i'm buying a macbook pro

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marz

13 posts

Geek
Inactive user

#10109 5-Nov-2006 17:14

I've been through the "Mac or PC?" thing a lot ... but it comes down to the fact that 90% of the film and tv industry are on macs now, so I'd better do the same for compatibility, etc. So ... I'm probably buying one in the next few days .... yes i know thats a quick decision. But a couple of questions:

A) where can you buy macs in Auckland? I've found the totallymac site, and the apple site, and i know you can get them at noel leemings. Any other suggestions?

B) Any comments or tips on what to go for, or what not to go for? I definitely won't be going for a 13inch screen. Probably 15inch... although I'll consider the 17 once I've had a look at them. (the 15 or 15.4inch is probably in my price range a bit more though).

C) Here's one I've looked at getting, its on a special deal at the moment too .... http://www.noelleeming.co.nz/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10001&catalogId=10001&productId=70125&crumb=10005-10180-16151

I've seen one with similar specs on totallymac, except its a 15.4inch screen and says (previous model in brackets even though its still a macbook pro) ... but once you add on gst it ends up the same price as the one above.

D) It really seems pointless getting the macbook rather than the macbook pro doesn't it? I won't be using it for editing as I work in the production side of things, but I will need to be able to access files and videos on it, etc... so it seems to me that the macbook pro is the way to go as the macbook has limited memory ... only up to 80gig as far as I can tell..?

Any help or tips would be appreciated!! thanks.

marz

13 posts

Geek
Inactive user

#51122 5-Nov-2006 17:54

ok you can probably ignore question D) I just discovered macbooks only come with the 13inch screen, so they're no longher an option ... definitely going macbook pro

uncmil

48 posts

Geek

#51132 5-Nov-2006 20:24

The 15 inch and 15.4 inch are the same thing. They call it the MacBook Pro 15 inch, but it's really the MacBook Pro 15.4 inch.

You'll be happy if you pruchase, I'm sure you will.

Aloha

676 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

#51144 5-Nov-2006 22:02

A.  http://www.apple.co.nz/wheretobuy/default.php?region=n2

B. Depends on your financial situation. If you can afford why dont you go for the bigger one?

C. If you can do it buy it abroad. You can save a lot of money if you buy it in Australia, in Singapore, in Hong Kong or in the     States. Apple laptops are coming with worldwide guarantee.

D. ignored :)


By the way, great choice!

I is a kollege stoodent. Bee nice.

marz

13 posts

Geek
Inactive user

#51222 6-Nov-2006 14:20

my budget is really as low as possible, lol. I'm either going to be putting it on HP and trying to sweettalk the sales rep into doing an interest free deal for me. Or I'll be sweettalking the bank into extending my personal loan to pay for it. I can pay it off in the next 4 months, but not right now, so yeah trying not to aim too high with the price.

Its become a bit of an impulse purchase, but necessary for my line of work. Unfortunately that means I don't have time to orgaise buying it abroad :-(

So far the best deals I have are:

MacBook Pro 15" 2.0GHz Intel Core Duo/512MB/80GB/ SuperDrive - $3021.33 excl gst
MacBook Pro 15" 2.16GHz Intel Core Duo/1GB/100GB/ SuperDrive - $3376.89 excl gst

Anyone have any contacts that can do these cheaper for me? :-)

marz

13 posts

Geek
Inactive user

#51233 6-Nov-2006 14:50

Phew! well my job for this week just changed slightly ... which means I don't need to get a macbook pro so urgently! However .. I will probably get one within the next month, so keep the advice coming

rcw

30 posts

Geek

#53174 22-Nov-2006 07:31

I hope this comes in time to still be useful--

I ended up with a regular MacBook instead of the Pro and I've been very pleased.

The key cost savings was to buy with minimal options then add on. Apple bleeds you for those.

If you have a family member who works in education that can help also. My wife works for a university so we were able to get about 5% off that way. I'm in the US right now (immigrating in Jan/Feb if all goes well) so I have no advice on where to purchase.

So, for $1050(US) I got a MacBook w/512M and 60G disk from Apple. Then I paid about $300(US) for 2G of memory and a 120G disk from some reputable online store. I did the upgrade myself and it was very easy--instructions can be found on Apple's web site and other places. Reinstalling the OS and apps was easy, DVDs to do that came with the machine.

(If you go that route do keep in mind that Apple uses SATA drives not IDE.)

I also got a USB adapter kit for the 60G drive so now I have a handy 60G external drive.

If I ever need to get the machine serviced I'll need to swap that gear back in but so far no worries.

I decided I didn't care about being able to write DVDs. I have an external DVD writer that works fine for when I need to do that.

I decided the extra screen size was less important than the portability of the laptop. You can attach an external monitor if you need to. Because it has a wide screen (instead of the 4:3 most laptops use) I found that it doesn't feel like a small screen in practice.

As I said, I've been very pleased with the end results. I use it for Java development which is where the extra memory really helps. I also do some light DVD ripping and it's plenty fast for that. I got a little miniDV camera and have been doing some video editing and it's worked well for that also. I just love it.

A larger screen would be nice for all those but it would need to be a larger screen than I can get on a laptop (two foot at least). The wide screen format takes you a lot farther than you'd guess.

Summarizing the reasons I got the non-Pro:

- don't need the ExpressCard slot
- didn't want the larger size
- didn't need a faster machine (I'm not doing weather simulations, for example)
- cost -- significantly easier to get wifey approval when the starting number is similar to $1k