Questions about memory and harddrive upgrades. I am a college student and am looking to buy a new laptop during the back to school promotion which I was led to believe will start with the new MacBooks after WWDC. I am wondering what to get in order to get the most for my money as well as long term value. I am inclined toward the non-retina 13" MacBook Pro as I am worried about long term battery depletion (over 5 years) plus I like having an optical drive for when traveling the developing world where internet is not a fact of life. The set up I am looking at currently is the
13-inch: 2.9GHz
2.9GHz dual-core Intel Core i7
Turbo Boost up to 3.6GHz
8GB 1600MHz memory
750GB 5400-rpm hard drive1
Intel HD Graphics 4000
Built-in battery (7 hours)2
My question is can the hard drive be upgraded to a SSD after purchase either on my own or by a retailer and can the memory be upgraded and if so what to? If I were to buy the lowest level of HDD and memory from Apple would I be able to upgrade via 3rd party without voiding my Apple Care? Also I would be able to get the student discount which i think saves $10 off memory upgrades and $20 off of hard drive upgrades, is that worth doing through Apple or would a OWC SSD still be better/cheaper. I will be using the laptop for travel (internet/email/DVDs), office suite apps/school work, light photo editing and movie screen sharing via Apple TV. Any thoughts? Thanks
13-inch: 2.9GHz
2.9GHz dual-core Intel Core i7
Turbo Boost up to 3.6GHz
8GB 1600MHz memory
750GB 5400-rpm hard drive1
Intel HD Graphics 4000
Built-in battery (7 hours)2
My question is can the hard drive be upgraded to a SSD after purchase either on my own or by a retailer and can the memory be upgraded and if so what to? If I were to buy the lowest level of HDD and memory from Apple would I be able to upgrade via 3rd party without voiding my Apple Care? Also I would be able to get the student discount which i think saves $10 off memory upgrades and $20 off of hard drive upgrades, is that worth doing through Apple or would a OWC SSD still be better/cheaper. I will be using the laptop for travel (internet/email/DVDs), office suite apps/school work, light photo editing and movie screen sharing via Apple TV. Any thoughts? Thanks