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Macbook Pro 15inch vs. 17 inch!!COLLEGE PICK

R

rudyrox

macrumors member
Original poster
Feb 4, 2009
49
0
Whats the best college pick between the 2 macbook pros? 15 in or 17 in? i love the new batter life on the 17 and i was able to price each one out the same so its a matter of picking one. 15in i get teh 2.8 ghz for the same money as the 17 with 2.66 but i dont think that will make much of a difference for me. yet the 17 might be too big for college for my desk in class or seeing my professor over the screen. what do you guys think? thanks alot!:):)
 
I was in the same boat. Bought the 15'. I couldnt wait for the 17' to start shipping. I love it so far. Its great and u really dont loose any noticable amount of power in 2.53Ghz vs 2,66Ghz but u do have much more portability 5.4lb vs 6.6lb and the smaller size ofcourse.
 
lol majoring in pre-med and graphic design with photoshop and 3d software. i would be getting hte 2.8 or 2.66 processor since i love playing games too (good old flight sim :) ) so thats why im on the fence. i heard alot of ppl only got aobut 2.5 hours on the mbp 15 in so thats why i was iffy. i still dont need. convince me people of the mac world!!!
 
im not buying the mb. i have the money for the mbp so its jsut between the 15 or 17 lol
 
2.4Ghz 15". You don't want to be carrying the 17" around campus, it will be way too big. Don't bother with CPU upgrades, they make far too little difference to matter. Don't focus on gaming, it will be a mediocre-ly performed side duty at best. If you really want to game, get a MacBook and then build a gaming PC. Don't order it with any upgrades. If you want more RAM or a bigger/faster HDD/SSD, those can be had elsewhere for far less money.
 
Waste of money.

I'm a computer science major and I have a MacBook. A lot students have the MacBook Pro. I don't understand why all these incoming students feel the need to buy one in the economic climate that we are now, unless you have a large amount of cash to burn (in which case you do, give me some :D)

But really, you should give it some thought... I paid:
(MacBook 4,1) 2.4GHz, 4GB, 500GB... $1400.00

The 9400m in the MacBook Alu will be more than fine to do light 3d-rendering and photoshop. Upgrade it to 4GB/500GB or so like myself and save a bundle.. if you do your research, you'll see what a better value it is.

If you still go for a pro, 17" is just blowing money. Go the entry level 15".

EDIT: Plus, if you get a regular MacBook, you won't have to worry about your video card ******** out on you in a couple years. I know for sure as hell that my X3100 isn't going to burn itself up and quit working as soon as my AppleCare runs out.
 
ok what kind of battery difference u think ill see between the 2.53 and 2.8 ghz processor. again.. iv heard that the 15 got 2.5 hours on several test :/
 
rudyrox said:
ok what kind of battery difference u think ill see between the 2.53 and 2.8 ghz processor. again.. iv heard that the 15 got 2.5 hours on several test :/
Click to expand...

It'll only probably get 2.5 hours with everything chugging away, esp. gaming. If you're idle or doing light work (internet, e-mail, word, etc.) then you'll get at least 5 hours probably. I'd guess the difference between the two is half an hour. That's a pretty rough guess though (without any tests or anything to back it up... just past experiences).
 
i kno when gaming its brought down a lot. im talking about like surfing while IM;ing people. thats why i was looking at teh new 17 in
 
rudyrox said:
i kno when gaming its brought down a lot. im talking about like surfing while IM;ing people. thats why i was looking at teh new 17 in
Click to expand...

Both the 15"/17" will easily get you over 5 hours doing that kind of stuff.
 
rudyrox said:
i kno when gaming its brought down a lot. im talking about like surfing while IM;ing people. thats why i was looking at teh new 17 in
Click to expand...

In my experience, 4-5 hours is common, provided you don't crank the screen brightness absurdly high. (and turn off Bluetooth when you aren't using it). Here are my power settings, FYI:

Picture1-1.png
 
anyone notice that the 17 that sid it was shipping in 7-10 days now says 3-4 weeks?
 
rudyrox said:
i kno when gaming its brought down a lot. im talking about like surfing while IM;ing people. thats why i was looking at teh new 17 in
Click to expand...

I really like how so many people are giving you great advice here, yet you just ignore them.
Anyway, some people report that the 15" gets too hot during gaming and shuts down, so you should look into that. 2.5 hours is either with everything on or a faulty battery.
 
uh...no? lol im going with the 15 inch. i do acutally care about what people say on here because they know more about mac's than i do. thats why im on here. playing devils advocate isn't always bad :)
 
I would buy a Macbook 13" if I were you. 15" is even too big to carry around campus.

I'm going to be kind of forced to buy the 15" unfortunately, as I'm a CS student doing work with OpenGL, so I probably need the 9600. If the 13" had a 9600 I'd definitely go that route.

On campus you're going to want the smallest notebook possible. Netbooks are very popular. I just have a desktop at home for games and stuff.
 
Get AppleCare then... because the 9600m is not engineering correctly and will just simply break in a few years. They didn't use the proper kind of solder on the chip and it'll just come disconnected over time, and it'll only happen faster when you add heat from gaming and such.
 
Stachelsk said:
Get AppleCare then... because the 9600m is not engineering correctly and will just simply break in a few years. They didn't use the proper kind of solder on the chip and it'll just come disconnected over time, and it'll only happen faster when you add heat from gaming and such.
Click to expand...

This is also why I'm waiting for rev b. :D

I know they won't fix everything, but the less problems, the better...
 
When I was in college I had a 15" TiBook and that was about as big a machine as I'd want to carry around. If I had a 17" at the time I would have just left it at home, defeating the purpose of having a laptop. There were even times when I left the 15" at home wishing I had a 12".

If you plan on taking it to class or the library at all I'd avoid the 17" as it will be pretty unwieldy.

Also, chicks dig smaller laptops.
 
Phat Ham said:
When I was in college I had a 15" TiBook and that was about as big a machine as I'd want to carry around. If I had a 17" at the time I would have just left it at home, defeating the purpose of having a laptop. There were even times when I left the 15" at home wishing I had a 12".
Click to expand...

Yeah, now that I think about it, a few quarters ago I still had my 15" MBP rev a. It was very unwieldy. Definitely made me wish I had a smaller notebook.

I'd go for a Macbook, but my classes require me to demonstrate code in person, and there is no way I'm lugging in my Mac Pro to do complex rendering work.
 
wow, i thought the 13 was way to small for me and the 15 was perfect. hmmm lol. i mean i just returned my hp hdx 16t. it was an awesome machine. just not the os obviosuly and it turnedo n randomly and blah balh blah blah blah. but i was dancing on the idea of looking at sonys v mac? like the 13 inchs they had
 
rudyrox said:
wow, i thought the 13 was way to small for me and the 15 was perfect. hmmm lol. i mean i just returned my hp hdx 16t. it was an awesome machine. just not the os obviosuly and it turnedo n randomly and blah balh blah blah blah. but i was dancing on the idea of looking at sonys v mac? like the 13 inchs they had
Click to expand...
Wait, what? :confused:
 
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