New MacBook - what have I got?

newmacbook · Feb 27, 2008

Bought a new 2.2 Ghz MacBook late last week, immediately went to the Apple Store last night and swapped it for the 2.4 Ghz new one for the larger hard drive (160 GB) and bigger RAM (2 GB).

Set the new one up tonight. Something's weird. Or I am overreacting, maybe someone better informed can offer some insight:

- the battery was fully charged. every laptop I've ever owned, I've had to charge up the battery.

- the Mac hard drive is shown as total 149 GB. Not what's available, I mean total drive. Huh?

- iWork '08 Trial Version not loaded. Sure, I can download from the web site, but the MacBook I took home last week had it, why should I? (Buying it anyway, but just asking.)

- Microsoft Office trial version also not pre-loaded. Not that I care, it should be banished, but hey, it was on the "older" laptop, and all that got me thinking...

and a little worried.

Or this means the thing was pre-tested at the factory. Or something.

This is what I've discovered so far.

Any thoughts before I call the store?

bc008 · Feb 27, 2008

not sure about the trial versions, but all my macbook batteries (ive had 4 over the past 2 years, with repairs etc) have came fully charged.

your hard drive is formatted so some GB's are already used, 149 from a 160 drive sounds about right

dougnewman · Feb 27, 2008

I too don't know about the trial version thing, but 149 GB does sound about right for a 160 GB drive. It will never show up as 160 GB. Similarly, an 80 GB drive usually shows up as around 74 GB.

SFStateStudent · Feb 27, 2008

Yep, that's the way...

they are being shipped. Did you happen to get a REMOTE with yours? I had to purchase that separately today, when I picked-up my MB 2.4 250GB. My specs:

2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
2GB 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM - 2x1GB
250GB Serial ATA Drive @ 5400 rpm
SuperDrive 8x (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
Keyboard/Mac OS - U.S. English
AirPort Extreme Card & Bluetooth

I transferred all my data to my new MB 2.4 right there at the Apple Store. They cut out a bunch of "bundled" stuff in their new MBs, so don't feel alone. My actual 250GB hard drive was actually just under 240GB, but then again I added some software when I got home. The battery was about 75% with "1" cycle from my charging it at the house.

f1 · Feb 27, 2008

All mac laptops i've purchased came charged. Don't know about the iWork situation. OS X and some other stuff take up a good 10 GB on your hard drive.

As for the Office trial not being loaded, it's probably because Office 2008 does not have a trial version out yet, and there's no sense in loading a trial version of 2004 as you can't buy it anyways.

newmacbook · Feb 27, 2008

Thanks. That was fast, much appreciated.

Come to think of it, nope, no remote, but last week's model had it.

Sometimes I think I know computers and then I get thrown. Below is what bugs me, and I have loaded exactly one piece of software since I opened it that's just under 24 MB in size. Am I overthinking? Here's what in the System Profiler specs:

FUJITSU MHY2160BH:
Capacity: 149.05 GB

Macintosh HD:
Capacity: 148.73 GB
Available: 129.86 GB

Where did those 20 GB go?

SFStateStudent · Feb 27, 2008

As one of the earlier posters...

mentioned, it is going towards pre-loaded formatted OS, and applications (such as languages, stuffit, safari, quicktime, iphoto, iphoto booth, iTunes, just to name a few) on your MB.

acfusion29 · Feb 27, 2008

SFStateStudent said:
mentioned, it is going towards pre-loaded formatted OS, and applications (such as languages, stuffit, safari, quicktime, iphoto, iphoto booth, iTunes, just to name a few) on your MB.

yeah but not 20gb...

my 2.2sr notebook has a 120gb hdd (111gb actual space), and i think it had about 100gb left when i got it. i don't remember exactly.

coltks2004 · Feb 27, 2008

newmacbook said:
Thanks. That was fast, much appreciated.

Come to think of it, nope, no remote, but last week's model had it.

Sometimes I think I know computers and then I get thrown. Below is what bugs me, and I have loaded exactly one piece of software since I opened it that's just under 24 MB in size. Am I overthinking? Here's what in the System Profiler specs:

FUJITSU MHY2160BH:
Capacity: 149.05 GB

Macintosh HD:
Capacity: 148.73 GB
Available: 129.86 GB

Where did those 20 GB go?

If you are worried about the extra space, do what I do everytime I get a new computer. The first thing I do is format and reinstall the os. When you reinstall customize it so that you don't install all the print drivers that you do not need, and also the other languages that you don't need. This will save you some space.

SFStateStudent · Feb 27, 2008

Good call...

coltks2004 said:
If you are worried about the extra space, do what I do everytime I get a new computer. The first thing I do is format and reinstall the os. When you reinstall customize it so that you don't install all the print drivers that you do not need, and also the other languages that you don't need. This will save you some space.

they also pre-load all the languages that takes up a bunch of space.

wordy · Feb 27, 2008

(160 * 1 000 000) / (1 024 * 1 024) = 152.587891GiB

Your 160GB drive is 152.6GiB. 149GiB formatted is more than reasonable. The rest of the "missing" space is all the preloaded software. Relax.

reusman · Feb 27, 2008

Really worth it?!

coltks2004 said:
If you are worried about the extra space, do what I do everytime I get a new computer. The first thing I do is format and reinstall the os. When you reinstall customize it so that you don't install all the print drivers that you do not need, and also the other languages that you don't need. This will save you some space.

How much space would eliminating this actually save? It seems like a total wipe out and reinstall would be more of an inconvenience than its worth...

wordy · Feb 28, 2008

Deleting print drivers + extra languages will probably save you 3-4GB. Print drivers alone are about 2GB, and languages are in that range also.

SFStateStudent · Feb 28, 2008

Thanks wordy...

wordy said:
Deleting print drivers + extra languages will probably save you 3-4GB. Print drivers alone are about 2GB, and languages are in that range also.

I had heard it was in that range, but I couldn't find the info.

reusman · Feb 28, 2008

I take it back....

wordy said:
Deleting print drivers + extra languages will probably save you 3-4GB. Print drivers alone are about 2GB, and languages are in that range also.

I had no idea it would be that much space... I take it back, a complete wipeout and reinstall does sound pretty good if it gives you 3-4 GB of extra space...

Thanks!

Z

thechef · Feb 28, 2008

I wouldn't worry about the lack of a trial version of Office, my new Penryn Mackbook hasn't got one whereas the MacBook I bought last week did have a trial version.

I think they took off the trial version of Office 2004 as its out of date now.

newmacbook · Feb 28, 2008

Thanks again. It's clear this isn't too much to worry about. BUT...

Among the Library, Home, Apps and System folders, total usage is 14.6 GB. That puts puts me around 145 GB. OK, fine.

iLife '08 and Leopard of course were pre-installed. Can someone confirm that these programs take up 16 GB of space? Really?

I called the store where I bought the thing. They also told me, in essence, not to worry.

But... when previous posts say new laptops upon opening have, in general, similar 10 GB of space taken up, and not much more, then my drive has 30 GB taken up before I even load any personal files, I get a little hinky.

cherry su · Feb 28, 2008

Garageband has about 4GB of loops, iDVD with loads of themes, etc. You should remove them if you aren't going to use the applications.

Zer0 · Feb 28, 2008

Hey relax! Listen to what wordy says

This is all marketing gone sad!! The OS (Windows/OS X) considers 1GB = 1024MB and 1MB = 1024KB whreas the hard drive manufacturers consider 1GB = 1000MB and 1MB = 1000KB. So that is why the OS reports the capacity as less than stated by the manufacturer. And as for the 20GB used, yeah the OS/printer drivers/multilingual support takeup that much!

newmacbook · Feb 28, 2008

OK then!

and thanks. Works great, by the way.

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