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

Which Macbook Pro do I need ??? HELP

Still looking for an answer to this please:


if you had to rank the speed/ noise on a scale of 1-10 what would it be for each ???

e.g. (speed 5400 - 6 ; 7200 - 9 ) ( loud 5400 - 5 ; 7200 - 8 )..???
 
Aye... I'd opt for the 7200rpm as well. I can honestly say that the 7200 in my 2010 MBP is totally silent.

4GB of RAM is enough for most things, but personally I wish I had gotten 8GB. The again I use a lot of programs in the CS5 Master Collection, Xcode, Aperture, and a fair amount of work in VM's so I'm a bit more demanding on the hardware.

I got the high res/anti-glare screen and I love it. It's a wonderful bump is screen real estate when paired with "Spaces."

This was my first Mac since the days of System 7.5 and to say I'm very pleased with it is an understatement. However, the only quirk that I'm not so thrilled at is the lack of USB booting support. That's the only thing I don't like, everything else I couldn't be happier with.
 
From reading earlier posts, it sounds to me like some people have noisy 7200's and some ppl's are quieter/silet....does it just depend on if are you are lucky enough to get a quieter one ???
 
Here is what you do.
Get the 5400 hardrive and then go buy yourself the momentus xt 500 gb harddrive. It is only the slightest bit noticeable compared to the 5400 silent hd that comes stock. The plus side is it's pretty cheap and it significantly cuts down on the bootup time for your mac and the apps you use a lot. Swapping is the hard drives is stupid simple as well, the hardest part will be remembering where you put your screw driver.
 
Again, just get the 5400. If you decide you can't live without a couple seconds increase in speed, get an aftermarket 7200 drive & install it yourself. I was intimidated when I installed mine, but it turned out to be a piece of cake & took less than 5 min even though I'd never done it before. So easy a caveman could do it! 😉
 
As the OP has opened a new thread re: fan noise etc. I hope noone minds answering this for me. Thanks

DannoTheManno said:
I was thinking simiarly with the 13" MBP. Am I going to suffer on the CoreDuo over the 15" i5? I just think 15" is too big to be properly portable, would I be better going for say 2.4 CoreDuo with 8GB of Ram or 2.66 CoreDuo with 4GB of Ram as I can't justify spending more than £1,200.

I was originally going to get an Air as a replacement for my 12" Powerbook that has being dying for the past two years. But thought the poor battery life and the need to buy a superdrive, and potential a new 11.6" MacAir might come out after the iPod offer ends. Though I do have an iPhone and an iPod Classic.

I'm going to uni in the states, would be using laptop as main computer for 12 months as can't take my iMac with me due to size restrictions otherwise would probs just get the iPad.


Thanks for any suggestions.
Click to expand...
 
DannoTheManno said:
As the OP has opened a new thread re: fan noise etc. I hope noone minds answering this for me. Thanks
Click to expand...

what exactly will you be doing on the notebook?

i would recommend a Macbook Pro 2.4ghz + 4GB ram. thats just me though. if you want added performance buy yourself an SSD card and install it yourself. its easy to do.

macbook air is not powerful enough, dont get it.

2.66 ghz is not worth the extra cost, in essence, a rip off, but if you have money to burn, keep at 2.66ghz. Not sure if battery life would be diminished because of higher clocked CPU, however.
 
DannoTheManno said:
As the OP has opened a new thread re: fan noise etc. I hope noone minds answering this for me. Thanks
Click to expand...

I would say definitely get the 13" MBP. Very capable machine, EVEN for heavy lifting tasks. Some people write on here as if C2D is junk, and all about future proofing ... no such thing, get your 13" MBP and enjoy the heck of out it is what I say!
 
aohus said:
what exactly will you be doing on the notebook?

i would recommend a Macbook Pro 2.4ghz + 4GB ram. thats just me though. if you want added performance buy yourself an SSD card and install it yourself. its easy to do.

macbook air is not powerful enough, dont get it.

2.66 ghz is not worth the extra cost, in essence, a rip off, but if you have money to burn, keep at 2.66ghz. Not sure if battery life would be diminished because of higher clocked CPU, however.
Click to expand...

It would be my main laptop for uni in the states, I do have a 27" iMac so not interested in getting a 17" Pro and 15" just too big.

Will be using it for:

Watching videos online, doing Word documents (essays) and PowerPoint Excel etc for uni, and browsing the tinterweb as well as a bit of Football Manager when I'm bored. Not really into PC gaming generally bar the odd bit of Civ maybe.

So you reckon go for the base level MBP and save the difference or is there going to be moments when I'm going to wish I'd spent the extra? I also have an external HDD for my iTunes 18,000 songs and probably save most of my files on that to keep my HDD pretty empty...may plump for a TimeCapsule when I'm feeling a bit thrifty.
 
DannoTheManno said:
It would be my main laptop for uni in the states, I do have a 27" iMac so not interested in getting a 17" Pro and 15" just too big.

Will be using it for:

Watching videos online, doing Word documents (essays) and PowerPoint Excel etc for uni, and browsing the tinterweb as well as a bit of Football Manager when I'm bored. Not really into PC gaming generally bar the odd bit of Civ maybe.

So you reckon go for the base level MBP and save the difference or is there going to be moments when I'm going to wish I'd spent the extra? I also have an external HDD for my iTunes 18,000 songs and probably save most of my files on that to keep my HDD pretty empty...may plump for a TimeCapsule when I'm feeling a bit thrifty.
Click to expand...

You should be just fine with the 2.4 w/4gb ram. You'll have enough cash leftover for an external HD for Time machine backups & some to put away for upgrades later, when RAM and HD/SSD prices drop further.
 
I'm in the final prep for purchasing a MBP and have been reading this thread with interest. I was decided on a baseline 15" with anti-glare (glossy will not work with my desk lighting at work), but then I read somewhere that a person should get the i7 model if they are planning to use an external monitor due to the additional video support.

One of the reason for upgrading from my old 2004 iBook is so that I can download and play the higher res .mkv files for (mostly British) TV shows. The iBook does not have the power for this. I do the actually downloading on my Mac Pro and then transfer to the laptop which gets plugged into my home theater (Pioneer amp, Panasonic plasma). I'll be using the Griffin HDMI adapter.

Other than the video playback, I don't do anything high powered (that's what the Pro is for). Mostly internet and office type stuff. Advice?
 
grahamcracker said:
Here is what you do.
Get the 5400 hardrive and then go buy yourself the momentus xt 500 gb harddrive. It is only the slightest bit noticeable compared to the 5400 silent hd that comes stock. The plus side is it's pretty cheap and it significantly cuts down on the bootup time for your mac and the apps you use a lot. Swapping is the hard drives is stupid simple as well, the hardest part will be remembering where you put your screw driver.
Click to expand...

Read his posts this guy knows nothing about computers there's no way he will be able to handle that.
Just get the 5400 anyone saying you need a solid state or 7200 is wrong. Unless you feel like spending more money than you need to
 
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