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Should I sell my Macbook Pro??

L

likeavaliant

macrumors regular
Original poster
Oct 14, 2006
155
0
I have a 2.33 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Macbook Pro with 2GB Ram and 160GB Harddrive.

For quite some time I have been using it as a desktop machine, having it hooked up to my Dell 24" Ultrasharp. I hardly ever take it with me because a) i don't really need to take it anywhere, and b) i think it's too beautiful of a machine to worry about breaking or somehow damaging.
I bought this machine for design school, but that didn't work out the way I wanted it to.

Mostly I use it to do design, photo editing, video, music, etc.
I would love to get a Mac Pro, but it's quite out of my budget.

With my mobile machine not moving much, I figured that maybe I should get a desktop. I thought about a Mac Pro, but even after selling my Macbook Pro it would be way out of budget.
That's when I remembered the iMac!
I could get a refurbished 24" Alum iMac 2.8GHz, 2GB Ram, 320 GB Harddrive for 1200.
I can get just about 1200 or more out of my Macbook Pro.

For portability I would buy a netbook.

SO...
2.8GHz, 2GB Ram, 320 GB, 24" Glossy Screen Vs. 2.33GHz, 2GB Ram, 160 HB, 15" Matte Screen

What should I do?
 
likeavaliant said:
Why?
Click to expand...

Well not to put words in the other poster's mouth, but I also say keep the macbook pro.

1st, if the macbook pro does everything that you want it to do, I see no reason to upgrade, especially since you have a nice 24" display that it is attached to.

2nd, I think you are a little bit off thinking you can get at least $1200 for your current machine. I'm guessing that is late 2006, so it's several generations old already. So you will probably end up spending more on the upgrade than you intended.

If, however, the macbook pro is not keeping pace with what you intend to do, considering an upgrade is viable.
 
Keep the Macbook Pro. "You'd love to get a Mac Pro", your current machine is doing fine, so in my opinion an iMac would just be a half-assed solution that you'll just be wanting to replace anyways. It'd be more work for virtually no gain.
 
Max the ram out to 4 gigs, put in a nice large cloned 7200 rpm drive and keep using the macbook pro until it no longer meets your needs. Doing the above should help lengthen it's usable life a bit longer.

And before anyone says anything about the machine only using 3 or 3 point something gigs of memory, yes I know. But:

a. Apple itself has released support documents suggesting to do so to get full advantage of dual channel ram, http://support.apple.com/kb/TA38415?viewlocale=en_US

"The MacBook Pro will run fine with either a single memory slot filled or with both memory slots filled with two unmatched memory sizes (such as a 512MB DIMM in one slot and a 1GB DIMM in the other).

However, if both slots are loaded with an equal amount of RAM (such as two 512MB DIMMs of the same type), you can take advantage of the system's dual-channel memory architecture for an additional performance boost. With a dual-channel memory interface, both banks of SDRAM can be addressed at the same time, enabling MacBook Pro to reach a memory throughput of up to 10.7 GBps." Other people with the 2.33 have reported a noticeable performance difference between 3 gigs of non matched ram and 4 gigs of matched when using their machine for more intensive apps.

b. DDR2 ram is dirt cheap.
 
Sell the MBP and get a Mac Mini. Get the base model and upgrade the memory and HD yourself. That should net you some cash. I would keep the MBP before getting a refurb iMac.
 
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