About to buy a Macbook Pro: HD and external display question

[nicjac]

Hello everyone,

I am about to buy a new Macbook Pro and I wanted to know if the problems with the 7200 rpm 500GB drives are now solved ? Also, how is the noise and heat difference between the 7200 and 5400 rpm models ?

I think I will go for the 3.06Ghz variant, is there any argument about that choice expect the price premium ?

And finally, I plan to also buy an external display in the 24" range. Is there any screen that can accommodate both the MBP and game consoles (Xbox 360 and PS3) ?

Thanks !

-nicjac

 

[jstate1983]

Apple has released the fix for the 500GB @ 7200 HD. I have that exact HD and have had not troubles out of it. Yeah, you are going to get heat out of a laptop no matter what, my only recommendation is just like any other laptop, keep it well ventilated (i.e. dont keep it running sitting on a bed quilt for too terribly long or something.) The indicators will be there if it is getting too hot as you will hear the internal fan kick on and that always serves as a great reminder to me to lift it up for a minute or move the MacBook.

Yeah, the 3.06 would be just going for broke and getting the best but that is just all dependent on what you are going to be doing with it. I use some resource intensive programs and my 2.8 GHz works pretty well, I have no complaints. In looking at a spec comparison of the 2.8 and the 3.06, there really isnt much difference. The only difference that you will see is a slight difference in speed and the increased memory in the graphics card between the 2.8 and the 3.06.

As far as the display screens, you will just need to look at the screen itself and look at display ports that are available, the upside is that it really doesnt matter because there is a display port for just about everything nowadays so it's basically up to your preference.