MBP 2.5 question

[wchong]

hey guys,

i am starting med school in about 2 months and i was wondering if it'd be a good idea to get the 15" MBP 2.5 ghz now or wait until the WWDC to see if MAYBE there will be an update.

i'll be keeping this puppy with me for the next 4 years at least, and hopefully it will last me past residency.

i will probably keep the 2gb RAM, get glossy screen (images of body parts look more detailed ), 512 mb video, iwork (should i even get this?), remote, and 3 year warranty.

also, does office for mac work well?

 

[andrewdale]

hey guys,

i am starting med school in about 2 months and i was wondering if it'd be a good idea to get the 15" MBP 2.5 ghz now or wait until the WWDC to see if MAYBE there will be an update.

i'll be keeping this puppy with me for the next 4 years at least, and hopefully it will last me past residency.

i will probably keep the 2gb RAM, get glossy screen (images of body parts look more detailed ), 512 mb video, iwork (should i even get this?), remote, and 3 year warranty.

also, does office for mac work well?

As close as we are getting to WWDC now, I'd just wait for a couple months. That's what I did when Penryn was in question. I still have the 2GB of RAM, but I plan on updating it when I get the money up to 4GB.

As far as Office, I use it right now and it works pretty well. If you use Spaces at all, it tends to get stuck or move around or just glitch out a bit, but it's not hard to deal with.

But yeah, I'd at least wait a couple months. Others may disagree, but that's OK!

 

[forafireescape]

I doubt there'll be an update since there just was one. You're good to go. Get iWork instead of Office, IMO.

PS - congrats on med school! My roommate is pre-med and just took the MCAT so I'm familiar with the whirlwind

 

[wchong]

I doubt there'll be an update since there just was one. You're good to go. Get iWork instead of Office, IMO.

PS - congrats on med school! My roommate is pre-med and just took the MCAT so I'm familiar with the whirlwind

thanks! well i would love to wait a few more months but dang, school begins soon and i need it. i guess that settles it.

how's the Keynote program in iwork? better than powerpoint? i'll still need office b/c all the lectures are in powerpoint.

 

[forafireescape]

thanks! well i would love to wait a few more months but dang, school begins soon and i need it. i guess that settles it.

how's the Keynote program in iwork? better than powerpoint? i'll still need office b/c all the lectures are in powerpoint.

I have Office and iWork and I much prefer Keynote to Powerpoint. The effects are better and it's easier to use. I have friends that don't have Office and they just open their PP and Office documents in iWork.

 

[wchong]

I have Office and iWork and I much prefer Keynote to Powerpoint. The effects are better and it's easier to use. I have friends that don't have Office and they just open their PP and Office documents in iWork.

i'm sorry for all the dumb questions, but since i've never used iwork i don't know much about the formats.

iwork could open, create and edit word, excel, and pp files?

 

[Bobioden]

i'm sorry for all the dumb questions, but since i've never used iwork i don't know much about the formats.

iwork could open, create and edit word, excel, and pp files?

Yes it can. Open them, work on them, then save back to the format of choice. For my needs, iWork fits them all. There are some free Office suites you might want to try out. Neo Office, and Open Office to name a couple. I really liked Neo Office, but was already using iWork, and didn't need to have another Office suite.

 

[jjahshik32]

If your going to keep this mbp for 4 years I'd say might as well wait the extra few weeks and see first, I'm 100% sure they will update all the macbook/macbook pro lines with the montevina as apple uses Intel now and they have to keep stock of whatever intel releases.

Apple wont update the line just because they did it 3 months ago, they will update whenever they have the opportunity they have which is when Montevina is released and thats sometime in June.

As for me I could care less to upgrade to Montevina because I'll be upgrading to Nehalem anyways but if your going to keep it for the next 4+ years, I'd say wait the extra 3-4 weeks.

 

[Platonist]

I agree with the others regarding the month or so wait -- do it if you can, but if you simply can't wait I wouldn't worry too much about it.

As for the iWork vs. Office thing, Office 2008 is a much improved suite. I am grad student and as much as I like iWork it is not yet a replacement for Office if you plan to do academic work. I say that with certain reservations -- if you are going to print everything out (papers you write for courses, publication, etc.) then you may be just fine. However, an increasing number of professors, colleagues, and journals are utilizing email/digital submission and when formatting matters (which it will later in your career) Pages cannot export to .doc files exactly -- you will almost always have formatting issues. Word 2008 is actually a decent program, save the typical M$ bloat. As for Powerpoint, Keynote is hands-down the superior program. If one could get Word without the rest of the Office suite I would recommend that route (perhaps you can, but I haven't seen such a thing).

This is just my experience though, others may/will have different advice.

 

[jjahshik32]

I have both office 2004 and 2008 but for some reason I still only use 2004.. anyone else?