I am in the market for a new laptop. Replacing my six year old dell desktop. I am leaning towards a macbook pro. Before making this 2000 dollar jump, I have a few questions for people out there. I saw a refurbished mac pro for 1500 would this be a good buy or should I go for the new low end 15.4 one. I am going to be doing some light video editing, photos, games, running xp. Are there really that many problems with the new pros or is it something small that looks really big. Thanks in advance.
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Buying Question
- Thread starter Boulderer2001
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Do you want a desktop since you're coming from a Dell desktop or do you want a portable? Only you can make that decision. The refurbished Mac Pro that you saw for $1500, do you know its specifications? If it's the latest 2.66GHz model, it would be a good buy.
I am looking for a laptop. These are the spec for the refurbished one.
15.4-inch widescreen display
1GB memory
120GB hard drive
6x SuperDrive (DVD+R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 with 128MB of GDDR3 memory
Built-in iSight camera
I am just not sure if the 300 dollars more for the new one is worth it.
15.4-inch widescreen display
1GB memory
120GB hard drive
6x SuperDrive (DVD+R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 with 128MB of GDDR3 memory
Built-in iSight camera
I am just not sure if the 300 dollars more for the new one is worth it.
to clarify, did you see a refurbished mac pro or a refurbished macbook pro? what were the specs on it? the new macbook pros really aren't that bad. i have one, and i'm enjoying it immensely.
Sorry for my vaguness. It was a macbook pro on the apple website. I am leaning more towards the new one, beacuse of the faster spped, new screens, 2 gb of memory which can expand to 4 with 3 I think being usable.
if you really don't think the extra few hundred is worth it for a new machine, then it probably isn't. the specs of the previous generation macbook pro is good enough for what you're doing (light video/photo editing and xp). the only area the new macbook pros would be helpful would be games. what kind of games would you be playing?
I will probably get gears of wars when it launches for the mac. I am also trying to future proof myself here. In the past I have spent mid to low high prices on computers, I think I want to splurge this time and have something truly special. Anything I should know about the macbook pros before I jump to the apple ship.
They are one hell of a notebook. I got the MacBook and it is amazing, I can't imagine how good the MBP's are.
That's what mine is. You didn't mention the processor, which short of the screen is probably the most important factor. IIRC, the three revisions of the MBP are the CD, C2D, and the SR with LED screens (15" only).
Personally, the C2D 2.16 GHz is plenty fast for me and $1500 for one is a decidedly decent deal. Memory, buy it somewhere else.
Your big loss by going refurb over new is not getting a LED backlit screen, a little bump in speed, and the Santa Rosa chipset (in that order, in my opinion).
If I wanted to uprgrade the memory, should I but apple memory. Or is there a decent thrid party memeory that will not mess up the computer. I have heard stores of people's macs getting messe up by some memory.
Just noticed apple updated their refurbished list. This seems like a great buy. Should I go with this or spending 500 dollars more really worth it for the new ones.Refurbished MacBook Pro 2.0GHz Intel Core Duo
15.4-inch widescreen display
1GB memory
100GB hard drive
SuperDrive (DVD+R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 with 256MB of GDDR3 memory
Built-in iSight camera
Also this memory is expandable to three gigs??
15.4-inch widescreen display
1GB memory
100GB hard drive
SuperDrive (DVD+R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 with 256MB of GDDR3 memory
Built-in iSight camera
Also this memory is expandable to three gigs??
This is a sweet laptop if you don't want to spend the extra money. However, if you want to future-proof yourself, get the a new 2.2 MBP. It comes with 2 GB memory stock plus the SR chipset, LED screens, and expandable memory up to 4 GB. It's really all about how much you want to spend, because you can get the 256 mb vram by getting the 2.4.
You can always wait a year or two, and when you need a little refresh, upgrade to 4 GB memory. I'm going to buy mine from OWC.
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/memory/MacBook/Pro/Core2/
What better features will I be seeing in buying the new macbook pro. Will I see that much improvement in speed, screen quality. I am not uprgading the harddrive on any notebook I am getting I am getting a 250-500gb external hard drive for videos and such. So the size of that does not matter to much to me. Are the graphic cards in the newer pros better than these ones? Thanks in advance.
The graphics cards in the new ones are much more powerful, because they are the Geforce 8 generation. If you want to play Gears of War on it you really should get the high-end 2.4ghz model because thats the only one with 256mb of videoram.
If you werent going to play games, then the cheaper refurb would be a good idea, because pretty much anything will outshine your current antique
If you werent going to play games, then the cheaper refurb would be a good idea, because pretty much anything will outshine your current antique