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MacBook buy now or wait for montevina ?

Aaargh!

Aaargh!

macrumors regular
Original poster
Mar 21, 2007
108
119
I'm planning to buy a MacBook in the near future, should I wait until Intel releases Montevina (14 july) or not ? (I'm willing to wait one or two months more if Apple will upgrade the MacBooks soon after Montevina's release) or is Apple expected to first upgrade the MBP and the MB a few months later ?
 
I say just go for it now... To me the extra performance boost is not worth the wait. The current Macbooks have more than enough power. Your real concern should be a design change, which is possible in the coming months.
 
Aaargh! said:
I'm planning to buy a MacBook in the near future, should I wait until Intel releases Montevina (14 july) or not ? (I'm willing to wait one or two months more if Apple will upgrade the MacBooks soon after Montevina's release) or is Apple expected to first upgrade the MBP and the MB a few months later ?
Click to expand...

I disagree with buying now unless you need to. Montevina is supposed to have a lot of newer features like WiMax and a new graphics card as well as a bus speed update. Overall it will be much better I think but if you need it now go ahead and buy it but if you are waiting just realize that the update will most likely not happen for a little bit after Montevina is released so you will most likely be looking at late July-August.
 
Aaargh! said:
I'm planning to buy a MacBook in the near future, should I wait until Intel releases Montevina (14 july) or not ? (I'm willing to wait one or two months more if Apple will upgrade the MacBooks soon after Montevina's release) or is Apple expected to first upgrade the MBP and the MB a few months later ?
Click to expand...

July 14th is the official shipping date of the processors, not when Apple is expected to incorporate them into their machines. I wouldn't hold your breath to see them anytime before early September. From then on, probably into October you will see the updates, which in all honesty will be minor until the Nehelem updates in [probably mid-] 2009. If you feel like waiting a few months isn't a problem you can do so, but otherwise I say buy now and enjoy because the difference between the two revisions will be modest...
 
Mjmar said:
I say just go for it now... To me the extra performance boost is not worth the wait. The current Macbooks have more than enough power. Your real concern should be a design change, which is possible in the coming months.
Click to expand...
That's the point, Montevina won't be a little performance upgrade, the graphics is supposed to be 3 times faster, faster bus speeds and DDR3 ram, etc.
 
If you need it now, buy it now. The current machines are quite excellent, and the fact of the matter is there's *always* going to be something newer/better/faster that's right around the corner.
 
The new Macbooks will also have the Air's LED screen. To me that alone is worth the wait.

The current Macbook LCD screen is horrible. Too dark compared to LED. For me I am waiting. It's not really the hardware that I am worried about because the current Macbooks have great power with 4 gigs of ram too.

But I would love to have a new Macbook that looks like a smaller version of the Macbook Pro.

Aluminum casing with LED screen is all I want. Can't wait. I have the money ready to go but I will not take the plunge until I see the new Macbooks.

My current computer will have to do for now. Sucks too, because I am using a PC and hate everything about it.
 
The full montevina chipset is not going to be shipping until August. Apple may release something then (unlikely) or three months later, who knows. Apple will NOT be shipping anything with WiMax in the next 18 months, so if you're waiting for that, be prepared to wait a lot longer. As well, the integrated graphics in montevina CAN be a lot faster, but you have no idea what version of the chipset Apple will actually use, so discount earlier statements about "three times faster". DDR3 is also unlikely on the Macbook for a long time due to its present cost.

So...basically what will come out of the montevina upgrades are slightly faster processors and likely slightly faster graphics. If you're willing to wait for the bump, have fun, but if a machine that is shipping now will meet your needs, go ahead and go for it.
 
I'm in a somewhat similar situation. I need a notebook in the near future, but don't feel like buying a Macbook if there's going to be a major design overhaul. Especially the Pro because the old powerbook-esque housing is dated...not that any of the that impacts the performance of the actual product itself.
 
you read my mind

Alx9876 said:
The new Macbooks will also have the Air's LED

But I would love to have a new Macbook that looks like a smaller version of the Macbook Pro.

Aluminum casing with LED screen is all I want. Can't wait. I have the money ready to go but I will not take the plunge until I see the new Macbooks.

This is exactly what I want. To be honest the performance of my current PC (a Core Duo (note even core 2:eek:) 1.66Ghz with 512MB of RAM is fine for me performance wise. I want an improved form factor. Aluminum case, lighter, LED screen and the probably single improvement i'm looking forward to in Montevina being better battery life.

Honestly I think it's time for apple (and other computer manufacturer's) to realize that ramping up CPU processing power benefits the average user only so much. Intel has already started to realize this. What we want is better battery life and more reliability in our machines. That would make me happy:D
Click to expand...
 
lupin..the..3rd said:
If you need it now, buy it now. The current machines are quite excellent, and the fact of the matter is there's *always* going to be something newer/better/faster that's right around the corner.
Click to expand...

Does anyone have the URL of the web site that tracks by product type when updates to Apple products are due? I can't seem to find it...
 
I go to college in mid August and I was wondering if the new Montevina chip will come out in time. I am probably getting the basic macbook and that as of right now does not have a big enough hard drive. Is it worth the wait considering my time frame?
 
dabills80 said:
I go to college in mid August and I was wondering if the new Montevina chip will come out in time. I am probably getting the basic macbook and that as of right now does not have a big enough hard drive. Is it worth the wait considering my time frame?
Click to expand...

Bump this post...same situation for me.
 
if you can wait up to 8 weeks then wait. within that time you get a faster GPU for sure, maybe larger HD, maybe even a case redesign. waiting a few weeks isn't that bad.

if you need it now then go and buy because the above mentioned changes won't be that big either. the gpu will still be low end and the case redesign is pure speculation anyway.

i don't need a macbook so i'll wait.
 
andiwm2003 said:
if you can wait up to 8 weeks then wait. within that time you get a faster GPU for sure, maybe larger HD, maybe even a case redesign. waiting a few weeks isn't that bad.

if you need it now then go and buy because the above mentioned changes won't be that big either. the gpu will still be low end and the case redesign is pure speculation anyway.
Click to expand...

It's a tough call for me, because I have budgetary funds that expire on 8/31 :( The Back to School edu promo would seem to be to get rid of MacBook and MacBook Pro stock, wouldn't it? It ends 9/15.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/4A102 Safari/419.3)

LED screen and case redesign are pure speculation. Ditto wimax. All we know for sure is better fsb (*small* performance bump) and new graphics (but what apple's drivers will be like is anyone's guess). So wait if you want, but do it with realistic expectations.
 
do you think they will be out before the education promo ends? even just the redesigned ones?
 
Short of an educated guess, everything contained in this post is speculation: WiMax, LED screens, case redesign. None of it is definite. If you need a new notebook now then so be it. Otherwise, wait for a rev. A to get buggy with.
 
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