Macbook Vs Macbook!

I would go with option A. The Core 2 Duo is much faster than the Core Duo. If you are going to have to buy the battery either way, then spend a little extra money and upgrade the memory and you will have a much faster system. (memory is dirt cheap) Also the prices for hard drives has come way down, but there really is a night and day difference between the Core Duo and the Core 2 Duo in terms of not only performance, but battery efficiency and heat output.

Can't you find a refurb current generation White MB? Either that or buy on amazon for no tax? Where exactly are you wanting to buy these from? Are you a student? It seems to me a used laptop with a dead battery adds a pretty hefty tag right there. I think the best you will get is about $80. Not to mention these machines are not going to have any kind of warranty with them. A new machine will.

And no matter what you do RAM and HDD can be upgraded but the CoreDuo maxes out at 2GB unlike the Core2Duos. However, your Late 2006 C2D maxes out a little over 3GB. This is a 2 year old machine. The CD is a 3 year old machine.

Crucial 2X2GB RAM from Newegg $36.99 no tax and free shipping only for C2D Mac notebooks.

Hitachi 5k320 HDD from Newegg $59.99 after $10 MIR no tax and free shipping.

BradClarke said:

Im a Student, Im just looking to get a macbook at a reasonable price, but need it to be an intel, and i am in desperate need of one, Both of these are on ebay, buy it now for those prices. Are there better deals out there?

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Buy option A, and upgrade the memory and hard drive. That should end up to be about $100 more. $50 for 160Gb HDD and 50 for 4Gb memory. I would choose the Core 2 Duo since they are 64-bit processors while Core Duo are 32-bit. 2^32 vs 2^64 is a HUGE difference...

BradClarke said:

Im a Student, Im just looking to get a macbook at a reasonable price, but need it to be an intel, and i am in desperate need of one, Both of these are on ebay, buy it now for those prices. Are there better deals out there?

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On ebay? Yeah there are better deals depending on what you want.

However, I highly suggest you don't buy from ebay and if you do to buy a brand new machine. You are looking for value and not just price. You want a machine that will last you through school and the piece of mind of a warranty. With your education discount you can get the new White MB from Apple for $949 and a free $100 printer in the education store. Plus, you will have a free one year warranty and the option to buy 2 more years. (For that I would recommend ebay as you can get applecare for very cheap on ebay.) Unfortunately it seems you need the machine now, but if you wait until the summer they always have the free iPod deal going for students and last year they were giving away free iPod touches which easily could have sold on ebay for $250 plus to reduce the price of the computer. They also keep the free printer deal going on all the time.

MB at Apple Education store $949 plus sales tax if applicable. If your university sells MS Office there it is probably much cheaper if you need it.

If you need more than 1GB of RAM (likely) just buy the RAM I linked to earlier. As for the HDD, if you need more than 120 GB then buy the HDD I linked to earlier.

Your total would be $949 (plus tax depending on your state roughly $60 at 6%), free printer (if you choose one at the online apple store less than 100 like this one), $36.99 for RAM, and $59.99 for the 320GB HDD. Total about $1100. Then Applecare is going to be $125 or less on ebay I got it for $79 after cash back but I was lucky with a coupon and extra live.com cash back.

So you would end up with a 2.1GHz C2D (brand new)/4GB RAM/320GB HDD/printer/1 year free warranty. Not to mention a functioning battery.

SnowLeopard2008 said:

Buy option A, and upgrade the memory and hard drive. That should end up to be about $100 more. $50 for 160Gb HDD and 50 for 4Gb memory. I would choose the Core 2 Duo since they are 64-bit processors while Core Duo are 32-bit. 2^32 vs 2^64 is a HUGE difference...

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True, however this particular C2D maxes out at 3.3GB RAM rather than 4GB. These two machines are poor choices especially considering the battery issues and no warranty.

I would go with option A, mainly because in the future, new software will no longer support Intel Core Duo models. However, what brop52 said is a better idea. Think about it- you're paying, say, $350 more for a brand new, never opened MacBook with a 120GB hard drive, Intel Core 2 Duo 2.1GHz processor, brand new battery that can hold 4-6 hours and a brand new, scratch-free case. Oh, and better graphics than option A and B. Buying a new MacBook is better value, IMO.