Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Macbook Pro 13" 2.26 in general usage

superatombomb

superatombomb

macrumors member
Original poster
Sep 14, 2009
48
0
hi,

I just ordered a macbook pro 13" 2.26ghz for school, however this means i probably will not get an iMac until mid 2010. This means i will have to use my macbook pro as my main computer for a while. Does anyone else use the macbook pro 2.26 as their main machine and how good is it at managing general usage (word processing, watching vids, etc...)

Thanks in advance, :p
 
I use it as my main computer with a Dell Desktop as a backup.. Does what I need it to do, word, surfing the web, light video. Upgrade the ram to 4 GB and the HD to 320 and it's a solid machine.
 
well i might do some photoshop, but thats about it. Btw, does the macbook pro 2.26 come with one stick of 2GB RAM or will i have to buy 2 sticks of 2GB RAM?
 
superatombomb said:
well i might do some photoshop, but thats about it. Btw, does the macbook pro 2.26 come with one stick of 2GB RAM or will i have to buy 2 sticks of 2GB RAM?
Click to expand...

it comes with 2 1gb sticks so you'll have to buy 2 2gb sticks.

As mentioned earlier, upgrade to 4gb ram and 320gb hdd and your good to go.
 
Richard1028 said:
And for this you need a 2nd computer?
Click to expand...

Seriously. My 2006 Core Duo MacBook is my primary computer and i work with Photoshop CS4 daily - never had a single hiccup. The OP will definitely not be needing an iMac - just buy an external monitor for 300 bucks if you want more screen space.
 
Well the thing is, i'm starting a graphic design course in high school, so i'll probably need to do more intensive work later on in the year. Also, my art class uses photoshop so i just needed to be sure that my macbook pro would not have any issues with photoshop.
 
How about facebook apps? Like the flash games. Is it sluggish? Accompanied with multiple sites opened and chatting in ym plus listening to iTunes? Can d mbp 13" 2.26 do all those without any sluggishness? Never tried a mac b4 but want to try it out soon. Thanks
 
It will work just fine. I think people underestimate how powerful a common dual core computer is these days.
 
superatombomb said:
Well the thing is, i'm starting a graphic design course in high school, so i'll probably need to do more intensive work later on in the year. Also, my art class uses photoshop so i just needed to be sure that my macbook pro would not have any issues with photoshop.
Click to expand...

I've been using a 2.2Ghz MBP with 4GB ram since mid 2007 and it's still a really fast computer. I've produced a lot of posters and the only limiting issue is screen size.
Get a high quality screen and an external keyboard and your set.
 
Good luck!:)
And enjoy completely your MBP. It's a very capable and fast machine.
You won't regret it.
Unless you really need a second computer, you'd have plenty of it. Just buy an exteral HD for backups, an external monitor, and eventually an external kb.
An upgrade that could be worth is an SSD intead of the HDD.
 
hrv888 said:
How about facebook apps? Like the flash games. Is it sluggish? Accompanied with multiple sites opened and chatting in ym plus listening to iTunes? Can d mbp 13" 2.26 do all those without any sluggishness? Never tried a mac b4 but want to try it out soon. Thanks
Click to expand...

Doing that still works just fine on my G4 Powerbook. This Mac is 5 years old and my main machine and don't have any problems. Does take 10 hours to encode a DVD tho :p.

So I think the MBP will be enough for you.
 
Im using a 13" 2.26 Ghz MBP as my only computer and it is working fine. And since I started using Plex I can play full-HD(1080p) movies to my projector without any stuttering. I got an Intel X25-M 160 Gb SSD in it, so boy its fast to startup (15 sec) and launch apps.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7C145 Safari/528.16)

I kinda wish I had gone with the 2.26ghz and put the $300 towards an SSD drive. That's more of a bottleneck than the CPU, IMO.
 
polaris20 said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7C145 Safari/528.16)

I kinda wish I had gone with the 2.26ghz and put the $300 towards an SSD drive. That's more of a bottleneck than the CPU, IMO.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I must agree that people should rather get an SSD then a CPU upgrade. My girlfriend got tired of my nagging on and on about if I should buy the SSD or not so she bought it for me as a gift, haha.
 
A new Macbook Pro laptop is faster than 99% of the world's computers, including desktops. Even more so with memory upgraded to 8GB or with a SSD, both of which are easy future upgrades.

It will competently handle 99% of your computing tasks. There are not many desktops that have the same power.

Yes there's more powerful desktops in the shops but not many people have them. Note I said computing tasks, not game-playing amusements.
 
khunsanook said:
The OP will definitely not be needing an iMac - just buy an external monitor for 300 bucks if you want more screen space.
Click to expand...
One thing I've learned since joining the mac community though... people here seem to have deep pockets and need it all. (Right away). :eek:
 
I was using the 13" aluminum Macbook 2.0 ghz until i fried it with water. Worked like a charm for doing all the things above you mentioned, id even go as far as to say it was pretty good at gaming (halo, sims 3). I just replaced it with the pro 2.26 ghz with only 2 gb of ram and use it for college, alot of music and movies and it works amazing. I think it should work just perfect for you and if you have the money to upgrade the ram, all the better!
 
OrangeSVTguy said:
Doing that still works just fine on my G4 Powerbook. This Mac is 5 years old and my main machine and don't have any problems. Does take 10 hours to encode a DVD tho :p.

So I think the MBP will be enough for you.
Click to expand...

I agree, my dad would run photoshop on a dual 800mhz G4 until just a year ago, he did it for his own website. Then he switched over to his 1.25ghz G4 Powerbook and used that until it started acting up and now he has a new 15in MBP.

This laptop is going to be leaps and bounds beyond what most kids are going to be using.
 
Another question regarding the 3.5mm hole in the mbp? do I need to use the headset that is like the one that came with the iPhone? So i can't use a headset with different 3.5 inputs (separate Audio and mic)?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back