Quote:
Originally Posted by
Vox Barbara 
Good boy.
I inspected a 3 month old Core 1 Duo 1.83ghz MacBook 13" with 1.25gb RAM and WINXP2pro original and of course Apple box and packaging. Screen looks good, no dead pixels (my greatest fear), About 20km down from where I am now in Melbourne. Dude selling it on eBay. I may be able to snipe a good price. Minor cosmetic issue, there is a bit of the edge on the bottom left side where there is a "chip" or "nick" in the side.
I am facing the next 3-6 months without playing any games. I have lasted 5 months without my AMD64rig and nVidia 6600GT and games. So GMA950 will do. 64mb RAM taken from that extra 256mb RAM on top of the 1GB.
Hmm... 12 months without games. Plus each PC game here is like $50AUD to $90+AUD. Well, I've lasted 5 months.
If I purchase 2nd hand MacBook this Friday, 5th Jan... use Tiger 10.4.8/9 until say March/April at the earliest for stable Leopard 10.5.2/3.
No superdrive. Frack it. A DL drive is only 7+GB and takes a long time to burn (2.4x speed on most laptops). I'll use the existing 60gb 5400rpm drive as external backup and whack in a sweet sweet 7200rpm Seagate 80gb.
My upgrade path:
Existing: 1.25gb RAM, 60gb 5400rpm drive, Core 1 Duo 1.83ghz
Next: 1.25gb RAM, 80gb 7200rpm drive, Core 1 Duo 1.83ghz (add AUD $200)
Next: 2GB RAM (maxed out), 80gb 7200rom drive, Core 1 Duo 1.83ghz (add AUD $200)
I am unlikely to be involved in highly CPU-intensive tasks such as encoding (which are overnights or just in the background anyway), and who knows when I can return to graphic design, but CS3 Universal should be alright on the Core 1 Duos.
I feel the Core 1 Duo 1800mhz therefore will not be really "saturated use" until within 1 year when I complete the above upgrades, where I am running at 2GB RAM and 7200rpm 80gb Seagate Momentus hard disk, and Leopard. At that stage anyway (at the end of 2006 the Intel GMA 950 will be pretty worthless).
1280x800 13" screen. Wide notebook, smallish, white iBook finish... Hm... iSight built in, kinda ok, won't use it much. Screen has no dead pixels... Vertical viewing angle not so good on the MacBooks. But Horizontal viewing angle is okay and colours and brightness is okay. Glossy screen, well, might get used to it.
Battery: Battery to be used only in emergency. Home or cafe use, plug in power with MagSafe. Keep battery full charge and discharge only once every few weeks.
Ah, I have justified blowing some cash on a MacBook this Friday. Before the MacWorld keynote...!! AM I MAD? But eBay Australia is a bit tricky, hard to find good deals in your own city, particularly Macs.
...Of course, only if you feel comfortable that I'm not some sort of psycho and I'm *actually* in Australia not just around your block stalking you or something... 8) 
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