I am trying to make my final decision on my first mac and laptop. I am on an extremely tight budget being a student and all. I have been eyeing down a refurbished 1.8 $799 white macbook for awhile now. Only woes im having are the harddrive size I plan on putting windows on it and only using it to install and type papers with microsoft office. I know they make it for mac but I already have office and XP so it would be free but Im not sure if 60gb partioned between mac and XP will be enough. Currently on my Windows desktop I have a 80gb with 20gb filled and no need for more room but how much room does windows take on a mac?? Another is would this laptop be a wise final choice for $898? I am not doing anything crazy most intensity it will see is probaly itunes Aol messenger and firefox opened all at once. I would like to buy a laptop for school that will last me more than year and not be sluggish. I know it is cheap to some people but its alot of money to me so I want to spend it wisely. Final thought anyone who has the $799 refurbished input please
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Final decission on first mac
- Thread starter acoustics940
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well to answer your first question, windows will take up just about as much space on your mac as on your machine.
From what you say it sounds like your just going to be using Office in windows, so maybe you should look into copies of Office from your school. At the University of Michigan I can purchase a copy of Office for roughly 40 bucks (well worth not going through the hassle of dual booting.) Also you could try Parallels or something like it. Dual booting is usually only worth it if you use Windows at a job or if you're hardcore gamer.
About the price of the macbook: thats hard to tell without you posting a link or listing the specs.
you can always replace the hard drive. many people do it so i presume it's not too difficult.
$799 sounds like a great price for a MacBook, even a refurb. might want to upgrade the RAM - a 1GB stick is probably around $100. so even with that upgrade and the hard drive, you're looking at under $1000. sounds like a great deal to me especially if you're getting the computer you want.
$799 sounds like a great price for a MacBook, even a refurb. might want to upgrade the RAM - a 1GB stick is probably around $100. so even with that upgrade and the hard drive, you're looking at under $1000. sounds like a great deal to me especially if you're getting the computer you want.
Well if office is the only reason you would use windows then you could just use something like NeoOffice which is free and avoid having to waste space on Windows.
I agree with using NeoOffice, I wouldn't waste the HD space on XP if all it's going to be used for is word processing. I think for the things you're going to use it for (chatting/web browsing/papers) the basic macbook would definitely suit your needs - and at a great price!! Good luck with whatever your choose to do!
allison.
I'll join in with the Neo Office suggestion. If you're after saving money there's no need to bog down the machine with Windows.
Awww. I thought this was final dissection on first Mac and someone was gonna do an autopsy on their dear departed computer.
See, even Me1000 thought so too..
See, even Me1000 thought so too..
Another vote for NeoOffice. Any release MacBook should be good for you, just use NeoOffice. It's based on OpenOffice 2, so it is quite compatible with MS office.
I would wait until after the Mac World conference in the second week of January. New hardware will be released and you may get a better deal on hardware. For example when the Core 2 duo Mac Books were released our University Book store was selling the black Mac Book for $1000. That for new not a refurb Mac Book.
Honestly, if all you need Microsoft for is for basic MS Office, then spare yourself the hassle of bogging down your system with a Windows partition
and buy MS Office for Mac 2004 or wait for 2007.
MS Office 2007 will be Universal Binary and run MUCH faster on your new machine.
You can also free up around 5 GB's of HD space by running a lean custom
install from your OS discs BEFORE you set up your system.
RE-installing OS X provides a custom install option that allows you to de-select all the unnecessary printer drivers, language translators you won't use, demo applications, GarageBand demo songs, and so on.
You can also find iDVD Themes Folder once you up an running and trash
that too freeing up another large chunk of wasted space. I think that's about 1.6 GB+/-
Later on, go for a My Book Pro external HD for larger and faster storage needs.
Your standard OS install includes 30 day trials of MS Office for Mac and iWork. There is also TextEdit in your Applications folder that provides all you really need for writing and reading most documents.
Once you draft a report in TextEdit, simply print to your Documents Folder
as a pdf. or send it to your printer.
Depending on your school's buying power, you should be able to buy The education version of MS Office for Mac, for $50-99.00
If you are not under a pressing deadline to buy your MacBook before
returning to classes, I would try to save up just a bit more to make sure you have the best system you can afford.
Try to go for at least the 2.0 GHz model if at all possible.
There's also a 50/50 chance that your refurb may ship with extra
goodness like additional RAM or a larger HD.
I would not bother buying additional RAM until you see what ships with your machine, but then you'll want at least 1 GB installed and preferably 2 GB.
I found a real nice all leather bag for $36.00.
You'll also want a good stack of blank CDs or DVDs.
Always make certain that any media you insert into your
disc drive is spotless.
I've now purchased 3 Apple laptops over the last 18 months for my daughters and all of them have been flawless. 1 Refurbished 1.33 GHz 12" iBook G4, 1 MacBook Core Duo 2.0 GHz and one MacBook C2D 2.0 GHz with 2 GB RAM.
and buy MS Office for Mac 2004 or wait for 2007.
MS Office 2007 will be Universal Binary and run MUCH faster on your new machine.
You can also free up around 5 GB's of HD space by running a lean custom
install from your OS discs BEFORE you set up your system.
RE-installing OS X provides a custom install option that allows you to de-select all the unnecessary printer drivers, language translators you won't use, demo applications, GarageBand demo songs, and so on.
You can also find iDVD Themes Folder once you up an running and trash
that too freeing up another large chunk of wasted space. I think that's about 1.6 GB+/-
Later on, go for a My Book Pro external HD for larger and faster storage needs.
Your standard OS install includes 30 day trials of MS Office for Mac and iWork. There is also TextEdit in your Applications folder that provides all you really need for writing and reading most documents.
Once you draft a report in TextEdit, simply print to your Documents Folder
as a pdf. or send it to your printer.
Depending on your school's buying power, you should be able to buy The education version of MS Office for Mac, for $50-99.00
If you are not under a pressing deadline to buy your MacBook before
returning to classes, I would try to save up just a bit more to make sure you have the best system you can afford.
Try to go for at least the 2.0 GHz model if at all possible.
There's also a 50/50 chance that your refurb may ship with extra
goodness like additional RAM or a larger HD.
I would not bother buying additional RAM until you see what ships with your machine, but then you'll want at least 1 GB installed and preferably 2 GB.
I found a real nice all leather bag for $36.00.
You'll also want a good stack of blank CDs or DVDs.
Always make certain that any media you insert into your
disc drive is spotless.
I've now purchased 3 Apple laptops over the last 18 months for my daughters and all of them have been flawless. 1 Refurbished 1.33 GHz 12" iBook G4, 1 MacBook Core Duo 2.0 GHz and one MacBook C2D 2.0 GHz with 2 GB RAM.