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Buying a 13" MBP, advice?

F

FPSMadPaul

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 15, 2010
8
0
Would you recommend getting a baseline 13" i5 MBP upgraded with 8gbs of RAM and a 500gb hardrive or the 13" i7 vanilla MBP?

Sent from my HTC Wildfire using Tapatalk
 
Some will likely respond with "we need to know more about how you will use the MBP"

The base 13" is a good value and likely powerfull enough. Do consider an Apple refurb, or an online reseller rather than brand new from Apple...you will save a buck or two. It is more cost effective to change to 8mb of ram later (if you actually need it), rather than paying Apple's premium price. The bigger hard drive? I would stay with the 320g and apply the upgrade dollars to an external drive for back up
 
if the baseline i5 is good enough for you then just go for it and upgrade ram and the hdd yourself if necessary.
 
sn0wman72 said:
Some will likely respond with "we need to know more about how you will use the MBP"

The base 13" is a good value and likely powerfull enough. Do consider an Apple refurb, or an online reseller rather than brand new from Apple...you will save a buck or two. It is more cost effective to change to 8mb of ram later (if you actually need it), rather than paying Apple's premium price. The bigger hard drive? I would stay with the 320g and apply the upgrade dollars to an external drive for back up
Click to expand...

I can use a family members NHS discount to save about £60 so I want to order it from Apple, also I wouldn't know how to go about upgrading the RAM, is it simple/does it void your warranty?
 
FPSMadPaul said:
I can use a family members NHS discount to save about so I want to order it from Apple, also I wouldn't know how to go about upgrading the RAM, is it simple/does it void your warranty?
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure that upgrading the RAM & HD is still considered "user accessible parts" iFixit has a great guide on how to upgrade the RAM & HD. It is much cheeper to do this yourself as apple charges $200 for the 8GB RAm upgrade and you can get the same thing from MacSales for $99. I've added the links to the ifix it guide on installing the RAM & HD as well as the place to get them. These links will be for the current model (as of this post) You can get the RAM & HD from other places but be sure there the correct type.


RAM upgrade guide - http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Repair/Installing-MacBook-Pro-13-Inch-Unibody-Early-2011-RAM/5117/1

HD upgrade guide - http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Repair/Installing-MacBook-Pro-13-Inch-Unibody-Early-2011-Hard-Drive-Replacement/5119/1

RAM - http://eshop.macsales.com/MyOWC/Upgrades.cfm?sort=pop&model=417&type=Memory

HD - http://eshop.macsales.com/MyOWC/Upgrades.cfm?model=417&type=Internal%20Drive&sort=pop
 
It would help if we knew what you will be demanding from the laptop.
 
i would maybe upgrade to an optibay and put an ssd in the hd space and the hdd in the optibay you wont know how much ram you need until you get the laptop so save yourself the money for now
 
I recently went through the same thing. Most people on the boards think that the i5 is really the best deal and usually capable of everything you need to do. Typically, if you're wanting more power you would look to the 15" where you'll get a dedicated GPU and it's a quadcore.

I eventually settled on the i5 and really happy with it. I upgraded from a 2010 15" i5 and find that this is just as quick if not quicker.
 
What is the real difference between the dual core i5 and the dual core i7. I know the GHz is different by 0.4 GHz but besides that, is there anything else that really deserves the name change?
 
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