08-21-2010, 10:35 PM

Hey guys. Long time lurker, first time poster here. My concern is a bit long-winded, so I hope you can bear with me and address my issue.

I bought a second-hand first gen Macbook in April with the intent of using it for school. I was a bit iffy about at first, but I discovered the switch from PC to Mac isn't so bad. The optical drive was ruined when I first bought it, but I invested in a new one. Now I want to upgrade my hard drive from 80GB to 320GB and upgrade my RAM to 2GB so I can install Snow Leopard.

My concern is whether or not this will be good enough for what I intend to use it for. Like I said earlier, this is for school and I don't intend to play any games on it (I'll leave that up to my desktop PC.) I'm an artist and photographer, so the only real heavy duty program I intend on using is Photoshop, possibly CS5.

So long story short, my question is: Should I keep the macbook I have now and spend the remaining $130 to upgrade it to my liking, or sell it and use the money towards purchasing a newer model?

Thanks in advance for your advice.

08-21-2010, 11:00 PM

Honestly speaking, I wouldn't want to run PS on that machine. Especially not CS5. How much do you think you could sell it for ? I know you're a student so money isn't just pouring from your pockets, but what I would do is keep the MacBook for portable use and general school stuff, and save up for a new 21" iMac.

Otherwise, I'd sell it and get an Macbook Pro if for nothing else than being able to put 8 gigs of RAM in it. Remember, 4 gigs and under isn't utilizing the 64bit architecture of the OS, so there's no real advantage of using an 64bit application. But 6 or 8 gigs of RAM, and you're rockin' nicely without worry that PS is going to use up all your memory or even run out!

Also, the MacBook only comes in the 13" screen version. No 15". Unless you're using it with an external monitor, which in that case it doesn't matter, or might even be better that it's 13". But now once you get up to the 15" MBP price point, you may as well get an iMac. You really have to think it over.

Doug

08-21-2010, 11:26 PM

Originally Posted by Doug b

Honestly speaking, I wouldn't want to run PS on that machine. Especially not CS5. How much do you think you could sell it for ? I know you're a student so money isn't just pouring from your pockets, but what I would do is keep the MacBook for portable use and general school stuff, and save up for a new 21" iMac.

Otherwise, I'd sell it and get an Macbook Pro if for nothing else than being able to put 8 gigs of RAM in it. Remember, 4 gigs and under isn't utilizing the 64bit architecture of the OS, so there's no real advantage of using an 64bit application. But 6 or 8 gigs of RAM, and you're rockin' nicely without worry that PS is going to use up all your memory or even run out!

Also, the MacBook only comes in the 13" screen version. No 15". Unless you're using it with an external monitor, which in that case it doesn't matter, or might even be better that it's 13". But now once you get up to the 15" MBP price point, you may as well get an iMac. You really have to think it over.

Doug

Hey Doug, thanks for the quick reply.

I live in Canada, and go to school in Japan, so the laptop is the only thing that will be able to come with me. I'm probably better off selling the one I have now and using that money to invest in a Macbook pro.

I paid $700 for it, and the highest I've been offered for what I have now is $300, which will barely cover the costs of a new machine. Still waiting for a person to offer me at least $400.

And of course, CS5 isn't really a vital requirement. I'd settle for CS2, which is what I currently have on my desktop.

08-22-2010, 01:24 AM

I run CS3 without complaint on a 2007 BlackBook w/2GB of RAM. I would worry that CS5 isn't going to run smoothly on this machine, which is why I haven't upgraded.

For $130 you'll "get by" with that MacBook, but you may spend a lot of time wishing you had bought something more recent. I'd suggest buying a refurb current model and selling the old one for the best price you can get for it.

08-22-2010, 04:03 AM

Originally Posted by chas_m

I run CS3 without complaint on a 2007 BlackBook w/2GB of RAM. I would worry that CS5 isn't going to run smoothly on this machine, which is why I haven't upgraded.

For $130 you'll "get by" with that MacBook, but you may spend a lot of time wishing you had bought something more recent. I'd suggest buying a refurb current model and selling the old one for the best price you can get for it.

Thanks, Chas. I will probably end up doing that.

I'll be following up on it. I don't regret the switch from PC to Mac so far, it's just a shame it had to start out like this.