Hey guys. Need some help purchasing a MacBook Pro.

[htownrockets]

Well recently, I just purchased a MacBook Pro on eBay but it haven't been delivered yet.

These are the specs:
Equipped with New Battery and New Charger.
120GB HDD
2 GB of RAM
New Airport Extreme Card
Core Duo
2GHz
New Logic Board

Barely Used and has Apple Care until Aug/09.

Is $1200 a good price?

I mean like, I'm going to be using it for photography stuff such as CS3, LR, etc. Is Core Duo and 2Ghz going to be fast enough, or does it really matter? Can I upgrade the RAM to 4GB? And the HDD can I upgrade to 250GB?

Cause I was thinking if it wasn't fast enough, I just might sell it..but just looking for opinions..

 

[darkpaw]

Maximum RAM on that model (15" 2.0GHz) is 2GB RAM, as explained here.

Lots more info available on this page.

Estimated current price is between $1200 and $1350, so $1200 seems fine. I would've checked Apple's refurb store first though, as you can usually grab a good bargain on there.

 

[bertpalmer]

It's fine for what you need.

See how things run and if you REALLY don' think things are fast enough then buy some non-apple RAM and you ought to see a speed increase.

 

[amusiccale]

Yeah, that looks fine. Unless you're doing some pretty intensive things, you shouldn't need more than the 2gb of ram at this point.

Oh, and for the hard drive upgrade--your ability to upgrade it depends on how handy you are if you do it yourself. iFixit has pictures, but I (for instance) am not yet brave enough to be rummaging around to replace it

 

[htownrockets]

Is there a big diff. between Core Duo and Core 2 Duo?

 

[amusiccale]

It really depends on your needs. In real world performance, a few seconds here and there (I've only used the Core 2s, however). There are some power usage differences that would extend a core 2 duo's battery life as well. Oh and 64-bit support in the Core 2s. Wikipedia or one of the guides here can probably get into the objective details of the differences between them.

On the other hand, both have quite good performance and in daily use both ought to be quite speedy. If you don't need the latest and greatest, I think you'll be happy with either. Most g4s are still relatively serviceable, and for vanilla internet browsing, g3s and pentium IIs still do their job with some dignity.

 

[Chrispy]

I use a Core Duo Dell Latitude D620 at work and it isn't that much different in performance than some of the newer Core 2 Duo D630s around the office. You will be fine. Let the buyer's remorse go

 

[htownrockets]

I know man, I just don't know if its good enough.

It's like I want the newer stuff, but I WANT to be happy with this laptop.