Okay, before I make the purchase I would like to hear ya'll's advice. I think I have decided on the 2.16 White Macbook, because the bigger harddrive and black paint are not worth 200 bucks more. But should I spend the money now to upgrade to 2 gigs. Or is that something I could possibly do later, and cheaper. Or do I have to go through Mac. I also plan on getting AppleCare, I should right? And with the student discount and the free iPod promotion, I guess I am going to buy straight from apple, though I hate to pay tax. Should I consider spending the extra jack on a Pro, or just get the extra memory, or will I need that?
What will be your primary use on it? That will help answer whether you should get Pro or not. Since you mentioned 'student discount' I'm gonna guess that it is mainly for everyday things, like web, email, A/V, word processing and the like. In that case, the MacBook should work out fine. I bought a Powerbook G4 about 4 years ago, and I do not feel the need to upgrade yet. Your machine will be more powerful than mine. I would get the memory upgrade. When I bought mine, I got the 1GB and I think that is part of the reason now it still runs quite well. Yes on AppleCare. It is an expensive warranty upfront, but IMO it is worth it over the years.
best decision of my life was to buy applecare. A lot of little hardware problems that are $$$$$$$ have been done for free thanks to that. I would go for 2 gigs for sure. Definitely don't waste money on a paint job. I have a white i-book and put some of my favorite band stickers on there and it looks pretty cool.
you can update the RAM yourself; but you may not save much money, as there are only two slots and you'll have to burn what it ships with. But you definitely need 2 gig.
you have up to a year to purchase applecare for your computer. i usually just buy it with the computer because i'll forget. i just ordered a macbookpro on thursday btw. ram: more is better but don't buy it from apple. buy it from newegg or macsales.com. the ram in the macbook is ridiculously easy to change. i mean ridiculously. open the battery bay, flip a couple switches and the ram just pops out. slide in the new sticks and you're good to go. buying from a third party is MUCH cheaper than buying from apple. i have 3rd party ram in all of my current computers (2 powerbooks and a quad g5). i'll have 3rd party ram in the macbookpro next week. no problems. just buy reasonably decent memory and you're fine. right now the main benefit of going with a macbookpro over a macbook are screen size and graphics card. if you're not going to be doing a lot of stuff that requires a graphics card (games, final cut studio) you probably won't even notice the difference.
xminus is right; i just checked and you'd save over $50 by getting two 1g at macsales and yanking the 2x512 it ships with.
My suggestions/comments (I am also a MacBook owner) 1. Buy the RAM separately, it's easy to install and cheap. There is no reason not to upgrade to 2GB. 2. You have a year to buy Applecare(up until the the original warranty expires), just wait. Don't forget there's an educational discount on it, too. 3. Upgrading the hard drive is just as easy as upgrading the RAM. 4. Don't forget that If you buy from Apple, you can get a $100 rebate on certain Canon and HP printers. Some are free after the rebate. 5. Like Xminus said, don't worry about getting a MBP pro unless you want a bigger screen or a video card.
Yeah I had decided that the main difference in the Pro was video, now the new ones came out with LED displays, and built in 2 gig, so that was a bigger step, and the 2.2. But the small pro isn't testing that much better than the MacBooks, other than framerates on games. Which I won't be playing. My main question, and I have done enough PC work before switching memory, drives, video cards and such, is if I install my own memory, does that void the AppleCare?
I bought a macbook isntead of a pro, because I WANTED the smaller screen. I'm of the belief that laptops should be small and portable. And the size of the screen or the lack of a better graphics card has never bugged me. FYI there are other differences though such as the ability to get a faster chip and differet inputs, but again they aren't that big of a deal to miss out on.
1. if money up front is an issue at all, you can buy applecare any time within the first year while it is still under warranty. i think it only extends to 3 years from the date of purchase no matter when you buy it, though. 2. do NOT upgrade the RAM or HD at point of purchase from apple. for one thing, they charge about twice as much as what you could buy the same memory for anywhere else. for another, you will be stuck waiting for weeks while they upgrade your computer in the philippines instead of being able to use your new computer right away. 3. are you planning on playing games or doing web design? if so that would be a good reason to think about buying a macbook pro, considering the main upgrades between macbook and macbook pro are a better graphics card and a bigger screen. otherwise, macbook will be just fine.
Yeah, everything is about decided now. I will not play games, but I will do some video editing. Not FC Studio stuff, maybe Express. And some creative suite stuff, but I figure with the extra memory that should be no big deal. I too, actually like the smaller screen. Easier to move around. Well now I just have to pull the trigger, since technically nothing I have learned here has changed my decision. Except I am glad I found out that replacing memory will not affect AppleCare. Any last tips before I spend the money? Will UT have the upgrade to Leopard??? for the cheap?
I have done lots of stuff in imovie, it is an amazing program. And truthfully, I don't know how to use everything in Express. I have tried to work on studio before, and it was an adventure. I got the basics down, but the new fangled tools, I didn't master. But I also didn't put the time or effort into it. I guess I will pay attention to this Leopard announcement, and will I get it for teh cheap from UT?
Awesome seems like I am about set. Just need to decide now if I want to do it at the store, or online, It doesn't really matter to me, and there isn't any special deal someone can give me at the store, right?
its going to be the same price either way. id just go ahead and pick one up at the domain. you wont have to wait for it to ship
If I go to the store, what do I have to show to get Student discount? Because I don't have my UT ID yet, since I am just an incoming fish.
the other cool thing about the pro care plan is: you can jsut take your book in for any issue, directly to the store. the dudes on duty (usually 2 or 3, will fix it for you right there or have you leave it for a couple of days.) it's all included in the plan, and thats a pretty kickass thing, when you stop to think about it.
when we bought in the store last week, we got the iPod and printer rebate. * the "free iPod" must be purchased, then you get a rebate of $200 that's enough to get you a 4 gig unit.
The one thing to remember when upgrading your RAM. If you use someone other than Apple and you have a problem with the machine, RAM related or not, Apple will not touch it if it has non-Apple RAM. The thing I do is keep the RAM that came with the machine and if I have a problem, I replace my non-Apple RAM with the original RAM. I buy my RAM from RAMJET