Which MacBook?

Hi, i am definitely going to switch to mac soon (in the next month or two) and i hav set my mind to a macbook pro, but wondering whether it is the best choice for me. Any kind of suggestion will be great!

i am a uni student, and planning to bring it to uni on a regular basis, so i need to do the basic assignment, typing, excel, power point etc etc. But i am a newbie using photoshop and hopefully get to work out how to use illustrator and i like pohotography and some kind of graphic design.

on the other hand, i am a guitarist and defintely would like to use it to record and make some music, along side with some mixing. and of course the normal web surfing, movies, general stuff.

i am using a destop that runs window, and it's not running photoshop or recording program smoothly, and the graphic card doesnt support most of the games in the market.

SO! the question is, will MB do the job or should i stick with MBP, if yes, which one out of the 15' model??

any help will be greatly appreciated! cheers!

Go Pro

As a graphic designer myself, I strongly prefer the MacBook Pro. In fact, I JUST upgraded from my black MacBook a few days ago and I'm super impressed with the additional features, as well as performance.

If you were going to compare the MacBook to the MacBook Pro-
*Better graphics card and performance on the MacBook Pro
*More RAM preinstalled (1GB on the MacBook and 2GB on the Pro)
*Choice of Glossy or Anti-Glare screen (I love the anti-glare which you can't get on the MacBook)
*Better battery life on the Pro
*More screen resolutions on the Pro
*More features built into the trackpad on the Pro
*the Pro only weighs .4 lbs more
*on the MacBook Pro you get the backlight keyboard (not available on the MacBook)
*The MacBook Pro is designed for creative professionals
*Games play beautifully on the Pro
*Screen is bigger and more clear on the Pro (that'll be great for your movies)
*Much bigger hard drive on the Pro (good for storing all that music you record!)

The choice is yours. As a former employee of Apple, I strongly suggest that you get what you can afford. If you can afford to get the MacBook Pro, GO FOR IT! You'll be so proud of your new mac that you won't regret it.

*The MacBook Pro is designed for creative professionals - Me like! haha

thanks for the suggestion, kinda answered all of my question, just one more thing, when it comes to the 2.4g and 2.5g, does it matter that much? i knwo that i shud get the fastest one i can afford, but is there any major differences?

I firstly thought that a MB would do for you as you're a student but when it came to the photography and music stuff, I thought the MBP would be better for the reason that distortedkarma has given.

But I think it also depends on if your a heavy user or not in the photo/music edition

Fidou said:

I firstly thought that a MB would do for you as you're a student but when it came to the photography and music stuff, I thought the MBP would be better for the reason that distortedkarma has given.

But I think it also depends on if your a heavy user or not in the photo/music edition

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yeh i guess i will stick with the pro, since i guess i would want to be good at phto editing and maybe move to video edit eventually, so hopefully i can join this MAC community when i get my pro asap!!

thanks for the help!

chocoloby said:

*The MacBook Pro is designed for creative professionals - Me like! haha

thanks for the suggestion, kinda answered all of my question, just one more thing, when it comes to the 2.4g and 2.5g, does it matter that much? i knwo that i shud get the fastest one i can afford, but is there any major differences?

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I don't think you'd be able to see any difference between 2.4 and 2.5ghz. I reckon for processing photo or video, the RAM is more important than the processor especially for 0.1ghz difference

chocoloby said:

yeh i guess i will stick with the pro, since i guess i would want to be good at phto editing and maybe move to video edit eventually, so hopefully i can join this MAC community when i get my pro asap!!

thanks for the help!

Click to expand...

Well you're already part of the community even without owning a Mac, myself I'm not an owner yet

The standard Pro is fine for you...

To be honest the standard Macbook Pro with 250 GB storage and 2 GB RAM should be fine for what you need it for. If you want to upgrade to 4 GB RAM for faster performance, it's up to you. For what you need it for I wouldn't suggest the Macbook at all. It all depends though on how serious you are with music recording and desktop publishing.

If were you I'd wait until August before you buy a Pro because rumor has it that Apple will be updating their Macbooks and Macbook Pros by then. You may or may not benefit from this update but who knows. Happy shopping...

The Macboo Pro is for you.

Personally, I prefer doing high-end work on a Desktop, simply because it feels more robust.

In turn, I can have a MacBook Air, which is very portable. It depends on whether you need the horsepower on the road, and whether you can afford a Desktop-Laptop setup.

An iMac and Macbook Air is a dream-setup for Uni ... which I have

livinitup1 said:

If were you I'd wait until August before you buy a Pro because rumor has it that Apple will be updating their Macbooks and Macbook Pros by then. You may or may not benefit from this update but who knows. Happy shopping...

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Just stick with the MacBook Pro. 2 GB should be totally enough RAM for you...I was just mentioning that I got 4GBs and I love it for running all of my Adobe Creative Suite applications at the same time. And DON'T wait until August. The current version of the MacBook Pro is going to be perfect for you. If you always wait for every new version of every Apple product to come out, you'll never get anything. Consider that most computers are updated 1-2 times per year, same with iPods. If you keep chasing the better product, you'll never be happy. And you'll never keep up...you'll want a new computer every 6 months!

yogi said:

The Macboo Pro is for you.

Personally, I prefer doing high-end work on a Desktop, simply because it feels more robust.

In turn, I can have a MacBook Air, which is very portable. It depends on whether you need the horsepower on the road, and whether you can afford a Desktop-Laptop setup.

An iMac and Macbook Air is a dream-setup for Uni ... which I have

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Are you kidding? Why would you tell a new Mac user to invest in 2 COMPUTERS? The MacBook Pro has plenty of power to be comparable to the iMac as a portable. He already said he wanted the portability, why would he need 2 computers?

distortedkarma said:

*More RAM preinstalled (1GB on the MacBook and 2GB on the Pro)
*
*Better battery life on the Pro
*
*Much bigger hard drive on the Pro (good for storing all that music you record!)

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okay so not all of this is entirely correct. yes he had some valid points and compelling arguments, but i would like to just set you straight on a couple of things. 1) only the very entry level macbook has 1GB of RAM preinstalled. the second and third level macbooks both have 2 gigs of RAM standard, with the option of up to 4. the battery life is going to be about the same on both MB and MBP. and finally, the hard drive on the MBP comes in 200 and 250 GB, and the current line of MB have 120,160, and 250 GB hard drives. i cant argue to the graphics, they are definatly better on MBP but i just wanted to make sure you had everything straight in order to make the best decision on your purchase.

bmxxx said:

okay so not all of this is entirely correct. yes he had some valid points and compelling arguments, but i would like to just set you straight on a couple of things. 1) only the very entry level macbook has 1GB of RAM preinstalled. the second and third level macbooks both have 2 gigs of RAM standard, with the option of up to 4. the battery life is going to be about the same on both MB and MBP. and finally, the hard drive on the MBP comes in 200 and 250 GB, and the current line of MB have 120,160, and 250 GB hard drives. i cant argue to the graphics, they are definatly better on MBP but i just wanted to make sure you had everything straight in order to make the best decision on your purchase.

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I was comparing the lowest end MacBook to the lowest end MacBook Pro. Also, there is about a 30 minute battery life improvement on the Pro. For the extra features, it's worth it to spend the extra $500 to get the Pro.