Fall 2007 white Mac Book compared to a 2010 13" MBP?

[St. Germain]

It's been a few years since I surprised my wife with a Mac Book after she was obsessed with using mine from work. She's a true Mac convert now and I was thinking that it might be time to upgrade her to a 13" Mac Book Pro. She has her heart set on the aluminum.

However when I was looking at the processor on the current 13" MBPs I was a little disappointed that they still had a Core 2 Duo which she has on her three year old laptop, but instead of her 2.2 GHz it's a 2.4 GHz. A 15" laptop would be too big for her purposes so those are out.

So is there really that much of a leap to go from:

2007 13" MB
2.2 GHz
1GB RAM

to:

2010 13" MBP
2.4 GHz
4GB RAM

The added RAM is nice, just not sure if she'd need it. Am I missing something here or does it seem like not much of an upgrade besides the shiny exterior?

 

[Hellhammer]

Add 4GB RAM and maybe a faster HD to her current machine and it will be good for at least another year. Those updates cost around 150 bucks but will make it feel like a new machine.

 

[warrena]

The new MBP has much better graphics and faster memory as well. The old MB used DDR2 and then new MBP uses DDR3, as noted above, the extra memory will make a big difference.

Upping the memory and putting a faster drive in the 07 MB will make it faster, but if you are doing anything graphics intensive, the newer MBP will seem much faster. Battery life should also be much improved.

 

[St. Germain]

Add 4GB RAM and maybe a faster HD to her current machine and it will be good for at least another year. Those updates cost around 150 bucks but will make it feel like a new machine.

That's what I was thinking. I'm just surprised that they're so similar to a three year old Mac Book.

 

[St. Germain]

The new MBP has much better graphics and faster memory as well. The old MB used DDR2 and then new MBP uses DDR3, as noted above, the extra memory will make a big difference.

Upping the memory and putting a faster drive in the 07 MB will make it faster, but if you are doing anything graphics intensive, the newer MBP will seem much faster. Battery life should also be much improved.

Extra battery life would definitely be an improvement. She has complained about having a shorter battery life. The GPU won't really make a difference for her needs though I guess.

 

[warrena]

I still have an early 08 white MB - the one right after yours. I put 4GB of memory and a 7200rpm drive in it and it works great. For most things, you would not notice the difference. I also run BootCamp with XP on it and it runs very well - faster than the Dell my company gave me.

If you battery is getting old, run Coconut Battery to check the cycles and remaining life - you might need to get a new one if it is on its last legs. But 4GB of memory, fast drive, and battery is still much less than an new MBP - then you could wait a year or so to see if they upgrade the processor, etc. Depending on how much capacity she needs, you could also go with an SSD for some real speed improvement.

 

[nineohtoo]

The new MBP has much better graphics and faster memory as well. The old MB used DDR2 and then new MBP uses DDR3, as noted above, the extra memory will make a big difference.

Upping the memory and putting a faster drive in the 07 MB will make it faster, but if you are doing anything graphics intensive, the newer MBP will seem much faster. Battery life should also be much improved.

I don't think anyone could have said it much better.

I had a 2.4ghz black MacBook w/4GB RAM and a regular 5400rpm drive. When I bought my 2010 2.4ghz MBP, I did all my changes and tweaks that I normally do to OS X. I found that it performed much quicker than my last computer in most basic tasks. Where it really shined though was when I would watch videos online, or bluray rips. iStat showed noticeably lower processing and my fans wouldn't have to work so hard to keep everything cool. But then I threw in an SSD and an Optibay and it's even better

Combine this with the better(imo) design, backlit keyboard, extra battery life, and my iPhone 4, and I think I've got a pretty awesome portable setup.

 

[Adidas Addict]

On paper you may think the gap is small but in use it's huge. The list of improvements is endless and definitely worth the upgrade to the new machine.

Screen: (way way way better)
Memory: 4x the amount and much faster DDR3
Backlit Keyboard
No more crappy polycarbonate
Graphics performance in a whole other league
4x the Battery life
Smaller
Bigger HDD
Glass Multi Touch Trackpad (so good they released it as a standalone for desktop users)

 

[Capt Underpants]

The mobile Sandy Bridge chips are due late this year. The updated macbook pro's will be out shortly afterwards. I'd wait and buy a 13" then.

But until then, I second the advice to get more RAM. I upgraded my macbook (same as yours) to a 7200 RPM HD and 4 gigs of RAM, and it chugs along quite nicely.

 

[mgartner0622]

If I were you, i'd upgrade the RAM, and hard drive if it needs it, and get a new chinese made battery for ~30. You''ll have better battery life, and more speed.
It's perfectly capable of holding out until the next revision! Until last month, I was stil using a 1.5GHz PowerBook 12" made in late 2005!
Then you can hold out to the next revision, or even longer if you wish. I'm sure Apple will impliment the I series of processors (Or better) in the next 1 or 2 revisions. You'll get a lot more for your money.

 

[alust2013]

I'd say upgrading the RAM and maybe hard drive would be a noticeable improvement. If she doesn't do anything CPU intensive (doesn't sound like she does), then a new processor wouldn't really make much of a difference, whether or not its a C2D. 4 gigs of DDR2 is pretty cheap, so that would be a good upgrade