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Should I sell my i5 Macbook Pro and buy a Macbook/Dell XPS?

B

Brandon263

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Sep 12, 2009
404
37
Beaumont, CA
I found someone who will buy my Macbook Pro 2.53 GHz i5 for £1141 - $1750 - (I bought it for $1925). Should I sell it and buy a 13 inch MacBook Pro 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo for £850? Factors to consider are:

1. I semi-need the money

2. I had a 13 inch Macbook before, and the screen size really irritated me (you can't have two or three windows on the screen at the same time, which I need to do for papers, etc.,)

3. The price agreed on for the i5 includes accessories (Apple keyboard, laptop shell, and keyboard cover)

4. The i5 isn't that much faster for the stuff I'm supposed to be doing (schoolwork), though it is significantly faster for games, etc., which I really shouldn't be playing

5. I'm underwhelmed by the performance of the i5 and feel the Macbook would just be the same

6. The i5 is shiny, and is a kinda cool status symbol...:p

Or should I just sell the i5 and (gasp) buy a Windows laptop that has the same specs and screen size as the i5 but sells for significantly less? (I'm thinking of maybe buying a Dell Studio XPS, with similar specs to the i5, but for £699)

HELP!!!
 
If you need the money, sell it.
If you sell it, get a 13 inch Macbook.
But if the 13 inch Macbook is too small for your taste, and using a display is not an option, go for that Dell.




:)
 
sell it and get the macbook. since you are underwhelmed with the i5, you can use transaction to give you the excuse to get a new macbook pro next spring when the updates should be should be much better (perhaps, usb 3, sandy bridge, default hi-res for 15).
 
Thanks for all your advice.

I think I can get a good deal on a Dell XPS 1640 and I need the money, so I'm going to sell my i5. This is probably the wrong place to ask, but how does the XPS1640 compare to the 2.53 i5?

The model I'm looking at has Core2 Duo 2.80GHz with 6MB Cache, 4GB ram, 128GB Solid State Disk, RADEON HD 4670 Graphics with 1GB RAM and 15.6" 1920x1080.

Do you guys know any other (preferably Apple) laptop with similar specs that goes for around £800?
 
Brandon263 said:
Thanks for all your advice.

I think I can get a good deal on a Dell XPS 1640 and I need the money, so I'm going to sell my i5. This is probably the wrong place to ask, but how does the XPS1640 compare to the 2.53 i5?

The model I'm looking at has Core2 Duo 2.80GHz with 6MB Cache, 4GB ram, 128GB Solid State Disk, RADEON HD 4670 Graphics with 1GB RAM and 15.6" 1920x1080.

Do you guys know any other (preferably Apple) laptop with similar specs that goes for around £800?
Click to expand...

That's old model. Buy one of the Dell Studio 15 models, they have new iX CPUs and ATI 5xxx GPUs
 
Hellhammer said:
That's old model. Buy one of the Dell Studio 15 models, they have new iX CPUs and ATI 5xxx GPUs
Click to expand...

OK, so here's my thinking (with a roughly £700 budget in mind):

1. The CPU on the new Studio is faster (i5-520M, which goes up to 2.93 GHz compared with a 2.80 GHz P9700 processor)

2. But the old 1640 I want to buy comes with an SSD (although it's only 128 GB)

3. The old 1640 also comes with a nice 1920x1080 display (compared with a 1366x768) on the new one; an extended 9 cell battery, a better WiFi card that includes Draft-N, bluetooth, a backlit keyboard and a higher (2.0 MP webcam)

Conundrum!

And it looks like my Macbook Pro is only going to sell for £920 on eBay. I'm screwed.
 
J&JPolangin said:
...in your first post you say someone's going to buy it, then here you have it listed on ebay... is your location in CA? = why are you listing in GBP?
Click to expand...

Yeah, it's kinda complicated, I'm on exchange in the UK, and the first eBay auction was won by a 0-feedback fraudster who said he (she?) was with MSF in Australia and needed the laptop shipped elsewhere, etc. Fortunately the latest auction ended with a £1060 offer from a legit British buyer.

I want to go to China (!) in September and could really use the money. I know switching to Windows will always be a downgrade ;), but the Dell laptop I want to buy seems reasonably well spec'd, so I should be OK with it for the next year or so. I also heard you can install Mac OS on a PC...
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Brandon263 said:
Yeah, it's kinda complicated, I'm on exchange in the UK, and the first eBay auction was won by a 0-feedback fraudster who said he (she?) was with MSF in Australia and needed the laptop shipped elsewhere, etc. Fortunately the latest auction ended with a £1060 offer from a legit British buyer.



I wish I could, but I want to go to China (!) in September and could really use the money. I know switching to Windows will always be a downgrade ;), but the Dell laptop I want to buy seems reasonably well spec'd, so I should be OK with it for the next year or so. I also heard you can install Mac OS on a PC...
Click to expand...

I think you'll be fine with the Dell. Personally, if I were you, I'd rather go to China + take the powerful dell. Don't even bother with installing OS X on it though.
 
do you have a link to the 1640 that you are looking at by any chance? I cant find anything like you describe for that price and am also interested in it.

Thanks
 
ag227 said:
do you have a link to the 1640 that you are looking at by any chance? I cant find anything like you describe for that price and am also interested in it.

Thanks
Click to expand...

http://ndc.co.uk/#GBP

http://www.dell.co.uk/outlet

wordoflife said:
I think you'll be fine with the Dell. Personally, if I were you, I'd rather go to China + take the powerful dell. Don't even bother with installing OS X on it though.
Click to expand...

BLASPHEMY!!! I don't think I could possibly live without Mac OS X, if only for the practical reasons that I backed up my files using Time Machines, am more used to Mac OS X and have purchased hundreds of dollars worth of apps.

Hopefully I will be able to do the hackintosh or whatever it's called on the Dell. Although it's no Macbook Pro, it does seem like it's pretty powerful and nice to look at. (It will get better once I install Mac OS on it :D)
 
Brandon263 said:
http://ndc.co.uk/#GBP

http://www.dell.co.uk/outlet



BLASPHEMY!!! I don't think I could possibly live without Mac OS X, if only for the practical reasons that I backed up my files using Time Machines, am more used to Mac OS X and have purchased hundreds of dollars worth of apps.

Hopefully I will be able to do the hackintosh or whatever it's called on the Dell. Although it's no Macbook Pro, it does seem like it's pretty powerful and nice to look at. (It will get better once I install Mac OS on it :D)
Click to expand...

Its not worth it. First do some research and see if you'll have all the drivers you need. I haven't heard of many Dells that are able to run OS X without a problem
 
wordoflife said:
Its not worth it. First do some research and see if you'll have all the drivers you need. I haven't heard of many Dells that are able to run OS X without a problem
Click to expand...

Oh, you meant I shouldn't bother because it's too hard/it probably won't work?I thought you meant that Windows is fine to use and I don't need Mac OS. I'll try and find the drivers; apparently there's something called iVanilla that makes it possible to install Mac OS X on any Core i3/i5/i7 computer.
 
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