Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Serious Advice/Insight Needed

D

Dedic8d2hockey

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 13, 2008
19
0
I am new to the world of buying and using a Mac, but not by choice! I am a sophmore in college and back when I was a sophmore in high school I asked my parents for a laptop for christmas, and made it pretty clear that I would STRONGLY prefer a Mac over a piece of crap PC. Well, the result was me getting a.... hold your breath... Compaq Presario 5195US. OH DEAR GOD! My dad later said that the Mac was only $100 more and that he wanted everything to be compatible... which I, and his brother (my favorite uncle), had both told him several times that Macs were compatible... Anyways, long story short, its time to step up and play with the big boys!

I am looking at the MBP 15.4" 2.4 with 4Gb RAM. I will be getting VMWare Fusion because I run some programs through XP that I need for work. I would go with the standard whitebook, but I hate the keyboard!

Here is where the question is: Should I go and use my education discount now and get the MBP with the iPod or wait until the new MB and MBP come out in september? I am really in a catch because of A: Specs/price and B: iPod.

Advice on what I should do would be appreciated.


One last thing... Should I order with just the 2GB ram and 3rd party upgrade? and what about applecare?
 
If you search the forums, you'll find dozens of threads on this discussion, with lots of useful opinions. It's always recommended to search before starting a new repetitive thread.
 
You should always get your RAM via a third party, Apple charges way to much. AppleCare is always worth getting, almost all of the repairs on the MBP are extremely costly. And that is completely up to you. If you'd rather have a new MBP, then get it now. If you'd rather have the current MBP and no iPod, then wait.
 
GGJ: I have looked through the forums and I will continue to do so, I figured my own thread would make it a little easier though.

Mystic: What is all known/assumed about the new MB and MBP? I am not sure if i need the pro if the new MB has the MBP keyboard. If they make a boost in the specs for the new MB, that may be all thats needed.

What can we assume is new on the MB and MBP?
 
Definitely buy RAM 3rd party - I bought mine from Crucial. It wound up being far cheaper than Apple, and was SUPER simple to install myself!

I would also recommend Applecare. Chances are that for anything that goes wrong on your mac, and eventually something will because that is that nature of laptops, it will cost more to fix than it would have been to just buy Applecare in the first place. :)

ALSO! If you like the MB/MBPs as they are now, buy it now. The free ipod is a pretty rad deal! I too spent quite some time on the "buy now? or buy later?" debate, and wound up just going for it now. Sure, with the updates you'll probably get better specs for the money, but there could potentially be changes that you don't like as well. At least that was the case for me - I heard the new MBs could potentially have an aluminum case instead of the current white (or black) plastic - I did not find this appealing so I just went for it now. I'm happy I did! ...At least until I find out what the upgrade is, haha. :D
 
When it comes to purchasing 3rd party memory, what am I looking for in terms of quality and price along with specs? this is one area i do not understand that much
 
Dedic8d2hockey said:
When it comes to purchasing 3rd party memory, what am I looking for in terms of quality and price along with specs? this is one area i do not understand that much
Click to expand...

To be honest, nor do I personally, but when I was planning on buying my MB and endlessly talking about what I should and shouldn't upgrade, my boyfriend (who has had a MB for a few years already and has learned a fair amount during that time) suggested that instead of upgrading RAM through Apple upon purchase that I buy 3rd party from Crucial. (As I mentioned in my last post here). At Crucial you basically just choose the model of your mac and there are options only as far as how much RAM you want, no other specs to worry about! As far as I can tell Crucial is good value, in that it's cheaper than Apple, works just as well, and I've seen several other forum members suggest it as well.

Hope this helps you out somewhat!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back