Macbook vs Macbook Pro

[derdrache]

I'm going to order a refurb macbook or macbook pro after the June Apple WWDC event (pending some awesome announcement that changes my mind).

I need the machine for school (CS major), programming, iphone dev, imovie video editing, some light photo editing and most importantly is batter life when just taking notes.

Im looking at either

Macbook 13 inch unibody ($1299 on refurb site) - has backlit keyboard and 2.4ghz

or....

Macbook Pro 15 unibody ($1699 on refurb site) - same 2.4 ghz but with 9400+9600m gt.


Anyone own these or can help me make this decision. I really want it to take notes in class so I like the small light feel of the 13 but i'm worried that it will chug through imovie and the like. Firewire isnt important but overall performance is. I also like the option to be able to game on it if i desire.

Any opinions?

 

[darom]

I bought a refurbished Macbook 13" off the apple site for $850 shipped, added 1.5GB memory to it and got a bigger Hitachi drive. No problems playing DVDs. Excellent laptop which does get hot to the touch on the back side where the CPU heatsink it. There is a mod to increase the fan speed to help cool the CPU. On Macbooks it is easier to add parts, Macbook Pro require a little more attention and effort. I also liked the smaller screen. The battery life is still about 2.5 hours.

Re: games - I don't play any games on Mac, can't comment on this (I have a PC desktop for this purpose).

 

[VinylxScratches]

edit: nm

 

[derdrache]

I'm not too worried about cost though I do see some value in adding hardware after the fact, there are some things you just cant upgrade such as the screen.

I'll probably end up picking someones brain at an apple store thats about 50 minutes from me to really make up my mind.

Thanks all.

 

[sourceninja]

My advice, go with the pro. The larger screen is worth it and it's really not much heavier. Plus with the higher end video card you might be able to leverage upcoming openCL support in the next os x release.

 

[derdrache]

Didn't think about OpenCL. That and the new grand central apis for multi core systems ought to really pump these machines up. I'm really hoping Snow Leopard will be announced at WWDC or at least get a release date. They just did a cut off on the apis so thats a good sign.

 

[intogamer]

From the http://appleinsider.com/ site... they have a discount with Macmall for a unibody 15" macbook pro for $1688 after rebatesz

 

[rdp6]

I used a 15" mbp for my last 2 years of school (EE). I didn't have any issues with the size (excellent for a 15" notebook) or weight (same comment). I carried it in a backpack that has a space for a laptop in it which I got from Costco for like $30 and all was well.

I don't really play video games much. Working with videos will probably be just as speedy with either laptop unless some hardware acceleration is unleashed with SL. I can't say that OS X was helpful for me school-wise, most of the apps I used were Windows-based. But, it is much easier to live with OS X and run Windows in Parallels. My university had plenty of computer labs in the engineering department and of course some machines in the IEEE room so really the laptop was an unnecessary luxury.

Actually, I had very few engineering courses which were well suited to taking notes on a computer. Electromagnetic compatibility is the one standout. Gen-eds definitely, but do you really need to take notes for them? Probably better off just paying attention and thinking about the material in the presentations.

edit: forgot to mention the Apple Developer Connection student membership. $99 fee gets you a year of dev mailings, shirt, and a one-time ADC store purchase. I got my mbp for 20% off that way.

 

[CowZ]

Originally posted by: rdp6
I used a 15" mbp for my last 2 years of school (EE). I didn't have any issues with the size (excellent for a 15" notebook) or weight (same comment). I carried it in a backpack that has a space for a laptop in it which I got from Costco for like $30 and all was well.

I don't really play video games much. Working with videos will probably be just as speedy with either laptop unless some hardware acceleration is unleashed with SL. I can't say that OS X was helpful for me school-wise, most of the apps I used were Windows-based. But, it is much easier to live with OS X and run Windows in Parallels. My university had plenty of computer labs in the engineering department and of course some machines in the IEEE room so really the laptop was an unnecessary luxury.

Actually, I had very few engineering courses which were well suited to taking notes on a computer. Electromagnetic compatibility is the one standout. Gen-eds definitely, but do you really need to take notes for them? Probably better off just paying attention and thinking about the material in the presentations.

edit: forgot to mention the Apple Developer Connection student membership. $99 fee gets you a year of dev mailings, shirt, and a one-time ADC store purchase. I got my mbp for 20% off that way.

Hey RDP6, how did you purchase your laptop? Did you have to provide proof of school/major? Apple's website does not explain very well how you would go about using your 1 time student discount after purchasing the membership.

To reply to the OP's post, I am actually in the market for a new mac too. I debated between the mb and mpb unibodies for quite some time too. In the end I am going to settle with the mbp because of the bigger and better screen. If you're planning on playing games then you should go with the mpb too with the extra vid. card

 

[rdp6]

For the ADC I had someone from the college of engineering fax a letter with a copy of my student ID and class schedule to Apple for proof. Well, the intern working there offered to do all the legwork so that was pretty cool.

Anyways, I think it took about 2 weeks for approval, and then a bit longer to get access to the ADC store "asset" which allows purchases there. Anyone can "see" the ADC store: (just google it) but you have to have authorization to make a purchase there.

At the time of the Merom mbp introduction in Fall 06, it worked out that 2GB SO-DIMMS were actually cheaper by far through Apple than by other means. So it worked out that my very CTO mbp was like $2700 after $600 or so in savings. I got the largest hard drive, most vram, maxed ram, fastest CPU, etc. I still use this mbp as my primary machine and don't see anything changing that anytime soon.

Anyways, I think you can get a student ADC membership and the base mbp for about $1700 + taxes. This is likely $100 less than the edu price for the mbp alone. Seems that for high cost items the discount is (at least was) 20%, so anything above $1000 (normal cost) will cost the same as .edu as it would with the ADC membership fee then discount, and as the hardware price increases, the benefit increases.

I wouldn't blow the ADC discount on anything short of a mbp. If you can't swing it yet, but can a cheaper mac, consider waiting for a co-op term, where you'll easily make up the difference.

edit: just as an aside, it turns out that apple has an employee purchase program for some agencies and corporations. My employer is part of that, and the discount through the epp store is better than through .edu store but not as good as the ADC store. Even still, I wonder if I'll ever be able to justify the cost of a mac pro.

 

[CowZ]

I am also under the impression that all subsequent updates to OS X ie. snow leapord within your membership year will also be mailed to you via a hardcopy too?

 

[RandomFool]

I've got the 13" Macbook and I love it. Size-wise it's just about perfect for traveling around. The MacBook Pro was much too bulky IMO. I've played a little WoW in OS X and TF2 via bootcamp vista/win7. It runs well enough not amazing but it's very playable. I haven't done any video editing on it just a few DVD rips which worked...(I left them running on while I was out).

 

[DanK414]

I bought 13" 2.4ghz for the portability purpose but I'm left wanting at 15" MBP sometimes.... I do a lot of graphic design work and it goes without saying that 15" screens are much better at color calibration. Exception of that this thing handles Adobe Premier and WoW very well*don't expect to run Crisis*. If you're not picky about color, don't need firewire, and you need something light; I say go for it.

 

[TheStu]

Well, i got my 13" MacBook and am now seriously, seriously considering the 15" Pro when i upgrade. The added screen size, nicer screen and better graphics are drawing me to it.

However, the unibody MacBook is not exactly a piece of crap, you will get a fine computer out of it.

 

[derdrache]

You guys are awesome thanks. I just spent about an hour with a macbook pro at best buy and im pretty sure im going to get one of those.

I do have a question though. I consider myself a power user when it comes to operating systems and i know that mac os is based loosely on freebsd linux so a lot of the terminal command line stuff is there but I was really wondering if there is a website devoted to the secrets of OSX. I frequently read Paul Thurrott's site for windows info so I was hoping there was someone like him for Mac OS.

Thanks in advance.

 

[TheStu]

There are plenty of things like that. And OS X is not 'loosely based on FreeBSD Linux' it takes some things from NetBSD and FreeBSD. Ultimately it is based on NEXTStep and Unix and is fully Unix Certified.

As for an example of something like WinSuperSite... you can check out MacOSXHints.com

 

[derdrache]

Originally posted by: TheStu
There are plenty of things like that. And OS X is not 'loosely based on FreeBSD Linux' it takes some things from NetBSD and FreeBSD. Ultimately it is based on NEXTStep and Unix and is fully Unix Certified.

As for an example of something like WinSuperSite... you can check out MacOSXHints.com

Awesome thanks. Are there more sites like this that do "reviews" like Thurrott does? Even if they are mostly just opinionated or a "hey look at these new features" type of thing. For instance, I can't seem to find too much about the graphing calculator app on Mac OS in the utilities folder but I know its there from the OSX details on Apple.com. I read Tuaw but they seem more focused on 3rd party software.

Also, I read on the wiki that Next took some things from BSD Unix so thats where I was getting that from. Steve Jobs pretty much pioneered NextOS and later sold it to Apple for *cough* a bit more than it should have been worth at the time. Smart man, wish I thought of stuff like that.

 

[TheStu]

Well, for things of that nature, I am not sure where to look. Apple's site itself has a lot of 'switcher' videos explaining certain things, but really the best place to look would be something like Mac OS X Leopard - The Missing Manual by David Pogue. That would cover most everything.

And of course, you can always ask us

 

[derdrache]

Originally posted by: TheStu
Well, for things of that nature, I am not sure where to look. Apple's site itself has a lot of 'switcher' videos explaining certain things, but really the best place to look would be something like Mac OS X Leopard - The Missing Manual by David Pogue. That would cover most everything.

And of course, you can always ask us

Thanks, this has been really helpful. I spent a lot of time reading everything all over the apple site including some of the pdf manuals that are on their support site. I found answers to tons of questions I had in some of the fine print.

Some things I learned recently that I didn't know are:
-Preview can not only just read PDFs but create them too and reorder the pages like the $400 adobe reader professional software. It can also make PDF's from just about anything the app can display. This is awesome and I don't know why it isn't advertised more. This also has the Alpha functionality to remove elements from photos and it looks like it's really easy to use.

-Time machine on a macbook will continue to work even when not attached to a time capsule or usb hard drive. It will just sync up when you connect it again. It also doesn't schedule backups unless the macbook is connected to a power outlet.

-Automator is really powerful. I doubt most people use it much but this thing is great. I have all kinds of scripts on my windows box to do repetitive tasks like adding user accounts to newly imaged machines, schedule defrags, move certain files around. Automator seems to be the "easy" scripting engine on a Mac. It sure beats the heck out of writing .vb scripts on windows or using the powershell as far as i can see.

-Grapher is awesome. Make nice graphs and save them as images. I've had to do this countless times for math class projects and always have to find some half implemented utility for windows or use the TI-Calc developer emulator and screen capture that. A pain either way.

-Grab - awesome screen shot utility that works like Microsoft's new snipping tool. You can grab portions of the screen for screen capture or just set it on a timer to grab the whole screen. It doesn't grab the Grab app window itself but instead takes what's beneath it. Very nice.

-Image capture - easy way to import photos that isn't iphoto's all or nothing approach (or so the review of this app said)


I am kind of wondering what happens if an included app gets accidentally deleted by your less than computer literate family memebers. Can you just restore it from the install OS disc? What if you haven't done a time machine backup yet and someone deletes photo booth from your applications folder?

 

[TheStu]

You can use the Pacifist Trial to pull included apps off the OS X install disk.

iPhoto is not all or nothing, you select which photos to pull off the camera and then if you want to leave them on the camera or not. However, Image Capture is useful in that you don't have to launch the full iPhoto and then if you don't even want the pictures in your iPhoto library, they won't go there.

 

[xanis]

The Pro is more money, but after using both and owning a Pro myself, let tell you: Get the Pro. The bigger and better screen and added graphic power is well worth it IMO.

 

[dclive]

Just sold my first-gen 1.83/x1600 MBP 2/320 for $1099 and kept my (brand new) MB 2.0/nv9400 4/120 for $799 + $50 tax.

Couldn't be happier - smaller, faster, lighter.