Gen 3 versus Gen 4 MacBook Pro- Differences?

[MeritPhoto]

In just a bit over my head right now. I see MicroCenter has the slightly older model - MA896LL. This seems very close to the current 2.4 model. I've looked at both, but aside from the 40 gig hard drive difference, don't really notice a huge difference. With my wife's educator discount the current 2.4 mac will put me just 50 bucks over the MicroCenter model. I'll probably never touch the entire drive space so is one better than the other really? Looks like a different chipset. Keep reading about zebra striping with the current model. Does it affect both? Any guidance or reading material would be nice. I've read the general specs and tried to search the best I could, but just haven't had much luck.

Thanks!

 

[TuffLuffJimmy]

if you're getting a good deal on that one then buy it

you're not going to notice too much of a difference between the two chipsets. They're basically the same machine.

 

[Garemz]

I believe the 2.4 newer model has an LED back lit screen, it has a much dimmer, and brighter setting.

Also with the newer processor using less power, and the LED back lit screen, you will get longer battery life

Cheers
Gary

 

[iToaster]

I believe the 2.4 newer model has an LED back lit screen, it has a much dimmer, and brighter setting.

Also with the newer processor using less power, and the LED back lit screen, you will get longer battery life

Cheers
Gary

Both 2.4 Ghz models use LED backlit screens. The older one might be a touch faster with 1 Mb more L2 cache, but it doesn't matter too much. The only thing you miss with the older one is the capacity of the hard drive and multitouch on the trackpad.

 

[Garemz]

Both 2.4 Ghz models use LED backlit screens. The older one might be a touch faster with 1 Mb more L2 cache, but it doesn't matter too much. The only thing you miss with the older one is the capacity of the hard drive and multitouch on the trackpad.

We put both computers side by side at the apple store the one with less Cache was equally as fast, just uses less power.

 

[MeritPhoto]

Thank you very much for the guidance so far. Doesn't sound like a huge difference between the two.

Does anyone know if one suffers from the zebra striping more than the other? Lots of speculation as to whether this is hardware/software from what I've been able to read thus far. Any insights?

 

[MarkMS]

Thank you very much for the guidance so far. Doesn't sound like a huge difference between the two.

Does anyone know if one suffers from the zebra striping more than the other? Lots of speculation as to whether this is hardware/software from what I've been able to read thus far. Any insights?

I think the LCD problems are attributed to the fact that they are LEDs. So I'm guessing both models have pretty much an equal chance of having screen issues. Lots of people think it's a software issue because the screen usually goes back to normal when you press the control-shift-eject key combo.