Anyone have a macbook??????

[swtethan]

Im not looking to spend over $900 ish since my desktop does all the power work, so I have a few questions.

1. Would a Celeron be okay for dvd playback?
2. Who makes a good, light laptop (14" screen 5lbs or so)
3. Any good deals right now?
4. Battery life, which would be better... core duo or celeron?


New topic, Anyone have a macbook?

 

[RichUK]

If buying new go with a Dell. Their prices simply cannot be beaten.

I'd recommend their cheapest Inspiron laptop, which if I recall used a Core Duo (not Core 2). Good laptop for the price.

 

[Jeff7181]

You can find comparable prices on Dell's small business computers like the Latitude D520, and it doesn't come with all the extra preinstalled software that nobody uses or wants.

I saw a comparison once of Core Duo's vs. Core 2 Duo's. The Core 2's perform a little better, but they also use more power... so an "old" Core Duo is a good choice for a laptop.

 

[imported_Dekard]

dell d520 or 620 with a core duo or core 2 duo... you'll by quite happy and easily within your budget.

 

[imported_Dekard]

oh ya, celly's stink... stay away if you can.

 

[swtethan]

well i see they have a D420 for $1200 anyone have one?

 

[stevty2889]

Originally posted by: swtethan
Im not looking to spend over $900 ish since my desktop does all the power work, so I have a few questions.

1. Would a Celeron be okay for dvd playback?
2. Who makes a good, light laptop (14" screen 5lbs or so)
3. Any good deals right now?
4. Battery life, which would be better... core duo or celeron?

1. Celeron is more than enough DVD playback

4. Core duo and Core 2 duo will get better battery life, the mobile celerons lack all of the power savings features of core duo and core 2 duo.

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: swtethan
well i see they have a D420 for $1200 anyone have one?

That sounds kinda steep. I paid $1200 for my D520 with 1 GB of DDR2-667 RAM, Intel Wireless ABG, 80 GB hard drive and Core Duo T2400 almost a year ago.

 

[swtethan]

Originally posted by: Jeff7181

Originally posted by: swtethan
well i see they have a D420 for $1200 anyone have one?

That sounds kinda steep. I paid $1200 for my D520 with 1 GB of DDR2-667 RAM, Intel Wireless ABG, 80 GB hard drive and Core Duo T2400 almost a year ago.

considering its an ultra portable, i dunno..... i save $270 if i buy it

 

[swtethan]

I'm really tempted to buy that ultra portable 3lb beast

 

[swtethan]

anyone have recommendations on a ultra portable? under $1200 would be great

 

[Arkaign]

New laptop will come with Vista, and from direct experience with several recent models, you WILL NEED 2GB of ram

Generally speaking, it's a better deal to get : a dual core intel, nice 15.4" widescreen, great DVD multiburner, etc, for $749, and then grab a 2gb ram upgrade from newegg, and bam, you've got a powerhouse for under $900

http://shop4.outpost.com/product/5202887?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG

+

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231118

=

for $849.

Btw, that 'Pentium D' is actually a Core Duo processor with 1mb cache instead of 2mb, along with a 533FSB.

EDIT : Btw, that Toshiba is 6lbs, very decent for that kind of power & 15.4" screen!

 

[Jeff7181]

I've always thought IBM made some good Ultra Portables... others may disagree. All the IBM's I priced when I was shopping were too expensive, so it may be difficult to find one under $1200 unless you get one used.

 

[Jeff7181]

Oh yeah... definitely don't settle for a sub-par display. I'm kicking myself for picking the plain Jane 15.4" 1024x768.

 

[RichUK]

Originally posted by: Jeff7181
I've always thought IBM made some good Ultra Portables... others may disagree. All the IBM's I priced when I was shopping were too expensive, so it may be difficult to find one under $1200 unless you get one used.

IBM Thinkpads are the best business laptops IMO. :thumbsup:

My main company laptop is only a P3 Toshiba.

I have a Core Duo Dell Inspiron 9400 laptop too, but that's more for personal use than business.

 

[swtethan]

Change of topic: who has a macbook? do you like it? do you run windows? what do you use to run windows? is it smooth?

 

[TankGuys]

Originally posted by: swtethan
Change of topic: who has a macbook? do you like it? do you run windows? what do you use to run windows? is it smooth?

I have one. I LOVE it. It's also worth noting that I was not a Mac person at all prior to getting this.

You can run Windows (or any other OS for the most part) using Parallels - though I'd recommend you get 2Gb of RAM for this.

The screen is great, battery life is great, keyboard feels nice, I like the two finger scroll system on the touch pad, and OS 10.4 has grown on me. I still use my desktop for all my main work, but for day to day average work, I end up sitting in the living room with the macbook

 

[tatteredpotato]

If you don't want to drop the extra money on the Mac Book, you can grab a cheaper PC laptop and throw Ubuntu or some other distro on there. Linux can be configured to do most of the Mac things. Beryl has all the 3D desktop and animations like Magic Lamp and Expose. Avant Window Navigator is similar to the Apple Launcher, and there are several GTK and Beryl themes designed to emulate the OSX environment (I don't use them because I cant get used to the min/max buttons being on the wrong side of the window).

It's not a Mac, but if you want to save some money you can get a similar experience this way.

 

[secretanchitman]

my dad has one (i set it all up for him though) and its pretty good. just make sure to up the ram to 2GB (my dad got the black macbook - the highest model with a 120GB hard drive and 1GB of ram) but do NOT buy it from apple. buy the memory from like newegg or something.

its very nice, easy to use, and extremely efficient. you can install parallels on it so you can run windows within mac (different from boot camp which allows you to restart and work in a native windows enivornment). only downside is the video card which is an intel gma950 and there is no expresscard slot.

 

[Codewiz]

Never had a mac until I got my macbook. I am now looking to switch everything to macs. I love OS X. When I need windows, I use parallels to virtualize my boot camp partition. If I want to play a game, I boot natively.

I believe the extra $$ on a mac is well worth it. And I would have NEVER said that 2 years ago.

 

[Pabster]

I have a MacBook Pro. Black. :laugh:

It's awesome. OS X + Vista running simultaneously is as good as it gets.

The MacBook is fine but you do compromise significantly for the lower price. I'd still take it over a cheap Dell lappy.