Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Buy MBP Now or Wait?

G

Geoff Myers

macrumors member
Original poster
Mar 19, 2007
44
6
I currently have a 15" PowerBook G4 (1.25 GHz), which I purchased at the end of 2003. My APP extended warranty expired a few months ago, after having nearly every part in my PBG4 replaced at least once. It receives very heavy use daily and I am worried that when the next part fails, the cost to replace it will not be worth paying.

Anyway, my question is: when do you think Apple will update the MacBook Pro line and do you think it is worth waiting for?

The last update was in October 2006. What is the general time period between updates?

Thanks a lot in advance for your helpful advice! I really appreciate it. :)

P.S. I did search before posting. The three most similar threads were about MacBooks, not MacBook Pros.
 
... and MacBook Pros will likely see updates at roughly the same time as the regular MacBooks, and will benefit from the same Santa Rosa platform ... so the other threads all really cover the same territory.
 
Geoff Myers said:
I currently have a 15" PowerBook G4 (1.25 GHz), which I purchased at the end of 2003. My APP extended warranty expired a few months ago, after having nearly every part in my PBG4 replaced at least once. It receives very heavy use daily and I am worried that when the next part fails, the cost to replace it will not be worth paying.

Anyway, my question is: when do you think Apple will update the MacBook Pro line and do you think it is worth waiting for?

The last update was in October 2006. What is the general time period between updates?

Thanks a lot in advance for your helpful advice! I really appreciate it. :)

P.S. I did search before posting. The three most similar threads were about MacBooks, not MacBook Pros.
Click to expand...


Hi Geoff,

I'm in the same boat as well, I'm looking to buy a macbook pro, except I'm new to macs, so this will be my first. Being the control-freak IBM nerd that I am, I research every major purchase, and the macbook pro is no exception. Here's what I found so far:

  • there is a new chipset (santa rosa) from intel due "sometime in may". I think it's targeted for the portables.
  • As you already know, Leopard is due out "spring 2007". Lots of debate here on when it will finally come out.

some things i'm considering...
I think apple will co-release new mbp hardware using santa rosa with Leopard. Which means may/june. However lots of people here think the end of march is very solid for Leopard.

Assuming I can live without the hardware update, I'm sort of weary about getting a mbp now and upgrading the OS later. I've seen lots of people on this site complain about OS updates/patches. Given that I'm new to mac os, I really don't want to fight any battles a few months after I buy. However you have experience and no doubt have done os upgrades.

Check out the rumors on santa rosa and see if that hardware upgrade is desired or not, last time I read anything on it, I wasn't too impressed... I think the frontside bus was faster, other than that, nothing I would wait for.
 
I believe the new ones with Santa Rosa and Leopard will come in June. If it´s worth it? I don´t think so since it isn´t a major update. That extra FSB + Robson+ other gimmicks won´t be too much of an update (at least not for me). If you need it now buy, if not wait :)
You could wait some more weeks to see if Leopard is released but the wait for Santa Rosa could be too much...unless you you have no problem waiting.
The upgrade from Santa Rosa to Montevina (2008) will be a bigger upgrade so if you are one of those people who want to have the best think it this way: if you wait till mid year to buy your laptop you´ll have the latest computer for less months that if you buy now (since the upgrade to Santa Rosa won´t be really a huge difference and can be comparable to one of the current gen MBP). At least that´s the way I see it.
 
manotas said:
I believe the new ones with Santa Rosa and Leopard will come in June. If it´s worth it? I don´t think so since it isn´t a major update. That extra FSB + Robson+ other gimmicks won´t be too much of an update (at least not for me). If you need it now buy, if not wait :)
You could wait some more weeks to see if Leopard is released but the wait for Santa Rosa could be too much...unless you you have no problem waiting.
The upgrade from Santa Rosa to Montevina (2008) will be a bigger upgrade so if you are one of those people who want to have the best think it this way: if you wait till mid year to buy your laptop you´ll have the latest computer for less months that if you buy now (since the upgrade to Santa Rosa won´t be really a huge difference and can be comparable to one of the current gen MBP). At least that´s the way I see it.
Click to expand...

right. Only i don't think most people want to wait till 2008. I know I can't.
me want macbook pro. me want now
 
johnee said:
right. Only i don't think most people want to wait till 2008. I know I can't.
me want macbook pro. me want now
Click to expand...

Heh, yeah, if I were in the market for a MBP, I certainly couldn't imagine waiting a year, no matter how much better it would be. Fortunately, though, my little 12" 1.5 is still going strong and I probably won't be in the market for another year, so great updates then sound just fine to me! :D
 
I'm going to be a student at james madison university in the majoring in media arts and design. I'm going to get a macbook pro probably around the end of june if I can wait that long. By then santa rosa will be out, leopard will be out along with ilife07 and iwork07. Also it is rumored that the mbp's will get led's as the backlight for the screen. I figure by the end of june they will work out a good amount of kinks and bugs in leopard and i'll learn the new os for the summer and take it to school in august.
 
OK, I have to ask--why is a LED backlight a good thing? What difference does it make?

Sorry if that's a stupid question....

Bob
 
Naimfan said:
OK, I have to ask--why is a LED backlight a good thing? What difference does it make?

Sorry if that's a stupid question....

Bob
Click to expand...
Not a stupid question at all. LED's have many advantages over the CCFLs (cold cathode fluorescent backlights).

Simply put, LED's translate into better battery life and better "brightness" life, where the brightness emitted from the screen stays brighter longer. They're also better at evenly distributing light across the display, in addition to increasing color saturation.

That being said, they are more expensive than CCFL, but LED is far superior.
 
Veritas&Equitas said:
Simply put, LED's translate into better battery life and better "brightness" life, where the brightness emitted from the screen stays brighter longer.
Click to expand...

cnet tested a sony vaio txn15p/w, a lightweight laptop with led backlighting. it was only a 1.2 ghz core solo processor, but the battery lasted almost ten hours. put an led backlit screen in a macbook pro, and i think battery life could be considered a strength and not a weakness in that machine.
 
siurpeeman said:
cnet tested a sony vaio txn15p/w, a lightweight laptop with led backlighting. it was only a 1.2 ghz core solo processor, but the battery lasted almost ten hours. put an led backlit screen in a macbook pro, and i think battery life could be considered a strength and not a weakness in that machine.
Click to expand...

But I believe they are not at the moment better than normal LCD screens in terms of resolution, brightness and colour contrasts. I imagine there are screens that beat CCFL screens, but they would be extremely expensive.

(This is kinda just based on other posts I've read on other threads)

I think it may be either a much higher resolution screen, taking advantage of Leopard's resolution independence feature, or a lower resolution, much lower power LED backlit screen. Of course, I hope that relatively cheap LED LCD's exist with better colour and brightness with higher resolutions than the screens Apple presently uses, and that, of course, Apple uses them in the next rev!
 
I think I got the perfect situation going. Right now, me and my wife are both using laptops we bought in January 2005. Me, a 1.5ghz Powerbook G4 and my wife, whatever iBook G4 was out around then.

My plan was to sell our laptops this year while we still have our applecares so we can get more money for them. It worked out nicely that this is the year that leopard would be coming out, with the new iLife, etc.

But I just can't wait anymore and need a new laptop pretty much today. My G4 can't keep up with a lot of the stuff I want to do. One of the main things is editing - I'm working with hi-def stuff off my Sony HC1 camera and having a non capable computer really limits what I can do.

So my plan is to do this:

Buy the 2.16ghz that's being offered by at the (I assume standard educational pricing) of $1799 (and also get FCE HD to take it up an extra $100). I'll start being productive right away... hooray. And I'll also sell my Powerbook G4 and hopefully get close to $1k for it.

Then... later in the year, when Leopard rolls out, iLife '07 rolls out, and MBP's are bumped, I'll grab the newer laptop and hand this off to my wife. I know, I know... that might sound evil to some of you guys, but she's still happy with her ibook so a 2.16ghz MBP in her hands while I'm running a.. whatever.. won't really bother her. I'm the one that's forcing her to sell her iBook this year and get something better.

The only thing that's going to suck is that she won't have leapord, iLife '07, and whatever else may be out (unless of course, I'm able to install the new MBP software discs onto the 2.16 :rolleyes: - does anyone know if that should work?

Back in '05, I had gotten a sweet deal on my current 1.5ghz by buying from the UCLA bookstore through a friend of a friend. At the time I bought this laptop, UCLA was clearing out their inventory and I paid $1799 for the same laptop that was retailing for $2499. Maybe a week or two after is when Apple rolled out the new laptops so my savings dropped significantly, but still, I think I made out well.

I'd like to try to find some deal like that again, but i think they're going to be coming closer to estimated May or June dates. And I just can't wait that long. I'll try to give myself til the end of the day to find a random school bookstore deal to take advantage of before giving up and getting the $1799 2.16 ghz MacBook Pro straight from Apple via my school bookstore.
 
Rizvi1 said:
The only thing that's going to suck is that she won't have leapord, iLife '07, and whatever else may be out (unless of course, I'm able to install the new MBP software discs onto the 2.16 :rolleyes: - does anyone know if that should work?
Click to expand...

I would guess yes. At one stage I was running on my G4, OS 10.2 that came with iMacs at that time. I think they are G5's, and I also had the original ersion of OSX 10.0 that came with the dark blue G3 iMacs (The iMacs themselves didn't actually have enough RAM to run the OS that was bundled alongside the OS9 that they came with pre-installed... I know, go figure?). I would imagine that a MBP should run software that comes with a MBP :) even if it's a different rev.

But there's really no other way to know for sure than to wait, buy one, and test it.
 
Rizvi1 said:
I think I got the perfect situation going. Right now, me and my wife are both using laptops we bought in January 2005. Me, a 1.5ghz Powerbook G4 and my wife, whatever iBook G4 was out around then.

My plan was to sell our laptops this year while we still have our applecares so we can get more money for them. It worked out nicely that this is the year that leopard would be coming out, with the new iLife, etc.

But I just can't wait anymore and need a new laptop pretty much today. My G4 can't keep up with a lot of the stuff I want to do. One of the main things is editing - I'm working with hi-def stuff off my Sony HC1 camera and having a non capable computer really limits what I can do.

So my plan is to do this:

Buy the 2.16ghz that's being offered by at the (I assume standard educational pricing) of $1799 (and also get FCE HD to take it up an extra $100). I'll start being productive right away... hooray. And I'll also sell my Powerbook G4 and hopefully get close to $1k for it.

Then... later in the year, when Leopard rolls out, iLife '07 rolls out, and MBP's are bumped, I'll grab the newer laptop and hand this off to my wife. I know, I know... that might sound evil to some of you guys, but she's still happy with her ibook so a 2.16ghz MBP in her hands while I'm running a.. whatever.. won't really bother her. I'm the one that's forcing her to sell her iBook this year and get something better.

The only thing that's going to suck is that she won't have leapord, iLife '07, and whatever else may be out (unless of course, I'm able to install the new MBP software discs onto the 2.16 :rolleyes: - does anyone know if that should work?

Back in '05, I had gotten a sweet deal on my current 1.5ghz by buying from the UCLA bookstore through a friend of a friend. At the time I bought this laptop, UCLA was clearing out their inventory and I paid $1799 for the same laptop that was retailing for $2499. Maybe a week or two after is when Apple rolled out the new laptops so my savings dropped significantly, but still, I think I made out well.

I'd like to try to find some deal like that again, but i think they're going to be coming closer to estimated May or June dates. And I just can't wait that long. I'll try to give myself til the end of the day to find a random school bookstore deal to take advantage of before giving up and getting the $1799 2.16 ghz MacBook Pro straight from Apple via my school bookstore.
Click to expand...

I know this is gonna upset quite a few, but I'm so glad leopard's delayed. Really makes me feel better about my recent macbook pro purchase (which is going great by the way so far as I commented on in my blog:

http://r1i.com/blog/?p=38 )

Now I know I can wait and enjoy my macbook pro longer before feeling the pressure to do whole hand down thing to my wife
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back