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Should I upgrade my 18 month old 13.3 MacBook upgrade to 15" MacBook Pro

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dynabiker58

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 13, 2009
3
0
I currently have a 13" 2.2 mhz Mac Book White with 4 gigs ram and a 120 gig HD. I use VM Fusion 2.02 and run win xp pro at work. I would like to upgrade to the new MBP 15.4 inch with 4 gigs ram 2.53 mhz proccessor and 500gig HD7200 rpm hd...running parrallels 4.0. Will I notice signiificant performance over my current set up. Also the 13.3 inch screen at age fifty is a bit tough on the eyes.

Thanks...
 
Not to sound like the kid it says I am, but it's ghz, not mhz...

You will likely notice a fairly decent improvement, mainly because of shared vs. dedicated graphics, plus your eyes will be less strained. I imagine that you would be able to recuperate a decent price for the MacBook, so the upgrade would be not as costly.


But I'm just a young one...
 
The 2.53 ghz does not use the dedicated graphics card. It only has the 9400m so you will probably not notice a lot of difference in speed.
 
I wouldn't. 2.2GHz w/ 4GB of RAM should be enough for Fusion. The only thing I would do is just upgrade the HDD to the maximum it can support. Also, it's personal preference, but I would stick with Fusion and not go with Parallels. I find Fusion does a better job with virtualization and in some cases more useful.
 
dynabiker58 said:
Also the 13.3 inch screen at age fifty is a bit tough on the eyes. Thanks...
Click to expand...

The 15" has more pixels (desktop space) but the pixel size and dpi is pretty much the same as the 13", therefore your fifty year old eyes aren't gonna be any happier with the 15" screen.

The text size on the 15" MBP and 13" MBP will be virtually the same.

MBP 15" = 1440x900, pixel pitch of 0.231mm (110dpi)
MBP 13" = 1280x800, pixel pitch of 0.224mm (113dpi)

MBP 15" = 1440x900 = 1,296,000 pixels
MBP 13" = 1280x800 = 1,024,000 pixels

And the text on the 17" MBP is even 15% smaller due to it's higher resolution.

MBP 17" = 1920x1200, pixel pitch of 0.191mm (133dpi)
MBP 17" = 1920x1200 = 2,304,000
 
iLog.Genius said:
I wouldn't. 2.2GHz w/ 4GB of RAM should be enough for Fusion. The only thing I would do is just upgrade the HDD to the maximum it can support. Also, it's personal preference, but I would stick with Fusion and not go with Parallels. I find Fusion does a better job with virtualization and in some cases more useful.
Click to expand...

Will second the use of Fusion over Parallels. Have had issues with Parallels that I never have with Fusion.
 
Faster HD should make it faster

The 7200 RPM HARD DRIVE SHOULD ALSO MAKE IT FASTER AS WELL A FASTER PROCESSOR SPEED...
 
Going to Order with these specs

15.4 Mac Book Pro 2.53 4 gig ram 320 gig 7200rpm HD.

Anybody want to buy an MacBook 13.3? Wih 4 gigs of ram.
 
Does that old Macbook have intel graphics? The nVidia integrated chip is apparently infinitely better than the intel one, so that's good in and of itself.

Nonetheless, I am of the firm belief that the 15 and 17 inch MBPs are insanely overpriced, so you should not buy them. The 13.3 inch MBPs, however, are actually quite reasonable, considering that they technically fall into the "ultraportable" catagory...
 
Schraiber said:
Does that old Macbook have intel graphics? The nVidia integrated chip is apparently infinitely better than the intel one, so that's good in and of itself.

Nonetheless, I am of the firm belief that the 15 and 17 inch MBPs are insanely overpriced, so you should not buy them. The 13.3 inch MBPs, however, are actually quite reasonable, considering that they technically fall into the "ultraportable" catagory...
Click to expand...

Yep, that MacBook uses the Intel X3100 graphics.
 
dlhuss said:
4.5 pounds isn't ultraportable, sorry.
Click to expand...

Maybe subnotebook is the right term. If you look on, say, Dell or HP's sites, they classify sub 5 lbs as ultraportable/ultralight.

And within that catagory (e.g. notebooks in the 4-5lb range), the Macbook Pro 13 inch is sorta competitively priced---sure the video card could use some work compared to HP Dv3t, but the rest of the specs + the build quality ostensibly make up for it.

The 15 inch, on the other hand... and don't even get me started on the 17...
 
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