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2011 MBP 13" Advice

M

muadebe

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 21, 2011
23
0
Hi all,

After using Windows PC only for the last 15years I've decided to finally buy a Mac - hoorrraaahhhh - lol :D

Budget is £1000 max - and iMac is a no go as Mrs wont let me have one in front room (tried all the tricks to no avail! )- this leaves me with a limited choice - I was thinking Mac Mini (adding 8gb) at first but Im now swaying to the new 13" MBP i5.

Ill be using this as an everday PC - email, music, some iphoto, surfing and the only games I'll play is WoW and prob TF2.

Do you think the MBP would be a better choice over the Mini? and do you think it will meet my needs?

Any advice is welcome but please dont advise me to buy a more expensive model as it's a no go.

I was thinking of getting the Logitech speaker lapdesk N700 to use with it aswell as my logitech G5 mouse (games).

Thanks.
 
muadebe said:
Hi all,

After using Windows PC only for the last 15years I've decided to finally buy a Mac - hoorrraaahhhh - lol :D

Budget is £1000 max - and iMac is a no go as Mrs wont let me have one in front room (tried all the tricks to no avail! )- this leaves me with a limited choice - I was thinking Mac Mini (adding 8gb) at first but Im now swaying to the new 13" MBP i5.

Ill be using this as an everday PC - email, music, some iphoto, surfing and the only games I'll play is WoW and prob TF2.

Do you think the MBP would be a better choice over the Mini? and do you think it will meet my needs?

Any advice is welcome but please dont advise me to buy a more expensive model as it's a no go.

I was thinking of getting the Logitech speaker lapdesk N700 to use with it aswell as my logitech G5 mouse (games).

Thanks.
Click to expand...

well one is a laptop and the other one needs a monitor so...
 
Hi,

Sorry I should have explained better, the Mac Mini would be hooked up to a 42" HDTV.
I'd Buy the Wireless Keyboard and Magic Mouse on purchase and add 8gb of Ram myself.

Just wondering which would offer best performance for my needs.

Thanks
 
one is portable and the other is a mini desktop. the portable also has the latest 2nd gen intel icore chips and can be hooked up to an external display the same way a mac mini can. win-win for the mbp.
 
muadebe said:
Hi,

Sorry I should have explained better, the Mac Mini would be hooked up to a 42" HDTV.
I'd Buy the Wireless Keyboard and Magic Mouse on purchase and add 8gb of Ram myself.

Just wondering which would offer best performance for my needs.

Thanks
Click to expand...

the 2011 MBP 13" has a much faster CPU than the mac mini
 
muadebe said:
Hi all,

After using Windows PC only for the last 15years I've decided to finally buy a Mac - hoorrraaahhhh - lol :D

Budget is £1000 max - and iMac is a no go as Mrs wont let me have one in front room (tried all the tricks to no avail! )- this leaves me with a limited choice - I was thinking Mac Mini (adding 8gb) at first but Im now swaying to the new 13" MBP i5.

Ill be using this as an everday PC - email, music, some iphoto, surfing and the only games I'll play is WoW and prob TF2.

Do you think the MBP would be a better choice over the Mini? and do you think it will meet my needs?

Any advice is welcome but please dont advise me to buy a more expensive model as it's a no go.

I was thinking of getting the Logitech speaker lapdesk N700 to use with it aswell as my logitech G5 mouse (games).

Thanks.
Click to expand...

Just some benchmark stuff from laptop magazine if you do gaming.

Similarly, this MacBook Pro 13-inch couldn't match its predecessor on our gaming tests, with the notebook managing 21 fps playing Far Cry 2 at optimal settings and at 1024 x 768 resolution, where last year's MBP scored 47 fps. Things got worse at native resolution (1280 x 800) with the new 13-inch MacBook coughing up just 13 fps, less than the previous MacBook Pro's 19 fps. By comparison, the Asus U33JC scored 22 fps at 1024 x 768. The HP Envy 14 scored 75 fps at 1024 x 768 and 27 fps at a higher 1600 x 900 native resolution.

Results improved in World of Warcraft, with the MacBook Pro achieving a fair 74 fps at 1280 x 800 while in autodetect mode. The system squeezed out 28 fps with all the game's effects set to maximum. Both scores are somewhat below the category averages (99.3 fps and 31.5 fps, respectively) but will still provide a good gaming experience.

With its discrete graphics, the previous MacBook Pro 13-inch notched a higher 124 fps and 50 fps, respectively, although to be fair, WOW has become more graphically demanding with its latest update. The 13-inch MacBook Air, which also has Nvidia 320M graphics, averaged 17 fps at its native resolution and max settings.

http://www.laptopmag.com/review/laptops/apple-macbook-pro-13-inch-2011.aspx?page=3
 
Hi,

Looks like the MBP would be a good purchase - nice and fast for everyday tasks and should be enough to play WoW decently. Just hope it can play Guild Wars 2 (win 7, I know) as thats the only other MMO Im interested in.

My previous PC was a 3ghz Pentium 4, 2gb Ram, 256mb 7600GT, 160gb HDD so Im sure the performance will impress and I have an Xbox 360 for games like BFBC2, MW2, Dragon Age 2.

Thanks for all the replies.
 
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