New to MacForums and Macs

Hello

My Name is Scott and I look forward to being a part of this very well coordinated and well run forum.

Firstly i am a very active Laptop user, i currently have a DELL but as of recently i have been having trouble with it and have thought about swapping it for a MAC.

I have been looking on the Apple.ie store, and have picked out a MacBook Pro and here are the specs

13-inch: 2.3 GHz

2.3GHz dual-core
Intel Core i5
8GB 1333MHz
500GB 5400-rpm1
Intel HD Graphics 3000
Built-in battery (7 hours)

Would someone be able to advise me as to if this is a good model.

Thank you in advance and Have a nice day.

Welcome to the forum. Sounds like an awesome machine, though knowing more about what you intend to do or need from the machine would be helpful in letting us know if it's the "right" model for you. I'm sure you'll enjoy it once you acclimate yourself to the OS (which doesn't take long, particularly with Lion now out).

Hello Scott, Welcome to Mac-Forums

I'm sure if you do decide to switch to a Mac you will be very happy with it and you have also come to the right place for help and advice both now and for in the future.

I can confirm that the model you are looking at is very good. But it kind of depends what you are wanting it for.
If you are wanting it for gaming then it should be able to run most modern games on medium - high graphics settings with ease, however if you are looking for a gaming machine then maybe one that has a bigger screen would suffice more?
If however you are just going to be using it for web browsing, e-mail, word processing etc then you will have absolutely no problems what-so-ever.

Hope this helps

- Simon

Thank you both for your very quick responses.
I intend to check my social network sites (Facebook,Twitter etc) as well as a small bit of online shopping. I also use iTunes with my iPhone4.
I would not use it for gaming as i have a 44" Plasma and Xbox 360 Slim in my room so i am very well looked after in that department.
I do however download quite a bit from RSLinks with JDownloader. I also burn quite a few DVD's with these downloads.

I always tell people who do a lot of DVD/CD burning to get an external burner. My reasoning is a. It's cheap, b. most people do most of their burning at home, so save the built-in one for on-the-road burning, because c. if you wear out/overheat/screw up the internal one, that's a significant repair. If you wear out/burn up/spill wine on an external burner, who cares (see a.).

Welcome Scott. I too am a recent convert to Mac and I have not regretted the decision one iota. I am very pleased as I think you will be as well.

If I had to give one bit of advice it would be to go slow regarding downloading "things" to clean or make your Mac faster. I have found that a few weeks of looking and listening will save you a lot of headache and your Mac will love you. LOL

Again Welcome.

Pat

In before some corrects you on it's Mac and not MAC. >_<" Any of the Intel Macs can handle what you listed.

CrimsonRequiem said:

it's Mac and not MAC. >_<" .

Click to expand...

Apologies Sir. It wont happen again. Thank you

chas_m said:

I always tell people who do a lot of DVD/CD burning to get an external burner.

Click to expand...

Could you recommend one, or is that for another thread?

Welcome, enjoy your time here