Safe to get a 15" MBP now, or wait a couple more weeks?

[akadmon]

I don't want to get burned by a price drop/spec change in a few weeks! Perhaps it's just the lowly MBs that will be getting this treatment soon, and the MBP will not be updated until early next year?

My problem is I need a new machine for my daughter, soon (like this weekend!). She started using my Mac Pro a lot after school over the past week, so I did some investigation as to why. Turns out her PC is overrun with malware and completely unusable! I'm fed up with rebuilding the stupid thing it every few months. Wish this didn't happen, since she's not starting college until next year and I really wanted to wait for the new MBPs. Sorry, baby, I'm not willing to share my Mac Pro with you for months on end while waiting for the MBPs to be updated

 

[shambo]

If you need one, then buy,
If you can wait, then wait.

 

[fibrizo]

I don't want to get burned by a price drop/spec change in a few weeks! Perhaps it's just the lowly MBs that will be getting this treatment soon, and the MBP will not be updated until early next year?

My problem is I need a new machine for my daughter, soon (like this weekend!). She started using my Mac Pro a lot after school over the past week, so I did some investigation as to why. Turns out her PC is overrun with malware and completely unusable! I'm fed up with rebuilding the stupid thing it every few months. Wish this didn't happen, since she's not starting college until next year and I really wanted to wait for the new MBPs. Sorry, baby, I'm not willing to share my Mac Pro with you for months on end while waiting for the MBPs to be updated

Solution B would be to make her a hack pro out of the computer she has or one with some new parts as upgrades.

http://lifehacker.com/5360150/install-snow-leopard-on-your-hackintosh-pc-no-hacking-required
http://lifehacker.com/5351485/how-to-build-a-hackintosh-with-snow-leopard-start-to-finish

Then save the money and buy a macbook pro next year during the back to school special and get a free ipod touch 3-4g then etc and save more cash. The macbook pro will undoubtly be updated by then.

In the mean time, you can have mac OS and not spend a fortune and not worry about malware.

Just a thought.

 

[apolloa]

Why not wait to see what the new Macbook's are like instead? Or has she GOT to have an MBP?

 

[Richard1028]

I really get a kick out of mac people just looking for lame excuses to spend money.

You won't need that macbook for another year AND you've got a PC that she's already comfortable using so keep doing what you're doing until you absolutely need to part with your money.

My kids PC was the same way... every 3 months I had to nuke it just to make it usable. I finally got smart and just made a disk image of the drive after a fresh Windows install. After that I'd give them a week;s notice to back up their crap to a thumb drive and 20 minutes later they were off and running again.

 

[Azathoth]

I really get a kick out of mac people just looking for lame excuses to spend money.

You won't need that macbook for another year AND you've got a PC that she's already comfortable using so keep doing what you're doing until you absolutely need to part with your money.

My kids PC was the same way... every 3 months I had to nuke it just to make it usable. I finally got smart and just made a disk image of the drive after a fresh Windows install. After that I'd give them a week;s notice to back up their crap to a thumb drive and 20 minutes later they were off and running again.

I can't really advise the OP - although the rumours don't really suggest anything new for the MBP line. I don't understand the problems that people have with windows. Default XP installation sucks, security wise, but do the following for XP and Windows 7:
*Fresh install.
*The first 'user' is normally given full admin priviledges, therefore call this user 'su' or root or something. Change the background colour to dark red to remind you you're running as admin
*Download the new Microsoft security essentials AV (free) - I previously used Spybot anti-malware.
*add a normal user, your kid or just yourself
*make this a limited account and *only* use this account. there are very few instances to login as root.
*Under Win7 (and vista, XP), installing a program will require admin rights, Vista and 7 will prompt for these
*In cases that you want to run as admin whilst logged in as a normal user:
Right click 'run as administrator' (XP has a similar command), will run firefox or whatever as admin in case you need to update.



Such a setup is *as secure* as a Mac (or linux) for the most part, because it uses the same concept of running with minimum priviledges for day-to-day stuff.

Of course once you install a program (as Admin) - if it has a virus then you will get infected, but this is true for Linux and Mac too! It's just that the latter have fewer viruses in the open - there is nothing inherent in the security model that provides significantly better protection than Windows Vista / 7.

I've been running XP and now 7 for 3 years like this, with no AV, just firefox and Spybot to prevent spyware. Even in the depths of the internet this has created *no problems*.