Buying a macbook, should I wait?

[asaad]

Im planning on buying a macbook, 2ghz 1gig of ram, and whatever else itcomes with...before i do tho, id like to know if apples got any plans of releasing something new soon, or if theres anything in the works thats worth waiting for. Also I havent owned a mac in like 10 years, my sister has a powerbook and i like it, but Ive used a vaio for the past 5 years and was just wondering what do people know about vista? release dates, will it beable to run on macs like xp does, and is itworth waiting for? basically i need some reassurance, should i wait because apple is coming out with something new,or because vista is coming out, or is this a good decision atthistime? Thanks

 

[jsw]

The biggest anticipated MacBook change is from the Core Duo to the Core 2 Duo chips. However, reviews of PC laptops with the C2D don't show huge real-world speed improvements over the CD, so people might be waiting for a big speed bump they won't get.

However, if your need isn't dire, the C2D MacBooks will be out shortly (but no one is really sure what "shortly" means exactly). However, if you buy a MacBook today, it won't be all that different from the next rev anyway - marginally slower is all. It is very likely that the only change in the MacBook in the near future will be from CD to C2D.

As far as Vista? Well, Leopard (OS X 10.5) is due out shortly after Vista, and my guess is that, for the average person, both will have more than enough candy to make people happy.

 

[asaad]

thanks

 

[CaptainCaveMann]

The biggest anticipated MacBook change is from the Core Duo to the Core 2 Duo chips. However, reviews of PC laptops with the C2D don't show huge real-world speed improvements over the CD, so people might be waiting for a big speed bump they won't get.

However, if your need isn't dire, the C2D MacBooks will be out shortly (but no one is really sure what "shortly" means exactly). However, if you buy a MacBook today, it won't be all that different from the next rev anyway - marginally slower is all. It is very likely that the only change in the MacBook in the near future will be from CD to C2D.

As far as Vista? Well, Leopard (OS X 10.5) is due out shortly after Vista, and my guess is that, for the average person, both will have more than enough candy to make people happy.

Its not only the speed bump. Your also going from 32 bit to 64. Plus look at the imac with the C2D processor and the added ability to support 3 gigs of ram. Its a possibility that the macbook and the macbook pro will both support up to 3 gigs of ram when they are updated with the c2d processor. Since the op is interested in a macbook and not the pro i wont go into the other possible updates coming with the c2d in the macbook pro.

 

[eXan]

Its not only the speed bump. Your also going from 32 bit to 64. Plus look at the imac with the C2D processor and the added ability to support 3 gigs of ram. Its a possibility that the macbook and the macbook pro will both support up to 3 gigs of ram when they are updated with the c2d processor. Since the op is interested in a macbook and not the pro i wont go into the other possible updates coming with the c2d in the macbook pro.

The only practical thing 64-bitness does is that it can address more than 4 gigs of RAM to one process.

 

[wyatt23]

i'd go as far as saying wait. you get the added benefit of more ram, future proof with 64-bit, and most importantly, it will problably have most of the kinks worked out of the current macbooks.

i'm getting a cheapy ibook to hold me over til c2d comes out.

 

[nick004]

Not 100% sure on this but a game in development called Crysis apparently runs 10-15% when running the 64-bit version on a 64-bit chip. So there must be more to 64-bit then access to more memory.