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A few Macbook Pro (13 inch) questions

M

marclondon

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Aug 14, 2009
377
100
London
I've just bought a base level 13 inch Pro for my son for his birthday and he's delighted with it. I'm an experienced Mac user but mainly on desktop pre-Intel models (still using a G5 and a Cube...) A few questions:

Battery - we've charged it up fully but is it best to cycle the battery down and up a few times at the start rather than leave it on mains charge?

RAM - is there a spare slot or do I have to take out the existing 2GB to upgrade?

Windows - yes I caught him trying to port some of his freebie apps from his old Asus laptop and explained they wouldn't work and to look on the net for Mac apps such as a guitar tab program. But assuming he'll want a few Windows apps what's the most cost effective way to run them if need be?

Older Mac software - I haven't looked but do the current Macs comes with a PPC emulator as I have a copy of Office 2004 I can give him. Also, will this still be supported under Snow Leopard?

Thanks!
 
marclondon said:
Windows - yes I caught him trying to port some of his freebie apps from his old Asus laptop and explained they wouldn't work and to look on the net for Mac apps such as a guitar tab program. But assuming he'll want a few Windows apps what's the most cost effective way to run them if need be?
Click to expand...

Bootcamp with a copy of Windows would most likely be the best option. However, if he wants to run Windows while he is using OSX, something like crossover or vmware would be best.

marclondon said:
RAM - is there a spare slot or do I have to take out the existing 2GB to upgrade?
Click to expand...

I believe it's 2 x 1GB sticks, so you would need to remove them both and put in 2 x 2GB.

marclondon said:
Battery - we've charged it up fully but is it best to cycle the battery down and up a few times at the start rather than leave it on mains charge?
Click to expand...

I would have a look at this for more information:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1490

Hope this helps
 
marclondon said:
I've just bought a base level 13 inch Pro for my son for his birthday and he's delighted with it. I'm an experienced Mac user but mainly on desktop pre-Intel models (still using a G5 and a Cube...) A few questions:

Battery - we've charged it up fully but is it best to cycle the battery down and up a few times at the start rather than leave it on mains charge?

RAM - is there a spare slot or do I have to take out the existing 2GB to upgrade?

Windows - yes I caught him trying to port some of his freebie apps from his old Asus laptop and explained they wouldn't work and to look on the net for Mac apps such as a guitar tab program. But assuming he'll want a few Windows apps what's the most cost effective way to run them if need be?

Older Mac software - I haven't looked but do the current Macs comes with a PPC emulator as I have a copy of Office 2004 I can give him. Also, will this still be supported under Snow Leopard?

Thanks!
Click to expand...

Yes it's best to cycle through the battery a few times when you first get it.

I believe apple uses 2 SODIMMS so you need to remove the 2GB to upgrade.

Older mac software will work just fine apple developed Rosetta just for this purpose.
 
Damn - I've ordered a base level Mac Mini for myself, and 2 x 2GB ram from Crucial. I presume that the 1GB in the Mini is redundant then and can't be added to the Macbook. I guess I can upgrade both the Mini and the Macbook to 3GB - is that possible?
 
There's nothing wrong with upgrading both to 3GB, though I'm running on a 2GB machine and it really runs perfectly fine. I had a 1GB Mini for a few months and it worked just fine for light browsing and homework.
 
marclondon said:
Damn - I've ordered a base level Mac Mini for myself, and 2 x 2GB ram from Crucial. I presume that the 1GB in the Mini is redundant then and can't be added to the Macbook. I guess I can upgrade both the Mini and the Macbook to 3GB - is that possible?
Click to expand...
It's possible but graphics performance may be reduced because both the MBP 13" and the Mac Mini use a portion of the system RAM for video RAM. When two sticks of equal size are installed, they are used in dual-channel mode, which offers greater memory bandwidth. That's why Apple installs memory in pairs from the factory.
 
Bill Gates said:
It's possible but graphics performance may be reduced because both the MBP 13" and the Mac Mini use a portion of the system RAM for video RAM. When two sticks of equal size are installed, they are used in dual-channel mode, which offers greater memory bandwidth. That's why Apple installs memory in pairs from the factory.
Click to expand...

That's interesting - do you have a reference/details on performance effects?
 
For guitartabs, try GuitarPro 5.3!

Works great for mac, but it costs $59.
 

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Don't bother cycling the battery. The only people that bother with this are the ones that use a notebook as a desktop. Tell him (OP's son) to just use the computer, charge when need to be and run off battery whenever he wants. Apple cycles the battery a few times before any Mac notebook comes out of the factory. Just use it, it's got 1000 cycles before the battery degrades. Even 1 cycle (charge to 100%, then discharge to 0%) a day will give you about 3 years or so.

The 13" MBPs have 2x1GB sticks, so you need to remove both of them to upgrade.

Boot Camp is the easiest way to go, but you can always try and find free Mac alternatives for software he uses.

Snow Leopard (Mac OS X 10.6) has an optional Rosetta package that can installed from the disc or from Software Update. This allows you to run PPC apps.
 
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