Sorry for the Tolstoy, but it's late, and I have nothing better to do before bed.
Well, it seems that every time I come on these forums I find some sort of reason to put-off buying a Macbook Pro. =(
That's because this place has become rife with concern trolls ever since Apple really started taking off into the mainstream. Ignore them.
Anyways, my dad was planning to get me a 17'' MBP with a High Def. (Widescreen?) matte display... I kind of need it this year for making my Portoflio for the AP Art Portfolio
Cool, you'll like it.
and I kind of wanted to have it for note taking at school...
I hate to nit pick but it won't happen. Every kid says this,
very few do it. You'll start out doing it to impress everyone in class and then it'll wane, and you'll stop taking it 3 weeks later. Lugging around a 17" laptop is not conducive to note taking. You don't need to toss around qualifiers like that, damn it. You're an art student, you want a large display, a mobile computer, done. You want to take notes, snag a cheap used 13" MB or one of the old G4 12" Powerbooks. Or you buy an old Fujitsu or some old, used ultraportable with an 9-13" screen All you're going to do on it is type. Or stick to pen and paper.
So I was wondering, should I buy it now? Or should I wait indefinitely until it comes out as some of you think it will? =(
First of all, the Back to School sale El Jobso puts out every Aug-Sept is just a way of clearing inventory before they announce the upgrades. And that's not a bad thing. Students don't need state of the art tech. They're students. So luring them into buying models that are on the way out the door production-wise is fine with me.
To be completely honest, the spec bumps during revisions are
usually quite minor, except when there's a major technology transition, such as processor architecture, motherboard architecture, or similar major hardware leaps. Revisions or shrinks are not a reason to mortage your house and buy all new computers.The fanatic fan-bots that unfortunately lurk these forums always hail them ALL as the leap in technology, when in fact they rarely are. Processor architecture jumps, those are big deals. 2.16Ghz to 2.2Ghz bumps are not. DDR2 Ram to DDR3 Ram, somewhat of a big deal, DDR2 667 to DDR2 800, not so much.
We're swinging into the end of the Core2Duo cycle as Nehalem begins taking over, but you're not going to see the Nehalem mobile variant until the absolute earliest Jan-Feb 2009, and more likely Q3 2009 (which is the official statement).
Getting down to the laptop,
- Your current Processor choices are 2.5 or 2.6Ghz. They are already Penryn, there is no die shrink or major speed boost. You might see the clock speed choices rise to 2.6 and 2.8 respectively, but that's likely it.
- Memory wise, you might see them jump to DDR3 since the prices have come down. Intel started up their validation back in April-May and you can already buy the modules. If they stick with DDR2, I'd bet they stay with 667, as bumping to DDR2-800 would be a complete waste if they're going to jump to DDR3 5-6 months later. The only reason I can see them waiting on the DDR3 is because of the timings.
- Hard drive choices might keep the 250GB 5400 rpm, drop the 300GB 4200 rpm in favor of a 5400 or 7200rpm 320GB and add an SSD option (with their traditional crazy markup) Translation = Want an SSD? Buy your own and swap.
- The keyboard layout will stay the same and they'll probably add the larger trackpad from the Air.
- The NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT with 512MB will be tossed since those GPUs are falling like flies at the moment, and it's out of date. The 9600GT is a possibility as is the ATI 4850 mobility offering. If they choose the 4850, you'll see much bigger gains than you will if they choose the 9600GT or even a 9800GT mobile variant.
That's it.
- Processor wise, it's not worth it to wait, unless you really honestly need that extra 0.2Ghz. 0.2 Ghz will affect resale very little to not at all. Particularly when it's the same chipset. They'll look at hard drive and video card before anything else. And people who base their entire reason for buying or upgrading on a 0.2Ghz speed bump need to be sent to a work camp.
- Memory wise, it'd be tempting. Since the laptop DDR2 they use is 667, and the DDR3 mobile starts at 1066, you'd notice the difference even with lousy timings.
- Hard drives is a moot point since you can upgrade yourself down the line if you need one that's larger or faster. And with SSD prices dropping like a rock anyone who buys one from apple with their inflated price is an absolute moron. If the MPB continues to use a standard 2.5" drive slot, any of the new, much cheaper SSDs will work.
- Trackpad, that's something you have to decide whether you want. As an art student you'll be manipulating a lot of images, and the trackpad, with all its pince/stretch/rotate/etc functionality would server you quite well. But again, it's not confirmed it'll be showing up. (But likely, as many people think)
- Video card wise, unless you're running heavy 3D apps like modeling, animation, etc. you won't see a huge difference. And gaming. But if you expect to do any serious gaming on a laptop, Apple isn't for you. If it's just photography and Photoshop, the upgraded video card won't help you.
That being said, the video cards determine a lot when it comes to resale value on them, due to the fact that this is the component that usually gets the biggest bump between revisions. And with the possibility of DDR3 being added, that will add a substantial barrier between resale values of older models
I'd give it a wait, simply based on the possibility of the trackpad, system memory, and even the video card upgrade. You can go 3-4 weeks into school using an old clunker and get by just fine. Many, many students use old craptops for their entire 4 years, so suck it up nancy and stop with this "gotta have it now" crap. If you absolutely have to have a computer the first 2 weeks of class, buy some POS off craigslist to use and then resell it once you have the MPB.
.
