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Off to college!

H

hzamani

macrumors member
Original poster
May 1, 2010
97
0
Hi all,

For most of my life I have been using a PC and I figuered I might as well give apple a go since I find it easy to use etc...

Now I want my laptop to last me a looonnnggg time.

Should I get the basic macbook?
Basic macbook plus ram upgrade to 4gb?
Or the basic 13in macbook pro?


I was thinking the pro, but I'm not sure.

Should I wait to see if Apple decides to upgrade the mac?

Also, what's the best external HD for a mac?

What's the ipodtouch deal?

What covers are recommended? For the case, keyboard, palm rest, and screen?
 
Wait for the Back To School promo as then you get free iTouch, it should kick off within a month or so.

MacBook is fine for you, just upgrade RAM to 4GB later on. If you want to play games though, get the MBP as 320M is better. MacBook might be updated in WWDC but nobody knows, it won't be better than MBP though

Any ext HD will work
 
Budget is not a huge problem and at the same time it is.

I want something that will last me through college and then after.

Mostly will use it for regular college stuff.

The reason why I mentioned a mbp was because when I looked for the ram upgrades on the mb, it seemed better to buy the base mbp since it almost came even, but the extra add ons made it better.

I will be backing up on an external HD so thats why I might want firewire...

I sort of have my heart set on the mbp, but I'll get the mb if theres reason to.
 
hzamani said:
Budget is not a huge problem and at the same time it is.

I want something that will last me through college and then after.

Mostly will use it for regular college stuff.

The reason why I mentioned a mbp was because when I looked for the ram upgrades on the mb, it seemed better to buy the base mbp since it almost came even, but the extra add ons made it better.

I will be backing up on an external HD so thats why I might want firewire...

I sort of have my heart set on the mbp, but I'll get the mb if theres reason to.
Click to expand...

Get the MBP, saves you the hassle plus it has better GPU and FW800. 4GB RAM on MacBook would make the difference only 100$
 
Cases?
Keyboard protectors (can u remove the keys to wash them?)?
Palm rest covers?
Any other goodies I should know about?

OH, is there also a universal mini adapter? That has plugs for hdmi, dvi, vga, etc?
 
hzamani said:
OH, is there also a universal mini adapter? That has plugs for hdmi, dvi, vga, etc?
Click to expand...

AFAIK no but get the one you need. There are DVI to HDMI adapters as well so IMO DVI is the best one, VGA is old and crappy

Don't buy from Apple, they cost extra. You can get the same solution for <5$ from 3rd party
 
One last question.

For an external drive, does it have to be a mac one?

I don't know about the different types of formats, so is any hard drive okay?


And the covers/protection please!

Also, if I connected the external harddrive to my router, can I backup wirelessly?
 
For an external HD, you can get any, some just have to be reformatted, which is pretty simple. As far as cases go, Speck makes some nice ones, although I'm not sure about keyboard protectors, as I don't use one, but I think just about any will do the job.
 
How would one format it to be compatible with the mac?

So.. can it act wirelessly since its plugged into a router?
 
hzamani said:
How would one format it to be compatible with the mac?

So.. can it act wirelessly since its plugged into a router?
Click to expand...

Any of them work as they can be formatted to more OS X friendly format with Disk Utility. Don't pay the extra for "Mac version" as it's the same drive but it's formatted to HFS+

Depends on router but yes, you can
 
student

hzamani said:
Hi all,

For most of my life I have been using a PC and I figuered I might as well give apple a go since I find it easy to use etc...

Now I want my laptop to last me a looonnnggg time.

Should I get the basic macbook?
Basic macbook plus ram upgrade to 4gb?
Or the basic 13in macbook pro?


I was thinking the pro, but I'm not sure.

Should I wait to see if Apple decides to upgrade the mac?

Also, what's the best external HD for a mac?

What's the ipodtouch deal?

What covers are recommended? For the case, keyboard, palm rest, and screen?
Click to expand...

For a college student, I would recommend a regular Macbook. You don't need the extra power for anything.
 
thecheda said:
For a college student, I would recommend a regular Macbook. You don't need the extra power for anything.
Click to expand...

Yeah, but I'd like to have 4gb of ram...

And if I get a mb with 4gb it's a little less than the base mbp...

I mean I'd like to have a strong machine down the line and not fall too much behind the developments...

Let me ask this: Is it more bang for your buck to get mb and upgrade ram OR get the base mbp 13in?
 
hzamani said:
Yeah, but I'd like to have 4gb of ram...

And if I get a mb with 4gb it's a little less than the base mbp...

I mean I'd like to have a strong machine down the line and not fall too much behind the developments...

Let me ask this: Is it more bang for your buck to get mb and upgrade ram OR get the base mbp 13in?
Click to expand...

At this point, I would say base 13" MBP. I think the slightly faster processor is negligible, but the 320m is a far better GPU than the 9400m, and with the small difference in price, I would say the GPU, slightly faster CPU, aluminum case, FW800 port, and SD card reader easily justify the small increase in price, which I believe is ~$100
 
Anyway I can purchase a mbp with no interest financing?

Do university's offer this type of financing for computers?
 
by the sound of it, you will be happy you bought the mpb and have less regrets. if budget isnt a serious, serious concern, make yourself happy with the mbp. you'll be happy you did.
 
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