Help upgrading my MB 4,1 Early 2008 MB 2.4 GHz C2D

[Mikeyswen79]

Alright. I have an Apple MacBook 4,1 2.4GHz (13.3-inch Intel Core 2 Duo "Penryn") - Early 2008 and, since I'm having a hard time justifying a new purchase of a new MBA or MBP, I might consider upgrading this.

Possible upgrades:
- RAM (I would max this out)
- SSD (Any capacity)
- OSX (Snow Leopard to Lion)
- Battery


Can anyone guide me on places to go for this? I go to OWC but I'm thinking they're fairly overpriced and I might be able to go cheaper.

Initial questions:
1. Are these upgrades even worth it or should I really just buy a new MBA/MBP?
2. What is the maximum RAM I can get and what specifications do I specifically need?
3. Does SSD rapidly increase speed on here like on the Airs?
4. Is it fairly simple to replace an HDD w/ an SSD or will I have problems getting it to fit well?


Thanks so much for your help

 

[accessoriesguy]

OWC is probably the best place for SSD's they are the fastest and cheapest available (compared to Intel) and are designed for SSD's.

RAM you can get on newegg or amazon and possibly even used on ebay for cheap now a days considering the age of your laptop. (you could also get it from OWC idk what their prices for that is but im sure its still cheap)

there is really no need for Lion yet, I have yet to upgrade, you don't HAVE to. whats nice though is they already gave an updating patch to SL and already updated Lion to 10.7.1 so feel free to do that whenever your ready, if you can, back up files just in case!

 

[dojonate]

RAM - www.newegg.com Maximum on your model is 4GB technically, but it can use 6GB if you use a 2 GB DIMM in one slot, and a 4 GB in the other.

SSD - OWC, definitely.

Lion is up to you. Unless one of the new features applies specifically to you, there's no major Lion-only apps yet, so there's no real reason to upgrade. You might want to check to make sure all the apps you use are Intel or Universal, because Lion doesn't support PowerPC apps.

As for a battery, a genuine battery is really only available from the Apple Online Store, last I checked.

 

[Val-kyrie]

Also, remember that the MB 4,1 only has a SATA I connector to the hard drive, so an SSD might not reach its full potential if it can read/write more than 150MB/s.