• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

Dilemma - which macbook to get

silverpig

silverpig

Lifer
1. I'm in Canada
2. I'm a student

The current 13" MBP is $1299 for me with the free iPod touch. It's $1399 CAD and comes with the $100 off student discount. That's what I've been thinking of for a while.

However, the campus bookstore is trying to get rid of their old macbooks. Right now the lowest model unibody aluminum macbook is going for $999.98 CAD with the free iPod deal included. I don't think there's an additional $100 off though.

So, which would you go for:

13" MBP with free iPod touch for $1299

OR

13" unibody macbook with free iPod touch for $999

I'll be starting an MBA in September so it's for business school stuff. I won't game on it.
 
Originally posted by: silverpig
1. I'm in Canada
2. I'm a student

The current 13" MBP is $1299 for me with the free iPod touch. It's $1399 CAD and comes with the $100 off student discount. That's what I've been thinking of for a while.

However, the campus bookstore is trying to get rid of their old macbooks. Right now the lowest model unibody aluminum macbook is going for $999.98 CAD with the free iPod deal included. I don't think there's an additional $100 off though.

So, which would you go for:

13" MBP with free iPod touch for $1299

OR

13" unibody macbook with free iPod touch for $999

I'll be starting an MBA in September so it's for business school stuff. I won't game on it.
Click to expand...

The 13" MBP has a better screen, Firewire800 and an SD card slot. Oh yea, and a 7 HOUR BATTERY!

The $300 difference, plus iPod Touch (which you could then just sell for like $200) definitely is worth it.
 
Originally posted by: TheStu
Originally posted by: silverpig
1. I'm in Canada
2. I'm a student

The current 13" MBP is $1299 for me with the free iPod touch. It's $1399 CAD and comes with the $100 off student discount. That's what I've been thinking of for a while.

However, the campus bookstore is trying to get rid of their old macbooks. Right now the lowest model unibody aluminum macbook is going for $999.98 CAD with the free iPod deal included. I don't think there's an additional $100 off though.

So, which would you go for:

13" MBP with free iPod touch for $1299

OR

13" unibody macbook with free iPod touch for $999

I'll be starting an MBA in September so it's for business school stuff. I won't game on it.
Click to expand...

The 13" MBP has a better screen, Firewire800 and an SD card slot. Oh yea, and a 7 HOUR BATTERY!

The $300 difference, plus iPod Touch (which you could then just sell for like $200) definitely is worth it.
Click to expand...

The iPod doesn't make a difference as both come with one.

I don't have any peripherals that use firewire.

The better screen would be nice, and the 7 hour battery would also be nice.
 
I second the 13" MBP. The screen, SC card reader and the battery are amazing. The $300 will be well worth your uses with the newer MBP.
 
Before I ended up with my own 13" MBP, I would have advised getting the cheaper deal. However, after getting the new model and taking advantage of the great battery life makes me tell people that the battery life alone is worth spending the extra money.
 
The battery. The battery. The battery.

You may not think you'll use FW, but maybe you will later. I never used it until 1.5 years after getting my mbp, now have FW400 and 800 hard drives. Nice and fast.
 
Originally posted by: silverpig

The iPod doesn't make a difference as both come with one.

I don't have any peripherals that use firewire.

The better screen would be nice, and the 7 hour battery would also be nice.
Click to expand...

You want the newer screen. It's bad enough that it's glossy only, but the older one has shitty viewing angles. I know, I'm using one right now and kicking myself that I didn't wait for the new ones.
 
Originally posted by: rdp6
The battery. The battery. The battery.

You may not think you'll use FW, but maybe you will later. I never used it until 1.5 years after getting my mbp, now have FW400 and 800 hard drives. Nice and fast.
Click to expand...

You know what's fast for external HDs? E-SATA. Apple needs to wake the F up on that one.

Sad part is, I'll probably sell this Macbook and get one with e-sata when they finally adopt it. They know their market (morons like me) better than I do 🙂
 
Originally posted by: sjwaste
Originally posted by: silverpig

The iPod doesn't make a difference as both come with one.

I don't have any peripherals that use firewire.

The better screen would be nice, and the 7 hour battery would also be nice.
Click to expand...

You want the newer screen. It's bad enough that it's glossy only, but the older one has shitty viewing angles. I know, I'm using one right now and kicking myself that I didn't wait for the new ones.
Click to expand...

Yeah they have the MBP sitting next to the unibody there. The viewing angles are definitely better but I'd be sitting right in front of it anyways.

The battery is the main consideration for me. I don't have any sd cards and won't for the foreseeable future, and don't have any firewire devices and won't for the foreseeable future.

My decision might be made for me though as I won't be getting it for another month or so and the deal on the old unibodies might be gone by then.
 
Originally posted by: sjwaste
Originally posted by: rdp6
The battery. The battery. The battery.

You may not think you'll use FW, but maybe you will later. I never used it until 1.5 years after getting my mbp, now have FW400 and 800 hard drives. Nice and fast.
Click to expand...

You know what's fast for external HDs? E-SATA. Apple needs to wake the F up on that one.

Sad part is, I'll probably sell this Macbook and get one with e-sata when they finally adopt it. They know their market (morons like me) better than I do 🙂
Click to expand...

I wonder how long it will be until Apple picks up eSATA. I would imagine that it will show up on the Mac Pros first, but since eSATA is only useful on hard drives, who knows how long it will take them to adopt it. Maybe they will go a hybrid USB/eSATA port like on some other laptops, that could work.
 
Originally posted by: TheStu

I wonder how long it will be until Apple picks up eSATA. I would imagine that it will show up on the Mac Pros first, but since eSATA is only useful on hard drives, who knows how long it will take them to adopt it. Maybe they will go a hybrid USB/eSATA port like on some other laptops, that could work.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure, but I'm betting it will be a while. Probably not in the next product cycle, except maybe as you said, the Mac Pro. Considering how easy it is to run an internal SATA to eSATA bracket, though, that Mac Pro line basically has it already for anyone that wants it.

I wonder, does the chipset that the MBP uses now have an extra, unused SATA port on the controller or are the two devices all it supports? That could be the reason.
 
Originally posted by: sjwaste
Originally posted by: TheStu

I wonder how long it will be until Apple picks up eSATA. I would imagine that it will show up on the Mac Pros first, but since eSATA is only useful on hard drives, who knows how long it will take them to adopt it. Maybe they will go a hybrid USB/eSATA port like on some other laptops, that could work.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure, but I'm betting it will be a while. Probably not in the next product cycle, except maybe as you said, the Mac Pro. Considering how easy it is to run an internal SATA to eSATA bracket, though, that Mac Pro line basically has it already for anyone that wants it.

I wonder, does the chipset that the MBP uses now have an extra, unused SATA port on the controller or are the two devices all it supports? That could be the reason.
Click to expand...

"All unibody MacBook/MacBook Pros use NVIDIA?s GeForce 9400M chipset. The chipset includes native support for up to six SATA ports running at 3.0Gbps (300MB/s max transfer rate)." - Anand Lai Shampi (The New MacBook Pro Part II: Lower Battery Life Under Vista & SATA Issues)
 
Interesting thread. I'm selling my Inspiron 13, and am planning on replacing it with either of these as well. I'm not a student, plus I won't be buying anything directly from apple.com b/c I pay 9.5% sales tax (WA state, no income tax). My options are as follows:

Macbook 13 Aluminum MB466LL/A:
~$920 ($999.99 - $75MIR - 3% bing cashback + $20 S/H)
http://macmall.com/ttsvr/p/App...no~7684018~pdp.fbdchac

Macbook Pro 13 MB990LL/A:
~$1070 ($1,199.99 - $150MIR + $20 S/H)
http://microcenter.com/single_...tml?product_id=0314210

The Pro from MicroCenter actually comes out cheaper than the Macbook on clearance directly from Apple: http://store.apple.com/us/prod...466LL/A?mco=Mjk1NDMwMA

Anyway, so what it really boils down to is the Pro worth $150 more? Keep in mind that $150 is about the price of a 500GB HD and 4GB iRAM memory from newegg, which both of these would need IMO. I plan on running boot camp with Win 7. That is a bit down the road though - when Snow Leopard and Win 7 come out.

Are the battery life and the display that much better? The battery life seems to not even be a question. The pro has this hands down. It is hard to compare the two displays though because Apple stores tend to not have the Macbook on display anymore. Anyone with experience with both care to weigh in?

An area of concern for some has been the lack of a user replaceable battery on the MBP, and the cost of replacement. I've checked on the price, and the price is the same as a straight up battery for the Macbook ($130).

http://www.apple.com/support/m...okpro/service/battery/
http://store.apple.com/us/prod...771LL/A?mco=NDkxODc5Mg
 
According to one of the guys here that actually has both, the screen on the MBP13 is much, much better (viewing angles, blacks, brightness) than the one on the 13" Unibody. The battery is of course better.

You can survive on 2GB longer than you might think. OS X seems to find a way to utilize any amount of RAM you give it, within reason. You definitely will want to bump up when Snow Leopard comes out since the 9400m takes system RAM and it will be utilized a lot more heavily once Snow Leopard unveils.
 
Yeah, I'm not aware of an OS that doesn't run fine on 2GB by itself or even running most apps. This includes Vista. I'm sure 2GB will be fine for a bit. I didn't realize that Snow Leopard was going to me more graphics intensive (it looks about like leopard in the stills), does this affect battery life?

I'm also a little bit concerned with the loss of independent mic/headphone jacks on the MPB. It seems that the single jack is either auto sensing or does double duty (4-pole). Not a huge deal I guess, but mic/headphone jacks are sort of an industry standard and all of my headsets use independent in/outs. I already have to buy a stupid mini-DisplayPort to DVI adapter to hook this up to my KVM, it looks like I'll need another adapter for audio.

 
Originally posted by: nitromullet
Yeah, I'm not aware of an OS that doesn't run fine on 2GB by itself or even running most apps. This includes Vista. I'm sure 2GB will be fine for a bit. I didn't realize that Snow Leopard was going to me more graphics intensive (it looks about like leopard in the stills), does this affect battery life?

I'm also a little bit concerned with the loss of independent mic/headphone jacks on the MPB. It seems that the single jack is either auto sensing or does double duty (4-pole). Not a huge deal I guess, but mic/headphone jacks are sort of an industry standard and all of my headsets use independent in/outs. I already have to buy a stupid mini-DisplayPort to DVI adapter to hook this up to my KVM, it looks like I'll need another adapter for audio.
Click to expand...

Snow Leopard will not be more graphics intensive, it will be more GPU intensive. OpenCL will utilize the GPU in your Mac to help with processing certain massively parallel tasks. It will be a systemwide thing that any developer can tap into thanks to Grand Central Dispatch (which helps developers code better multi-threaded apps).

The headphone jack does double duty as a mic jack, and will accept the iPhone headset for example, which you can then also use to control the volume on your mac. I cannot recall if they also have line-in or not, and if said line-in can be used for analog inputs.
 
Forgot about OpenCL and GPGPU, good point. Are there a lot of apps using OpenCL on the mac side?

As far as the audio jacks go... I'm not worried about Apple hardware working with it. Apple is pretty good about making sure you can buy more of their stuff, but I've been looking for a Y-splitter/adapter that would allow separate in/outs to use a better quality headset I already own or a mic and headphones for some non-pro level audio recording. So far, my best option appear to be something like this: http://www.amazon.com/Koss-USB...0O2H5V6/ref=pd_sim_e_6

Of course, for pro level audio there are plenty of USB or firewire options at varying price ranges.

Ideally, it would be nice if Apple just made an attractive looking Y-adapter for the plug, but it seems like the lack of independent audio in/out is not an insurmountable issue.
 
Yeah I missed the window on that unibody deal. It doesn't matter much anyways as I'm almost decided on the MBP anyways. I don't need much hard drive space so I got an OCZ Summit 60 GB SSD to throw in it for $179 cdn.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top