Decisions, decisions
hey all, sorry to be a pain, yet another 'which should i choose' question..
im looking to get my girlfriend a laptop and at this point im thinking about either the mbp core duo 2.16 of the last generation which can be had for $1600 or a new mb c2duo 2.16 which can be had for about $1500. i have been a long time mac user but this would be her first. i like the idea of getting her a powerbook(sorry, cant get used to this mbp name) with the expansion card slot and a dedicated graphics card so that it will be more useful a few years down the road. the mb is ok but smaller screen and that annoying gma950.
do you think its worth waiting for the new generation mbp c2duo to go refurb? $1600 for a 10% slower chip but a graphics card with double the current memory (256mb vs. 128) seems like a better deal. she wont need the firewire 800 port and 64bit really wont make a difference in the real world. what do people think?
better to take the $1600 deal or is it that much better to have the newer mbp?
im looking to get my girlfriend a laptop and at this point im thinking about either the mbp core duo 2.16 of the last generation which can be had for $1600 or a new mb c2duo 2.16 which can be had for about $1500. i have been a long time mac user but this would be her first. i like the idea of getting her a powerbook(sorry, cant get used to this mbp name) with the expansion card slot and a dedicated graphics card so that it will be more useful a few years down the road. the mb is ok but smaller screen and that annoying gma950.
do you think its worth waiting for the new generation mbp c2duo to go refurb? $1600 for a 10% slower chip but a graphics card with double the current memory (256mb vs. 128) seems like a better deal. she wont need the firewire 800 port and 64bit really wont make a difference in the real world. what do people think?
better to take the $1600 deal or is it that much better to have the newer mbp?
Comments
do you think its worth waiting for the new generation mbp c2duo to go refurb? $1600 for a 10% slower chip but a graphics card with double the current memory (256mb vs. 128) seems like a better deal. she wont need the firewire 800 port and 64bit really wont make a difference in the real world. what do people think?
better to take the $1600 deal or is it that much better to have the newer mbp?
I have read the Core 2 Duos run cooler but I'm not sure. Performance-wise I'd see no advantage waiting for the Core 2 Duo MBP.
It's a tough choice between the MBP and MB because if she's not into gaming much then the GMA is actually ok and the CPUs will be around the same speed. I personally prefer the metal casing though and even for the odd game, it makes the experience better if you can play it smoothly.
The GMA gets a lot of bad press though and before I got my Core Duo Mini, my experience with it was on a Core Solo Mini with 512MB Ram and I didn't like it at all. But I've tested it out a lot on my Mini Duo and it's faster than the old G4s with dedicated cards - I had both a 1.25GHz G4 Mini with a 32MB Radeon 9200 and a 1.5GHz G4 powerbook with 64MB GeforceGo 5200fx and the Mini with GMA beats both quite easily for graphics performance and it annihilates them CPU-wise.
The main thing to think about is whether or not she will use the GPU. This includes apps like Motion and Aperture. If it's CPU programs like Photoshop, Word, Final Cut, iMovie etc then the GMA is not a problem. The small screen might be a nuisance to some but having used a 12" powerbook (I prefer that name too), I'd find it difficult to use anything higher.
any ideas on why they lowered the vram on the new c2duo machines? seems a little silly.
Well it reduces the cost by about £50 and most people will get along fine with 128MB. It's all about what becomes the bottleneck first. Since the X1600 is not a high end card, in most cases it won't perform much better with 256MB Vram compared to 128MB:
http://www.insidemacgames.com/forum/...howtopic=24657
I've advised people to avoid the VRam upgrades on the iMacs too and seeing an Intel iMac with 256MB Vram compared to one without, I saw no difference whatsoever.
I'd say if you plan on expanding the machine, the Core Duo MBP would be better than the Core 2. For some reason Apple have put a noise reducer on the hard drives in the new ones so you can't even replace the hard drive yourself without voiding your warranty.
good point.seems like once again this is more of a stop gap update rather than something that might come soon....
whatever happened to the whole nand memory rumors?
im leaning more toward that mbp cd. i remember paying about 2800 for my Ti550 about 4 years ago.my how times change