Have a read of the VMWare forums here for a run down of how to install Vista upgrade (as you're in IT I'm sure you won't mind a small challenge!).

I think that's everything for now!
Click to expand...

Cheers, now I just need the MBP. How hard is the ram upgrade? Are the slots "exposed" like traditional Windows laptops?


rp2000
 
robbiemc said:
No probs.
Ram upgrade easy on the Macbook, and although the Pro is slightly different it looks to be a doodle.
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Seems simple enough. Can't see the need for 4GB initiaily though. Now if i could install Server 2003/Longhorn natively through Boot camp 64 bit that would be a different story. Through VM can't see the benefit of installing a 64 bit OS as the main tangible benefit of a 64bit OS is the ability to address more than 3.5gb of RAM which would be pointless as Mac OSX would need at least 1gb for itself. The rest of the benefits/performance would be lost through the Virtualisation layer. But I will test this when I get it, to confirm.

Might be worth considering if I use Vista fulltime in VM or Server 2003 (So I could give them 2gb and OSx 2gb, which I will decide once I get the machine. (Hope the RAM prices don't go up by then.!!). How much do you reckon the RAM that came with MBP would fetch for? Is it "decent" RAM?

Cheer for all the info.


rp2000
 
weeeeelllllllllll, i bought my macbook with the HE discount AND bought it through my company, so i got the initial 14% off, then got the VAT off (another 17.5%), THEN the whole amount is tax deductible (so ANOTHER 22%) :D

cheap macbook ;)
 
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