macbook pro 13 vs 15 or what else

[stdwest]

Hi everyone,
I really couldn't resist the urge to start a new thread. I have searched and seen similar comparisons/decisions but my situation is a little bit unique.
I'm an mba student, I have a windows laptop I bought a year ago and I wanna switch to a mac because even though this laptop has 4gb ram, its processor is weak and I'm sick of programs not responding- even firefox stops responding with 12 tabs open when it's the only program running.
I don't do heavy photo editing. I open multiple simple applications at the same time (outlook, browser (15 tabs open at the same time), skype, some music player, word, excel docs). My current pc can't handle this.
I barely can stand slow computers- the main reason I want a new machine.
I need to buy this pc in less than a month since I'll be leaving us till january and I don't wanna buy my mac from UK given the price different.
I'm considering 13 inch base and making a ram upgrade later, also 15 inch is appealing but I'm not sure whether I should spend the extra $600. I'm a student and I can use this money for something else.
I have looked the new macbook air but I didn't like the missing of an optical drive- I use it every once in a while and currently I don't have a wireless connection at home, I have to use cables to connect for at least one more month.
I can wait for 6 months for the rumored new design etc but it will be painful given my current pc's situation and I can always give my old pc to my bro. so if I end up buying something new in april 2012, the one I bought now won't go to waste.
So my question is what will u do if you were me? stick with the lame pc and wait, go for the 13 or 15 now?

 

[Kafka]

I say go 13" if you don't game, the price difference is huge.

 

[stdwest]

No I don't game. my only concern is screen size and resolution but it's looks more compact tan 15 inch model and honestly I didn't realize a huge difference in screen image quality with my bare eyes when looking in the store

 

[Navdakilla]

Your situation seems very similar to the one I had a little while ago.

Since you are a pretty big multitasker. I would say 4 gb ram at minimum, (it's easy to upgrade to 8, and also OSX uses less resources than windows so it might run fine with just 4)

A SSD might also be of interest to you.

I would suggest sticking with the 13 inch (if you don't mind the small size), even if you do you could dock it to a screen.

So get the 13, upgrade ram and HD (if you want)
and you should have a pretty fast and snappy computer!

 

[stdwest]

yes, and actually upgradeable ram is also another reason why I eliminated macbook air.
for hd, I think I will not do it now maybe somewhere down the road if I keep the machine.

 

[Young Spade]

No I don't game. my only concern is screen size and resolution but it's looks more compact tan 15 inch model and honestly I didn't realize a huge difference in screen image quality with my bare eyes when looking in the store

Get the baseline 13 inch MBP. That will be enough for what you're doing and will last you for years. If you want, you can up the RAM yourself for well under 100 bucks and buy/install a separate/new hard drive down the road as well.

It's a very versatile machine; if you aren't gaming, and given the tasks you state you do, I don't think the 15 inch would be a wise choice given the high price.

 

[stdwest]

Hi guys,
thank you for the advices, I bought the baseline 143 inch with lion preinstalled. so far no complaints, I'm using 3gb of the ram most of the time- I told you I multitask a lot and this doesn't include any photo editing application.
anyway, so far so good- except it overheads to 100F after 1 hour but it hasn't shut down itself because of overheating yet.

 

[njsa04playa]

Hi guys,
thank you for the advices, I bought the baseline 143 inch with lion preinstalled. so far no complaints, I'm using 3gb of the ram most of the time- I told you I multitask a lot and this doesn't include any photo editing application.
anyway, so far so good- except it overheads to 100F after 1 hour but it hasn't shut down itself because of overheating yet.

good decision, but you miht want to check out that overheating

 

[Young Spade]

Hi guys,
thank you for the advices, I bought the baseline 143 inch with lion preinstalled. so far no complaints, I'm using 3gb of the ram most of the time- I told you I multitask a lot and this doesn't include any photo editing application.
anyway, so far so good- except it overheads to 100F after 1 hour but it hasn't shut down itself because of overheating yet.

100 F? You know that's practically nothing right?

But you should change that to C as most people refer to that with temperatures. More relevant for machines... you know.