A New Box

[mcmul]

It's time for a new box. I reckon it'll have to be a 15" MacBook Pro however can't decide what extras to get for now.

After having a flick through one of the stickies in this forum, I think someone's suggestion of swapping the SuperDrive for an additional disk would be absolutely spiffing. My only thought is how awkward this may turn out to be. Is it a simple: unscrew drive, take out, unpackage disk and insert, or is there something more tricky to do (like buy an additional component, compatibility problems, 'quirks').

The next decision is what graphics card to acquire - the nice 512MB which is more than sufficient or the whopping 1GB. Considering I do absolutely no video editing (unless you count converting video formats; but that's entirely down to processing power), it seems silly to pay the extra premium. Unless of course I want the faster quad-core. Decisions, decisions.

Aside from this I think it'll work out cheaper to do after-market upgrades such as RAM to 8GB and maybe swapping out the HDD for a SSD. Who knows.

What do you think? Speed is important to me, I hate waiting; patience isn't my virtue. I run quite a few VMs and probably more likely to boot alternate operating systems in there than dual-booting. I do lots development and the standard office tools. And then, of course, there's the dilemma of: Buying now? Or waiting for the next sexually enticing Apple design?

 

[simsaladimbamba]

It's time for a new box. I reckon it'll have to be a 15" MacBook Pro however can't decide what extras to get for now.

After having a flick through one of the stickies in this forum, I think someone's suggestion of swapping the SuperDrive for an additional disk would be absolutely spiffing. My only thought is how awkward this may turn out to be. Is it a simple: unscrew drive, take out, unpackage disk and insert, or is there something more tricky to do (like buy an additional component, compatibility problems, 'quirks').

It is a bit more tricky, as you need an adapter for the ODD slot.
Take a look at the following guide (1st link), and at point nr. 4.

MacBook, MacBook Pro: Replacing the Hard Disk Drive, transferring data to the new HDD​

How to format a new HDD/SSD to install Mac OS X or make a bootable copy onto​

The next decision is what graphics card to acquire - the nice 512MB which is more than sufficient or the whopping 1GB. Considering I do absolutely no video editing (unless you count converting video formats; but that's entirely down to processing power), it seems silly to pay the extra premium. Unless of course I want the faster quad-core. Decisions, decisions.

If you don't need the higher GPU, get the base model. And from what you posted, you don't need that much GPU power anyway.

Aside from this I think it'll work out cheaper to do after-market upgrades such as RAM to 8GB and maybe swapping out the HDD for a SSD. Who knows.

What do you think? Speed is important to me, I hate waiting; patience isn't my virtue. I run quite a few VMs and probably more likely to boot alternate operating systems in there than dual-booting. I do lots development and the standard office tools.

An SSD will definitely speed up your Mac, I have one in my 2007 iMac and it feels as fast as my 2009 MBP with an SSD or probably like a 2011 Mac with an SSD for all non-CPU intensive tasks like browsing the web or creating a text document or editing photographs or editing videos.

And then, of course, there's the dilemma of: Buying now? Or waiting for the next sexually enticing Apple design?

That is up to you. We don't know, if there will be a redesign, only Apple and affiliates now that.
The next update to the MBP will likely occur in Q2/2012.

 

[mcmul]

It is a bit more tricky, as you need an adapter for the ODD slot.
Take a look at the following guide (1st link), and at point nr. 4.

MacBook, MacBook Pro: Replacing the Hard Disk Drive, transferring data to the new HDD​

How to format a new HDD/SSD to install Mac OS X or make a bootable copy onto​

If you don't need the higher GPU, get the base model. And from what you posted, you don't need that much GPU power anyway.

An SSD will definitely speed up your Mac, I have one in my 2007 iMac and it feels as fast as my 2009 MBP with an SSD or probably like a 2011 Mac with an SSD for all non-CPU intensive tasks like browsing the web or creating a text document or editing photographs or editing videos.

That is up to you. We don't know, if there will be a redesign, only Apple and affiliates now that.
The next update to the MBP will likely occur in Q2/2012.

Thanks for those links, simsaladimbamba. I shall mull them over now.

I think you're probably right, I'll go for the base model. It seems I'll hardly touch the capability of the graphics card. Aside from that the quad-core processor is already lightening-fast, I can't imagine I'll notice the difference by an even more lightening-fast processor.

I definitely think I'll go for an SSD and RAM upgrade. I've got 4GB in this HP laptop at the minute and it's a real pain on occasions (and that's without VMs running).

Can I get your opinion on the screen extras Apple have to offer, I believe it's the anti-glare and 'glossy'. From my understanding the glossy will simply make it even harder to read under light and the anti-glare will dull down the colours, would this be a correct assumption?

 

[simsaladimbamba]

Can I get your opinion on the screen extras Apple have to offer, I believe it's the anti-glare and 'glossy'. From my understanding the glossy will simply make it even harder to read under light and the anti-glare will dull down the colours, would this be a correct assumption?

That is the general consensus. I had a 2008 Unibody MBP with glossy display and half a year later I got the 17" MBP with antiglare display. I prefer the antiglare display over the glossy display, even though the colours seem a bit duller, but with a good colour profile, that can be remedied.
I also would recommend the high res display on the 15" MBP, as 1440 x 900 pixel is quite big, but only if your eyes can handle the higher resolution (it took me two weeks to get used to 1920 x 1200 pixel on 17", but it was worth it).

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Maybe have a look at Advanced Search to find many threads about GLOSSY vs ANTIGLARE:

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