New or old laptop?

if you're thinking of saving yourself by getting a used powerbook, you can very easily go that route. however, you can also go to the refurbished store, where apple has a variety of intel mac laptops for reasonable prices. a base 1.83 ghz core duo macbook (which i think will suit your needs just fine) starts at $799. whatever you decide, i think sticking with an intel-based mac is the best decision, especially if you want this laptop to last through college.

CD vs C2D

I think you will be fine with the Core Duo Macbook Pro. The C2D will give you better speeds but if price is a problem then the Core Duo should be fine.

techlover828 said:

Thats not a bad idea. I found a refurbished macbook pro, however it is core duo and not c2d or sr. Anyone think this would be a good choice

Keep in mind I would upgrade the memory to 2GB and the hard drive

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Don't get a CD MacBook Pro. I honestly think they are awful. C2D MBPs are fine, just not the CD ones. From my experience, as well as the experience of others, they ran very hot and had many manufacturing flaws (warped displays and failing components are two examples). Honestly, I'm really disappointed with my parent's MacBook Pro. I've used the C2D and the SR models, and they are much, much better.

My recommendation is to have a look for a C2D MacBook. They generally have brilliant build quality, are obscenely fast, and is ridiculously inexpensive for what you get.