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R.Youden

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Apr 1, 2005
2,093
40
Ok, this maybe a bit long so please bear with me.

First off I am looking at a new laptop. I currently have a MacBook Pro 1.83GHz machine and I am having a few issues with it. Mainly the poor battery life and the heat it produces, also the weight isn't great. Anyway I was looking into a new laptop and with the latest announcements it looks like a good time. Initially I looked into the MacBook Air but I don't think that is particularly good value for money.

I also have a Mac Pro and 20" Dell monitor. I got the Mac Pro when I was at University and needed the power, that demand has gone now but it is still nice to have the power.

Finally I run an AppleTV off my Mac Pro.

Of my set-up I have a few issues not related to the MacBook Pro issues mentioned earlier. The mac pro is a nice machine but it runs very hot and uses a lot of power. If I want to watch a film or TV show on my AppleTV I need my mac pro power-up which aint great and an inconvenience. I am trying to enable USB mode on the AppleTV but that is a task in itself. Also I probably would have preferred a bigger screen and loose a bit of the Mac Pro power.

To fund the new laptop I will sell my current MacBook Pro (around £450-£500) and my old iPhone (getting around £175 now). I am also eligible for university discount still so I will be getting around 14%(ish) off the machine plus the £90 off a new iPod (which will be eBay'ed).

As I see it I have the following options:

Straight forward swap - sell the MBP and iPhone (around £600-650) and buy the MacBook (£975) with free iPod (£90 off) so that will be a total cost of around £225 which is not too bad.

Then I got thinking:

Sell the MBP, iPhone, Mac Pro and Monitor (£500+£175+£1250+£75) which will give me around £2000. I then get a top of the line MacBook Pro + 24" monitor, get the USB support working on my AppleTV and that will set me back about the same so I break even.

Or:

I sell the MBP, iPhone, Mac Pro, Monitor and AppleTV (£2150), buy the MacBook Pro + 24" monitor + mac mini to hook upto my TV (only down side of that is I don't like FrontRow on 10.5 - especially the way it organises TV shows) which will again about break even.

Hmmm.

So many choices, what do you guys think?

Thanks for your advice.
 
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