Return a New MBP 13" and Upgrade?

[sage1]

I purchased a new MBP 13" w/160gb hd last night from my university computer store. I've opened the box and fired it up but now I really think I should have ordered one with the 320gb hd or bought the more expensive 2.53 model. They're closed today for the holiday weekend or I would have called them...my question is does anyone have any experience with trying to return one to a Edu store and upgrading? Does Apple give the Edu dealers some latitude on this? Thanks

I know I can go ahead and upgrade the hd and ram on my own but it's only a couple of bucks extra to buy it OEM...

 

[rgarjr]

you should have done your research more carefully before pulling the trigger and getting one..

 

[product26]

The hard drive is a user replaceable part. You can upgrade the drive for cheaper than apple would have charged & then have a spare 160gb to throw in an external enclosure for backups and such. You can always get a faster drive with more cache and something more reliable than the Fujitsu that they come with.

The difference in processor speed is not that huge. The difference in price IS. Your money would be better spent by going to www.macsales.com and upgrading your ram to at least 4gb.

In fact, if you order a hard drive from newegg and 4gb of ram from macsales.com you will have spent LESS than the difference in price between the baseline MBP and the next step up. Not to mention your computer will be WAY higher spec than the next step up.

I just purchased the 13" baseline MBP, swapped in a 320gb 7200 RPM seagate drive and have ZERO buyers remorse.

 

[Maxpilot]

I agree with the previous poster. I just received my new 13", 2.26 MacBook Pro and upgraded the HDD to 320, 7200 and 4 gig of RAM myself in about 30 min total (only because the screws are really small and I have fat fingers, plus I did not want to screw anything up). The new 2.26 is as fast as the 2.4 late 2008 uMBP. I love it. Keep it and enjoy. It's perfect for school. I am going to use mine to learn Mac programming. I installed VMWare fusion and I am doing Windows programming on it right now! Can't believe my MacBook Pro runs Windows faster than my PC!

 

[Ruahrc]

As I recall at my university's computer store computer purchases are non-returnable. Yours may be different but it has always been my experience that academic purchases were not returnable.

Ruahrc

 

[LowMach]

for $150 you can upgrade to 4gb's of crucial ram and a wd 500 gb 5400 hd.

frankly you will not even need more than 2 gb's of ram unless you are using vmware or doing video work.

you could probably sell the 2gb of ram and 160gb hd to recover some of the $150.

my 500 gb drive came with a free external case which now houses my 160gb drive.

imho: the only thing that you should even consider to exchange for is more screen real estate.

 

[TsuaSai]

If they do let you return it I would expect to have to pay a restocking fee. In which case your probably better off just putting that money toward the new HD.

 

[BaronvdB]

replace the hard drive and RAM yourself...now that you already opened it up they will probably hit you will a restocking fee making exchanging for the higher end model even more expensive

 

[iLog.Genius]

I find before buying a computer is spend the most you can on things you can't upgrade like a CPU. Once you got the basics down, upgrading HDD and RAM is cheap and easy.

 

[MacDawg]

I find before buying a computer is spend the most you can on things you can't upgrade like a CPU. Once you got the basics down, upgrading HDD and RAM is cheap and easy.

While I agree, I find that before buying a computer it is easier to buy the one that I really want and need instead of just buying one and then trying to return it less than 24 hours later.

Woof, Woof - Dawg

 

[Jigsawjammer]

Upgrade the HDD yourself and add ram if you think you need it. I saw the benchmarks awhile ago from someone who posted here and 4gb ram didn't make much difference, if at all, for basic tasks (don't know how you plan to use it and hopefully someone will post the link).

Also as someone posted that the new 2.26 is just as fast if not faster than the old 2.4 I think is true so don't sweat it.

 

[OceanView]

Upgrade the HDD yourself and add ram if you think you need it. I saw the benchmarks awhile ago from someone who posted here and 4gb ram didn't make much difference, if at all, for basic tasks (don't know how you plan to use it and hopefully someone will post the link).

Also as someone posted that the new 2.26 is just as fast if not faster than the old 2.4 I think is true so don't sweat it.

That's good to know, thanks!