- Joined
- Jun 19, 2009
- Messages
- 25
- Reaction score
- 0
- Points
- 1
- Location
- Florence, AL
- Your Mac's Specs
- iBook G4 12" 1.33Ghz/512mb.....MacBook Air 13" i5/4GB/128GB SSD
Let me qualify this by relating it to me directly. I plan on using a new computer for what many of you would consider 'very light' tasks such as checking email, web surfing, YouTube watching, photo sharing, word processing....you know all the things the iPad is for. ;D I'll be 'upgrading' from a most ancient Celeron equipped 5+ year old Toshiba Satellite so literally anything new will, I'm sure, blow me away. I'm now currently (check back tomorrow to see where I'm at, I'm sure) looking into the just released 13" MPB base model (2.4GHZ Core 2) with the standard integrated graphics card. I'm pretty computer illiterate other than knowing that bigger numbers are generally better! I will NEVER 'game' on this machine (not into all of that) and will just use it over the next several years on the tasks I already mentioned. My question is this: are discrete graphics cards really that useful to someone in my position? Would a 'better' graphics card make a difference in me watching HD videos on YouTube, for example? With my education discount, I can get into the base 13" for around $1200.00 or so with tax whereas to do a 'major upgrade' I almost have to double that to get discrete graphics and an i7 in the 15" which would be at the extreme end of my budget. I'd like to pocket that money and max out the RAM on the 13" and eventually do a SSD. Any opinions???