Questions before taking the plunge

[MortimerJazz]

Well first off, I'm new here so hello to everyone and thanks for taking the time to read this.

I'm another life-long PC user who is on the verge of buying my first Mac - a Macbook to be precise. I've got a few questions before I do though.

- Is 1GB RAM enough? I'm not going to be running any huge applications - I'll just be using the Macbook for work, surfing and your average video/image collage, but coming from a PC background I'd say that 1GB is the bare minimum you'd get away with now. Is it enough for a Mac though?

- Having a browse around the site, I see that the Buyer's Guide advises buying a Macbook "only if you really need one" as it's coming to the end of its cycle. I probably wouldn't be purchasing it until around Christmas or the new year anyway. Do you think any upgrades will have happened by then?

- Is the DVD player locked to a particular region? The only reason I'm asking is that I'm toying with the idea of buying the Macbook out in the US (I'm from London), and was wondering whether I'd have any problems with that whether it's from the DVD player or something else.

Well I think that's about it at the moment ... but I'm sure I'll think of other stuff.

Thanks alot for your help

 

[Schroedinger]

- 1GB should be "enough," considering RAM is like money and you can never have too much. My sister has a gig in her macbook and for normal usage she has never had a complaint.

- The great buy now or wait debate has rage on these pages for many many a moon. If the product seems like a good value to you now and will do what you want, get it. If you can wait and want more for your dollar (or pound or euro) then wait.

- I think the you can set the region on the DVD player yourself. I think it allows a limited amount of region changes before it locks one in, but if you want to set it once to a specific region it shouldn't be a problem.

Good luck

 

[motulist]

Don't worry about the DVD regions, I believe it's only the Apple DVD Player software that cares about your region, there are plenty of other DVD player softwares out there that don't care about regions. (iirc)

 

[acearchie]

VLC works region free for me!

I am typing from a macbook similar to the one you have descirbed and have had no problems with it at all!

My personal view is that there will be possibly a small bump to the macbook line and a new model added to the Macbook Pro line in janurary but then thats only me guessing and no one has any real clue!

1 GB ram is perfect and aslong as you only have one heavy application open at a time it can handle them pretty well aswell.

If you are simply out to have iTunes open, with safari and maybe Word or something then 1Gb is ample!

Hope this has helped you with your plunge!