I usually reward myself around Christmas for another year of being so awesome. This year, I’m thining about getting a MacBook for my writing.
I’m not interested in the 17 inch macbook pro because I already have a 17" laptop. I want one that’s light, has a usable keyboard and long battery life. I’m thinking about getting just a regular white macbook with some upgraded options but it’s only 13". Is that too small for comfortable typing?
Can you get the slim silver macbook that has the web cam in it? cuz that’s what my Buddy got the other day and it’s teh awesome.
MacPros get the glossy display option. Keep an eye out for good refurb deals. Probably just need to drop another stick of RAM if it’s only 512mb.
Core 2 Duos get Firewire 800, if you care.
I actually think you can opt for glossy on the 13 as well.
As far as i can tell, i don’t believe they do. Unless there is a 13" MacbookPro.
Also, the iMac = the Macbook Pro 17" at half the price. It’s just not a laptop.
A review at Amazon says 4-4.5 hours battery life btw.
Yeah, I want something for travel and ease of use though. I considered an imac
Something to consider – you can game on a Macbook Pro with Bootcamp (x1600), but not with a regular Macbook (intel).
Yeah, it’s kind of a weird thing because I have my hp zd8000 for WoW and everything, so I don’t want it for gaming… BUT if I get the 2500 dollar one, it comes with the 256 x1600 ANYWAY and it’s managable and probably gets better battery life than my zd8000
I really like my Macbook. (I never use my PC any more, if I can help it.) I think all Macbooks (non-pro) have the glossy screen, and you can only choose matte on the pros. If I remember correctly, there was some big deal that the Macbooks didn’t have the matte screen, because Macs since forever had been matte, and you know how fanbois get. If you’re worried about glossy vs matte, check 'em both out at your local Apple store.
As far as the keyboard goes, it seems like a regular sized keyboard to me, although comparing it to my old Dell desktop keyboard, it is a little smaller (the actual letter part), but this looks due to the keys being closer together as opposed to being actually smaller.
There have been rumors floating around that the Macbook’s gonna get bumped to core 2 duo pretty soon (from core duo), but that rumor’s been around for awhile. A good site for Mac buying is http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/. They have all the times between releases and rumors in one handy place.
If you really want to pick up some neat expensive toys, get a tivo series3 and a slingbox pro with the “HD” adapter. Nothing impresses your friends quite like streaming Smallville over the internet to your cellphone with the full tivo interface, etc. Excuse my french but it’s fuckin’ rad.
And if you travel all the time, you can watch your home tivo at pretty damn good quality in your hotel room on the laptop you’ve already got.
I like my Macbook, and I can play WoW on it decently. I use it mostly for writing, like you said.
If money’s tight and you don’t need the 4x DVD drive, get the 1.83 Macbook and jack the ram.
That’s the one my wife will be getting (on my advice) in a couple of weeks. It’s the most future-proof purchase right now among the Mac laptops.
All in all it’s a very worthy upgrade compared to the next model down. It plays WoW very well (and will probably/hopefully do even better when the next point release comes out and enables multithreaded OpenGL support).
The 1600 got a nice speed bump on the new C2D models too, btw.
My buddy has the 15" Macbook Pro. It’s a tiny thing. I have teh envy for it.
Just picked up the 15" macbook pro with the 2 gig ram and the 256MB video card. so far it surfs the web just great!!
Soon I’ll be slapping some Final Cut and Avid Express on in. The machine has been a genuine pleasure to use so far.
I wonder how well the MacBook Pros will run Vista.
I’m waiting for the answer to that before I dive in.
That, and I’m wondering when Apple’s going to start adding HDMI-out ports to the Macbook Pros. They’ve always been pretty quick to abandon “legacy” i/o, and HDMI makes sense when simplicity is your driving goal.
I figure it’ll show up around the same time as the Blu-Ray enabled Macbooks. Apple got into bed with Sony on that one.
I use a MacBook (white, 2GB RAM, 80GB HD) for much of my work, which consists of writing, grading papers, doing and creating presentations, that sort of thing. It’s great for all of that, and it’s small and light enough to go to meetings and on trips without a hassle. I hook it up to an external monitor and keyboard with a Blutetooth mouse in my office for much of the day.
Gaming is not its strong suit, though; that doesn’t bother me in the slightest as I deliberately wanted a work notebook and for travel I just take my DS with me for games. Even with “basic” games like the Spiderweb Software RPGs it tends to get hot and run the fan loudly. But for smooth WiFi hookups, writing, presentation, web and non-3D graphics/video stuff, it’s fantastic.
Whichever one you get, do not skimp on RAM. Get 2GB. Trust me, you’ll want it.
Ugh… can you confirm? Official source for this? I know the X1600 was underclocked by about 40-percent in the original MBP, but have they now gone to full speed in the C2D models?