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Which 15" MBP??

M

moredrunkmale

macrumors member
Original poster
Aug 22, 2010
68
0
im so torn between the low end 15" with a 128 ssd and Hi-res for £1538, or the higher end 15" with just the Hi-res screen for £1640.

Which will be better for me considering;
- i dont do any video editing/cad/intense gaming or anything like that
- i do a little logic pro audio production and fairly heavy aperture work
- i like to have lots of stuff open at once; 60 + browser tabs, blu-ray MKVs, iwork, itunes, ical, mail, etc

Also with regards to the SSD, i heard 128=110GB of free space out of the box, this true?

also can you run bootcamp W7 off an extrenal drive, SSD def wont have enough space for dual partition
 
I went with the high end 15" with the 7200 rpm HDD as the only BTO. The reason I did this is because I do some light PC gaming and wanted to have a somewhat-future proof machine. If I were you, I would lean more towards the lower end 15" if you never do any gaming or anything like that.
 
Go for the higher end machine; 128GB is not a lot of space to play with, and you are better off paying less for third party SSDs.
 
well because of my HE discount going from 500GB 5400 to 128GB SSD is only an additional £138.

plus i def need the Hi-res screen, im a screen space hog
 
Do you need an optical drive? If not, you can replace it with a second HDD yourself. Get the SSD for the OS and apps, and then install Optibay and a big HDD for file storage. Thunderbolt external HDDs should also start showing up soon, and offer really fast transfers, so that's an option if going without an ODD isn't a possibility.

alphaod said:
Go for the higher end machine; 128GB is not a lot of space to play with, and you are better off paying less for third party SSDs.
Click to expand...

You won't pay less. On the machines with standard 750GB HDDs, the upgrade to the 128GB SSD is pretty cheap - much cheaper than buying a third-party SSD.

That said, if the OP decides to go the Optibay route, than buying a third-party SSD might make more sense...
 
Demosthenes X said:
You won't pay less. On the machines with standard 750GB HDDs, the upgrade to the 128GB SSD is pretty cheap - much cheaper than buying a third-party SSD.
Click to expand...

You must not forget the 750GB HD. When you buy the SSD from Apple, you only get the SSD. 3rd party route gets you an SSD and a 750GB HD.
 
note the 750 is the HD in the HIGH end 15", i would no way be able to afford high end 15" AND SSD.

Its low end 15" + SSD or,
high end 15" + 750 GB HD
 
I am in a similar quandary as the OP, if i use my student discount i would get the high end 15 and then the upgrade price for a 128 SSD would be only $90, then I could by a third party 500-750 7200 rpm drive for about $85-100. If i got that route I would actually spend less because a 128 SSD would be around $250. the only advantage to getting a third party SSD is that it would be faster than the one apple would put in there but then at that point how much faster can you "really" get.
 
yea me too im between getting the Lower end 15in with 8gb of ram and a 128gb ssd or going to the higher end getting 4gb of ram and getting the 128 ssd (i dont feel like replacing the ram seeing as I am getting this as a gift from my grandparents for graduation but i need it to be under 2500$ is the gaming really that much worse on the lower end. Oh and i also have a 2TB external so im just using that for extra space
 
I'm getting a low end 15" and the high res screen. I'll upgrade the RAM when I feel the need to and get a SSD drive at some point.

I don't think for what I do (Photoshop etc) is going to be a big problem given the power of this beast! Games are best left for consoles.
 
Save your money and upgrade the SSD later, and get a higher resolution screen. Trust me, as long as you don't have problems putting in a third party drive, it's very worth it. There's almost no benefit to the higher end over the lower except for the graphics chips.
 
Hellhammer said:
You must not forget the 750GB HD. When you buy the SSD from Apple, you only get the SSD. 3rd party route gets you an SSD and a 750GB HD.
Click to expand...

Or you could get the Apple SSD and a 3rd party HDD... All for less than buying a 3rd party SSD.
 
Shady Pioneer said:
I'm getting a low end 15" and the high res screen. I'll upgrade the RAM when I feel the need to and get a SSD drive at some point.

I don't think for what I do (Photoshop etc) is going to be a big problem given the power of this beast! Games are best left for consoles.
Click to expand...

i think i will most likely do the same, i MAY get the 128GB SSD, but i really need to see. I have to use W7 so not sure if you can bootcamp of an external drive. Also not sure what will happen to my 70GB of itunes. Dont like the idea of having my G-Drive mini constantly attatched to my laptop, bit annoying.
 
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