Buying very soon!

[Norton74]

I'm an IT student looking to buy a MB or MB Pro soon. I have some experience with Mac, but I have people at work asking about Mac stuff all the time. Some I know the answer to and others I have to look up. So now I find myself looking to buy. I am very excited about it and look forward to the summer off of school to play with. I really want a 15" but might go with the 13" if the price is right. I've seen a lot of older ones for sale locally, but I guess I want something with DDR3 RAM and most of all the MB Pro with the aluminum case.
So to begin at this forum I'd like to ask a few questions:

1. Does the MB Pro with the aluminum case dissipate heat better than the plastic MB? Would make sense, right? Is it really an issue with the basic MB.

2. What kind of problems in the older models (2006-2008) should I look out for?
Such as the Nvidia 8600m GT video overheating issue or HDD issues.

3. I plan on running Boot Camp because of school (why does everything at school have to be in Windows? lol), does Windows7 work in it? If yes is this both 32 or 64 bit?

4. Is Snow Leopard really any better than Leopard? What extras does it have or missing? It's only $30, but I figured I'd ask.


Any input on these would be great! I haven't owned a Mac in quite a while, I can't wait! I'd like to save some money and buy an older used one, but I just can't find one that isn't too outdated by RAM and CPU. When running Windows in Boot Camp I'll need more RAM so I think getting a brand new one that is upgradeable is probably going to be a good idea="Damn resource Hogs". It's a good thing I get M$ OS's for free through school!
Anyway I'll be back with more questions I'm sure! Thanks

 

[murdercitydevil]

I can't answer 1 or 2, but, here's my 2 cents

3. Unless you're doing gaming (since it's for school, I doubt it), bootcamp IMO is unnecessary. VMWare fusion is awesome and you don't have to mess around with dual booting. It does everything I've ever needed perfectly. The only reason gaming requires bootcamp is because newer games require all the power the MBP can provide, and virtualized hardware is obviously not going to cut it.

4. I like SL a lot more. I used Leopard briefly but most of my OS X experience is with SL, and I really can't say I have any complaints. If you need a list of changes/differences, http://www.diffen.com/difference/Leopard_(Mac_OS_X)_vs_Snow_Leopard_(Mac_OS_X)
I'm sure there's more pages devoted to this topic as well. AFAIK it's mostly optimizations and a few GUI changes as well as speed increases in some cases.

 

[twilightrose]

I'm an IT student looking to buy a MB or MB Pro soon. I have some experience with Mac, but I have people at work asking about Mac stuff all the time. Some I know the answer to and others I have to look up. So now I find myself looking to buy. I am very excited about it and look forward to the summer off of school to play with. I really want a 15" but might go with the 13" if the price is right. I've seen a lot of older ones for sale locally, but I guess I want something with DDR3 RAM and most of all the MB Pro with the aluminum case.
So to begin at this forum I'd like to ask a few questions:

1. Does the MB Pro with the aluminum case dissipate heat better than the plastic MB? Would make sense, right? Is it really an issue with the basic MB.

2. What kind of problems in the older models (2006-2008) should I look out for?
Such as the Nvidia 8600m GT video overheating issue or HDD issues.

3. I plan on running Boot Camp because of school (why does everything at school have to be in Windows? lol), does Windows7 work in it? If yes is this both 32 or 64 bit?

4. Is Snow Leopard really any better than Leopard? What extras does it have or missing? It's only $30, but I figured I'd ask.


Any input on these would be great! I haven't owned a Mac in quite a while, I can't wait! I'd like to save some money and buy an older used one, but I just can't find one that isn't too outdated by RAM and CPU. When running Windows in Boot Camp I'll need more RAM so I think getting a brand new one that is upgradeable is probably going to be a good idea="Damn resource Hogs". It's a good thing I get M$ OS's for free through school!
Anyway I'll be back with more questions I'm sure! Thanks

I think heat dispersion on the MBP is slightly better, but it may get hotter on your lap due to it being metal and absorbing heat. As for the Windows 7, it will work on it as long as bootcamp is updated to current version but the poster above is right, unless its for gaming or you absolutly need all the physical hardware(im assuming your just going to use stuff like microsoft office and things of the like) the poster above is right about VMware fusion. Youll have full access to windows apps inside your OS X enviornment so youll be able to work on both OSes at once.

 

[Norton74]

Thanks guys, the reason I want to run Boot Camp is some of the software for school will not run on OS X. I can get XP, Vista and Windows 7 for free as where VMWare Fusion 3 is a little pricey. I was supposed to get that for free this semester also, but they ran out of copies by the time I got there. I take some online classes through my local college and they require software that is almost always only compatible with Windows. Even some of the f2f classes require Windows. Sucks! Now I see the whole monopoly thing going on!

If anyone has any hardware issues to warn me about let me know. I've heard of a few, but I'm always careful before I spend a $1000 or so on something.

Also what is a good AntiVirus for Mac? Free or paid?

 

[twilightrose]

Thanks guys, the reason I want to run Boot Camp is some of the software for school will not run on OS X. I can get XP, Vista and Windows 7 for free as where VMWare Fusion 3 is a little pricey. I was supposed to get that for free this semester also, but they ran out of copies by the time I got there. I take some online classes through my local college and they require software that is almost always only compatible with Windows. Even some of the f2f classes require Windows. Sucks! Now I see the whole monopoly thing going on!

If anyone has any hardware issues to warn me about let me know. I've heard of a few, but I'm always careful before I spend a $1000 or so on something.

Also what is a good AntiVirus for Mac? Free or paid?

You don't really need antivirus for OS X, viruses for it are rather scarce on OS X due to its smaller userbase compared to windows

 

[Relznuk]

You don't really need antivirus for OS X, viruses for it are rather scarce on OS X due to its smaller userbase compared to windows

Furthermore, most mac anti-virus programs hog significant amounts of resource and disk space.

 

[Norton74]

Furthermore, most mac anti-virus programs hog significant amounts of resource and disk space.

Exactly what it does on Windows too! Guess I'll just have to stay away from Tomato torrents and sLimewire. Haven't done that in a long time anyway. Trying to be more legit! lol

Anyway, I found a link to Apple's Education discount and I think I'll just buy a brand new one soon. Thinking about the 15" 2.66 and the Apple remote.

Found this ION case here in an add. It's really cool, but it looks like it will hold a lot of heat in the laptop. What do you guys think?

 

[Raima]

Thanks guys, the reason I want to run Boot Camp is some of the software for school will not run on OS X. I can get XP, Vista and Windows 7 for free as where VMWare Fusion 3 is a little pricey. I was supposed to get that for free this semester also, but they ran out of copies by the time I got there. I take some online classes through my local college and they require software that is almost always only compatible with Windows. Even some of the f2f classes require Windows. Sucks! Now I see

You can try virtualbox from sun for Virtualisation. It's not as good as fusion but it's free.

 

[twilightrose]

You can try virtualbox from sun for Virtualisation. It's not as good as fusion but it's free.

Yeah vurtualbox is 'ok' but its not as good, but it is indeed free which is nice, and it will suffice plenty for things like Microsoft Office.

 

[Norton74]

Yea I'm not really into Virtual machine's. I've used just about all of them within the last 2 years and I really don't mind rebooting from one OS to another. Right now I have a triple boot on my HP and it only take me less than a minute to boot Windows 7, type my password, get to my desktop, open a browser and be fully able to use it. That is fast enough for me and it's not even an SSD!

Virtual machines are usually a little laggy and sometimes lock up. I just want whatever OS I'm in to be at full potential, but that just me. I did like playing around with VMWare Workstation 6.5, but I think BootCamp will work for me. Can't wait!!! Building a i7 gaming PC next month and buying a MacBook Pro also! Should be a great month!!!