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Macbook Pro 2.6Ghz 15.4" 200GB 7200rpm

W

WindowsTraitor

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Dec 31, 2008
251
41
Hi,

As my names hints, I decided to jump the fence and finally get a mac.

I saw a good deal on one of apple´s authorized retailers for a Macbook Pro 2.6Ghz 15.4" 200GB 7200rpm matte screen.

The price is around 1640 after rebates, plus a bunch of free stuff after mail in rebate (printers, parallels etc)

The new macbook pro was about 2300.

I have the following concerns:

Is the 15" good for photography work? (i am not a pro, but it bothers "my eye" if it is not good)

Is the above set up considered better than the new 2.53Ghz? Does the DDR3 or the 1066 FB make a big difference?

And most important: is the set up I picked a good deal?

Finally, is the online retailer a trustworthy one? mac...l? There are almost 400$ worth of rebates.

Thank you.
 
WindowsTraitor said:
Hi,

As my names hints, I decided to jump the fence and finally get a mac.

I saw a good deal on one of apple´s authorized retailers for a Macbook Pro 2.6Ghz 15.4" 200GB 7200rpm matte screen.

The price is around 1640 after rebates, plus a bunch of free stuff after mail in rebate (printers, parallels etc)

The new macbook pro was about 2300.

I have the following concerns:

Is the 15" good for photography work? (i am not a pro, but it bothers "my eye" if it is not good)

Is the above set up considered better than the new 2.53Ghz? Does the DDR3 or the 1066 FB make a big difference?

And most important: is the set up I picked a good deal?

Finally, is the online retailer a trustworthy one? mac...l? There are almost 400$ worth of rebates.

Thank you.
Click to expand...

This model should be able to handle pretty much anything you throw at it photography/video. It probably is also slightly faster than the 2.53 model although im not sure about that one. DDR3 is slower than DDR2 in terms of latency but the FSB may influence things

1640 is about right for a machine with those specs

You didn't mention which retailer
 
You didn't mention which retailer[/QUOTE]

Hi, thank you for the reply.

The retailer is macmall
 
WindowsTraitor said:
Hi,

As my names hints, I decided to jump the fence and finally get a mac.

I saw a good deal on one of apple´s authorized retailers for a Macbook Pro 2.6Ghz 15.4" 200GB 7200rpm matte screen.

The price is around 1640 after rebates, plus a bunch of free stuff after mail in rebate (printers, parallels etc)

The new macbook pro was about 2300.

I have the following concerns:

Is the 15" good for photography work? (i am not a pro, but it bothers "my eye" if it is not good)

Is the above set up considered better than the new 2.53Ghz? Does the DDR3 or the 1066 FB make a big difference?

And most important: is the set up I picked a good deal?

Finally, is the online retailer a trustworthy one? mac...l? There are almost 400$ worth of rebates.

Thank you.
Click to expand...

That is an incredible machine and will be more than capable of handling any photography work that you can throw at it, especially if you are not a professional in this area.

The ddr3 ram is faster than ddr2 and the bus speed on the newer units is faster than the last gen mbp, but honestly, I would be surprised if the differences are things that you would notice.

Congrats and enjoy!!

BTW, that is a great price for what you've gotten from a reputable retailer.
 
Nvidia Faulty cards

I was just reading that the laptop in question has the Nvidia faulty card in it. (8600, there are some pages that claim that all are faulty).

Now, I read the official notice from apple and it says that they will replace the card if it breakes within two years of the date of purchase.

If that is the case, then buying one with the 8600 now should not be too bad.


Should I be concerned about this. My consideration is that I am getting a free upgrade on the one year warranty, but on the other hand I feel a bit cheated, because this information was not posted on the retailer´s website.

So the issue is:

Is this a situation to take advantage of: Lower prices, 2 years warranty etc

or

Am I getting a horse with a faulty heart doomed to die? (in the long run we all die right ?..)

Thank you again
 
Will work just fine

the price is very nice and I would say this laptop will do a good job for you for along time.
The NVIDIA card might be faulty but in the long run, Apple will replace it IF it fails so no worries there. You are fully covered. I would go with it and just max out the ram as far as possible. If you are into photography you will need it if you run Lightroom or Aperture with decent amounts of RAW images.


TIP: once you get your macbook, check the lcd panel type (search the forums) and get a calibrated screen profile or calilbrate it yourself ASAP.


But yes, good machine, go get it and enjoy.
//FlosseR
 
WindowsTraitor said:
So the issue is:

Is this a situation to take advantage of: Lower prices, 2 years warranty etc

or

Am I getting a horse with a faulty heart doomed to die? (in the long run we all die right ?..)

Thank you again
Click to expand...

The issue is really just an issue; you're not bound to have a doomed machine. I know many people with said doomed graphics cards and their computer is running fine.
 
The 8600GT problem is way over rated, only a percentage of GPU`s will fail prematurely, and Apple now warrantees the early 08 MBP logic board for 2years against GPU failure, my 2.4 early 08 Penryn has literally run at 100% for days without a problem.

If you are concerned get Apple Care, in the mean time my 2.4 is presently ripping 40Gb of DVD`s

Q-6
 
Until October, when the new MB Pros were released, your machine was state of the art. Some would argue it still is.

In the advertising world, art directors and film crews drooled over the specs of the very machine you've bought precisely because it was so broadly competent.

As far as the price goes, you got a very good deal. I believe that when they were new, your machine retailed for about 3k.

MacMall is widely respected as a vendor, though I've heard they're not that helpful if your machine is faulty. I've also heard their rebates take an awfully long time to process.

Still, assuming it arrives in good order - which it should - you're going to be very, very happy with the Mac you bought.

Welcome to the other side, pal. Life's better here.
 
I bought basically the same machine for $1499 about a month ago... just a different drive. The only difference was I got the 250G drive which I plan to eventually upgrade to 320G 7200rpm. I am a photographer and use this with a 30" LCD (Dell high color version). I am very happy with this machine. It is very fast, beating my old PowerMac G5 easily, as well as my Windows XP machine (both are now retired). For photography, the matte display to me works better. I also can directly connect my 30" LCD without a separate $100 proprietary cable for the new MBPs. And I use a Firewire 800 drive as my image working drive, and a Firewire 400 drive as my SuperDuper backup drive. The new machines only have one Firewire port. The difference in video cards between old and new would be undetectable for photographer work between the two machines, in my opinion. I upgraded it to 4GB of RAM which I recommend. This is a great machine for Lightroom and Photoshop. I use it occaisionally to do photography work on the laptop display, but usually am on the big 30". There is no comparison between the color reproduction as the Dell display covers a much wider percentage of the color gamut, but I've calibrated both and find that I can use the laptop when I need to.
 
Thank you all for the advice.

I finally got the MBP yesterday. I had ordered it on the 31st but due to an issue with the credit card, which was quickly resolved by one agent, the item was shipped on the 2nd UPS ground.

The experince was not flowless, but I must say that discounts and price offset that. I talked to 3 agents to solve the issue. 2 of them were clueless while the 3rd one was the problem solver.

The package was in great conditions, but reading some reviews of people saying that they got DOA machines, I was scared.


Once I opened the lid I tried to turn the computer, but no signs of life. I said to myself...Well there you go.


So I tested the battery and no light was coming on.

so I connected the charger, and the orange light came on. I waited 10 minutes, and then I turned the machine on. It went great from there on.

I will have the battery do a couple of cycles to see if there is a problem with it.

Is there anything else I can do, or should look at?


ps... this thing is fast....... actually real fast....

Paradox: I used the Microsoft LiveCashback to buy an apple computer.
 
Go to "about this Mac" "more information" "power" and see how many battery cycles are showing up?

I just got his machine and I must say that it is awesome. Matte screen is the win.
 
Graphic Card Not Faulty for 2.6Ghz

The issue with the graphic card isn't an issue for the 2.6 Ghz. I am buying the same machine from MacMall and had the same concerns from reading forum posts. Apple's website has a posting that tells you which machines could possibly have the problem and this isn't one of them. Hope that puts your mind at ease as it has for me.
 
sephcor said:
The issue with the graphic card isn't an issue for the 2.6 Ghz. I am buying the same machine from MacMall and had the same concerns from reading forum posts. Apple's website has a posting that tells you which machines could possibly have the problem and this isn't one of them. Hope that puts your mind at ease as it has for me.
Click to expand...

Can you link this posting you speak of for me please? Do you know offhand if the :apple:15" 2.5Ghz:apple: is affected, was gonna be buying that for my dad soon, wouldnt wanna get him to switch to mac and have a gpu meltdown right off the bat

Thanks
 
sephcor said:
The issue with the graphic card isn't an issue for the 2.6 Ghz. I am buying the same machine from MacMall and had the same concerns from reading forum posts. Apple's website has a posting that tells you which machines could possibly have the problem and this isn't one of them. Hope that puts your mind at ease as it has for me.
Click to expand...

Hmm.. FTR.

Firstly, there are no physical 'graphics card' in the MacBooks, it's a surface mounted chip on the logicboard. And to clear the facts, ALL 8600M GT's are considered defective but how many will actually develop an fault later remains a mystery... guess it'll depend on how hard you'll run the video card.
 
Well I am really happy with the laptop and I don;t really care about the video issue anymore.

The matte LCD screen is wonderful and is really fast. I was doing some video encoding today, and what use to take me 8 hours, now is taking me 1h: 53m.

I will just try to push the 8600m to the limit so it breaks before the 2 years :) warranty ends.

There are nice stories of people getting a unibody cause their mac was not fixable.

Regardless I am happy with mine and I would highly recommend it.
 
Hi,

It originally came with 2GB modules each. (the Video is 512mb)

I upgraded to 4GB. I got the corsair Low latency. VSA4GSDSKIT667C4. They had a rebate so it came to be 28$

I also got an Speck hardshell case and a moshi Silver protection pad.
 
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