which macbook pro option to choose

[BarracksBoy]

Hi there,

so in about a weeks time i shall finally have enough money for a new mbp .. i've found three solutions which potentially fit me but would like to ask the people here with more knowledge than myself for a few tips ...

so my three options are:

1. The most expensive stock 15" mbp but with a 256gb ssd and keeping the 2.66ghz i7 and 4gb ram

2. Again the most expensive stock 15" mbp but with the 2.8ghz i7, 8gb ram and the 500gb 7200rpm hdd

3. The most expensive stock 15" with the 2.66ghz i7, 8gb ram and a 128gb ssd

I will mostly use the laptop for itunes/iphoto but will also want to use bootcamp and windows 7 for some light gaming thus the 128gb ssd is not ideal.

So i would like to know which option people think would be best for me? One small addition is that i would not like to have to make any changes to the hardware myself so adding some third party cheaper ram etc is kinda out the picture.

Many Thanks for any help provided

 

[Makosuke]

Looks like nobody chimed in on this, so I'll venture a couple of comments:

First, which is the best choice is going to depend heavily on what you're doing with the computer. If, for example, you have relatively little data but use apps that have a lot of RAM requirements--say, you edit very large photos in Photoshop, but don't store more than a few at a time on the laptop itself--then #3 will unquestionably be the fastest.

If, on the other hand, you do stuff that is going to require more than 128GB of disk space in the near future and not so RAM reliant (not sure what that would be, admittedly), then #1 is the best buy for you.

Given the budget you're working with, I'd really only recommend the non-SSD one if you really need the onboard storage. I think you'd do better with either SSD option and an external bus-powered FW400 or FW800 drive instead, though.

Personally, I'd get #3 with an external, but that's just me.

Also, while I understand your reluctance to upgrade anything yourself, RAM upgrades are trivial, and you're going to save over $200 upgrading to 8GB if you buy lifetime warrantied RAM at OWC (MacSales.com) instead of BTO from Apple (Apple charges $400 for 8GB, OWC charges $173, and you get to keep your existing 4GB or trade it in for $39 credit). There's honestly no good reason to pay Apple's premium.

OWCs very good SSDs are also somewhat better and cheaper than Apple's BTO options, but the boot drive I can at least understand wanting to get straight from Apple and ready to go.

So really, I'm recommending doing #3, but getting the RAM from OWC and spending that extra $270 on a processor speed bump and an external hard drive.