How's this deal for macbook?

[InWake]

A guy on craigslist's offered to sell me this for $1050 canadian, about $983.24 USD

2ghz core duo (not core2duo)
2gb ram
and 2yrs of applecare left
80gig HDD
DVD writer


Apple mini DVI to VGA adapter.
extra apple charger <- very handy
Macbook sleeve
DVD full of handy softwares
It's super clean it also has cool macvatar skin on it.

There's some discoloration but he says that applecare can fix that. Is that true?

is this a good deal? If it is Ill buy it. Thanks!

 

[zub3qin]

My personal feeling is that I wouldn't get anything less than a Core2Duo no matter how cheap...

You can get a Core2Duo refurb for not much more than that from Apple, I believe.

 

[InWake]

My personal feeling is that I wouldn't get anything less than a Core2Duo no matter how cheap...

You can get a Core2Duo refurb for not much more than that from Apple, I believe.

I could use to extra Ram though, what are the advantaged of C2D over this? Exept for 64bit

 

[Igantius]

I could use to extra Ram though, what are the advantaged of C2D over this?

Noticeably faster - especially as the cache is double the size now - and it can access a max. of 3.3GB RAM as opposed to 2GB. There are more than a few online benchmarks comparing CD and C2D machines - worth checking out to give you an idea of the enhanced performance.

 

[InWake]

Noticeably faster - especially as the cache is double the size now - and it can access a max. of 3.3GB RAM as opposed to 2GB. There are more than a few online benchmarks comparing CD and C2D machines - worth checking out to give you an idea of the enhanced performance.

2 Gigs is more than enough. What are these benchmarks? I'm using a AMD athlon 3500+ which has 516 cache so this will be an upgrade anyways. Ill be using it for simple stuff like photoshop, web browsing, small amount of gaming. Whould the C2D make that much of a difference?

 

[Igantius]

2 Gigs is more than enough. What are these benchmarks? I'm using a AMD athlon 3500+ which has 516 cache so this will be an upgrade anyways. Ill be using it for simple stuff like photoshop, web browsing, small amount of gaming. Whould the C2D make that much of a difference?

'Kay - well, first up, I didn't actually say you would need more than 2 GB; you asked what the advantages are, so I said.

Photoshop is a very memory-hungey app and you would notice the difference - have a look at the OWC benchmarks.

There are plenty of online benchmarks - why not Google and have a look? Here are some to be going on with...

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/laptops/intel-core-duo-whassup-faster-197105.php
http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardware/Reviews/core2duo_e6700/
http://www.macworld.com/2006/11/firstlooks/mbpbench/index.php
http://www.macworld.com/2006/11/firstlooks/macbookbench/index.php

 

[zub3qin]

You can get a refurb C2D Macbook from Apple for $999. You can get 2Gb RAM for about $70.

So for about $85 more you can get a more future protected, faster machine.
Granted you don't get the 2 year applecare.

If you hadn't said you were looking to do photoshop or gaming, I'd say get it... but I think those two things alone are going to be pretty lousy on a Core Duo machine. But I may not be the best person to get advice from-- my Macbook isn't arriving until tomorrow.

I'd trust Igantius though.

 

[InWake]

well thanks for the advice you two. I guess I'll wait a while for a C2d one.

But since the macbook has 2 gig cache wouldn't that make it faster than my current pc which does photoshop pretty well.

 

[Igantius]

I think that's a wise thing to do - as I say, the C2Ds are noticeably quicker and if you're using something like PS, it would be a big plus for you. Also, you won't to deal with the discolouration problem! BTW, that problem tends to affect the older MBs (something to do with the manufacturing process) and it something that Apple will/should fix.

I'd trust Igantius though.

I might use that as my signature

 

[urbanskywalker]

I think the price is fair with the extra ram and warranty. Photoshop will run fine. I ran CS on an imac 1.83 ghz imac and once it was running it was ok. CS3 will obviously be faster.

 

[showtime]

You should probably wait for a good core 2 duo macbook to come up. Ram prices has been dropping so 2gb isn't really that much. With leopard around the corner, a core 2 duo macbook would be a much better investment with little difference in price.