Buying a Mac...

[EagleEyeLG]

Ok... first off before I get crucified, my primary computer is a desktop PC, I am going to use this laptop Mac as my computer for school.

So, now on to my question. I am going to get one of two MacBooks, but I can't decide which one. I am either going to get the baseline Mac which is $1,100 (I would get it for $1,000 with an education discount) or the step up which is $1,300 (and I would get it for $1,200 with an education discount).

The only differences I can see is that the step up has a 2.2 Intel Core 2 Duo processor while the baseline is at 2.0 ghz, an "8x double-layer superdrive" (I don't even know what the hell that is) as opposed to a 24x combo drive, and 40 gigs more of hard drive space which I really don't need.

Funny thing I also noticed is that the only difference between the $1,300 MacBook and the highest end black MacBook for $1,500 is that the black one has 40 more gigs of hard drive and... is black, yet they charge you $200 extra for it which to me is slightly ridiculous.

Also, is the extra $250 for the AppleCare Protection Plan worth it, or should I disregard that?

Well anyways, here is the site for the difference MacBooks. http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPL...family=MacBook

[A.J.Sawyer]

My girlfriend has the most basic model, I think its awesome personally, she uses it for College work as well.

Its probably worth it, you wanna look after your school work and shiney new MacBook right?

2Ghz more than fast enough for School work, and as its a MacBook you're not gonna be doing any gaming on it, and as for the drive, the basic one is fine, does everything you could want it to.

Hope I helped.

[markonymous]

well my first advice would be DONT BUY A MAC, but since you seem to have already made up your mind the basic modell is fine my friend uses it to store his music and schoolwork. It has never let him down so far. Though we tested it against another laptop that was about 500$ and it lost on all points even all the stuff its supposed to be good at.

[JS.Fortnight.A]

Without reading any of the post, and merely noting the title of this thread, my response is...."Traitor!"

[The_motivator]

Originally Posted by [R-DEV] JS.Fortnight.A

Without reading any of the post, and merely noting the title of this thread, my response is...."Traitor!"

Mine was "my condolences". Seriously though, macs are quite jacked up price-wise for the "Yeah, but does it work with a mac" that you're going to be asking about every little peripheral and bit o' software. People also know they're worth a lot, so get some protection for it. Laptops are stolen left and right on my campus, and we're a fairly tame campus. Since almost 1/4 the student pop owns macs here (some trendy college thing I guess), when someone goes in to file a complaint about a generic white mac laptop that was stolen, it generally doesn't get recovered...

edit- built a dell on par with that mac, possibly and probably a more powerful graphics card included, and a 15 inch screen for the same price.

[[R-CON]Clypp]

Macs are pricey but the build quality is generally good. I've used one briefly and I have no love for OSX, but it is functional.

It's your money, and that's the bottom line.

[EagleEyeLG]

Trust me, I understand that Macs are overpriced. I get their little gimmicks and all that horse crap. However, I'm not at all trying to be trendy. I need something that I can rely on for school and from what I have experienced from Vista on my mom's desktop back home, it's shite. My roommate has a mac, a lot of my friends have macs, and I generally have liked what I have seen. My Dell E1505 is a piece of crap and more often then not I want to throw it out the window. My general experience with Windows when it comes to everything but gaming has been generally bad.

One thing that will never... EVER happen, is getting a desktop mac. I will never give up on desktop PC's.

I appreciate the responses though.

[O-D-B]

You can always use Linux if you don want to rely on Windows. I use Liunux for University (Ubuntu 7.10) on my Desktop PC (dual boot with XP which is for gaming only), hell, I even put Ubuntu on my iBook and it works flawlessly.

I suggest trying Ubuntu on your Dell, maybe you don`t need to spend 1000 bucks at all.

Apart from me being an Ubuntu fanboy: I do agree that MacBooks are pricy but absolutely worth it. They are well build, have fairly good screens, they are very quiet!!!!, the basic model is small and nice to carry around, and MAC OS X is very easy to use.

[[R-DEV]Masaq]

What pisses PC/IBM fanboys off about Macs thesedays is that not only do the damn things work better than most PCs, but they work better even when the damn things have got Windows loaded onto them. They run Intel Core2 chips, which are about as good as you can damn well get in CPU terms currently, and they look good and feel good to use.

The vast majority of PCs still come in hideous beige, plasticy cases and sound like a small aircraft taxiing to the runway, and if you own a gaming rig it's likely to sound more like a large aircraft on full throttle for takeoff.

I once rang Dell customer support for a friend to enquire how one was supposed to install a driver that came on a floppy disk when her brand new, £1,500 PC didn't come with a floppy drive. They said they didn't include them as standard because "customers don't want them". They also refused point blank to accept the logical point that a customer on the phone to them was explaining that yes, they DID want a floppy drive and that it was downright idiotic that they hadn't included one as standard on a machine that cost equivilant to two months worth of my pay. So, no-one tell me that Dell are the be-all and end-all of home computing. Grr.

Eagle - get a MacBook - for what you want it for, it'll be a lovely piece of kit that you'll enjoy using. The superdrive is basically a CD-R/RW and DVD-R drive that can burn to dual-layer DVDs. I believe it also does DVD-RW at about 4x. What the difference is between that and the combo drive, I have no idea. The 0.2Ghz on the C2D chip won't make any difference to you at all realistically - doing the things you'll most likely be doing on it (i.e.: word processing and powerpoint I assume?) you won't even begin to strain the CPU as it is, let alone require that tiny difference. Different story if you do video editing - but then I assume you'd be buying a powermac lol.

Look after it and it'll be a joy to use for years.

Save the cash, get the cheaper one, check your home's contents insurance to see if a laptop is covered for theft, accidental damage and loss on that policy- from whichever residences you use (i.e.: at home AND at uni/term-time address). If it's not buy the AppleCare plan, although the chances are you'll probably not need it.

[tesher07]

SHUN THE NON BELIEVER!!!!!