Newbie Needing Purchase Decision Help

Hello! I'm new to the site. I was forced to leave the Mac for the PC in 1998 and have determined that now is the right time to return to my first love. I want to get a 15" MBP, but I need help deciding which one. I will use the MBP primarily for school, which mean's I'll be running Office and personal finance products, web surfing, listening to my iTunes music library, watching the occasional HD movie download, etc. I'm not at all into games. I figure that, for my needs, a higher speed HDD would be more beneficial than a faster CPU, so I went to Apple Student store and configured a 2.4GHz 15" MBP, changing only the HDD configuration from the base 320GB to a 500GB, 7200RPM drive. That came out to $1,944.04 after taxes.

Here's my problem: if I buy a base configuration 2.53GHz 15" MBP from Amazon.com, it will cost over $60 less than the computer I configured at Apple's student store. So, I guess my question is, will a 7200RPM HDD be so much more beneficial that it would warrant me paying $60 more money to buy an MBP that has a slower CPU? Or, should I just go ahead and live with the 5200RPM HDD in the base configuration 2.53GHz model on Amazon.com, since it is cheaper than Apple's price for a model with a slower CPU and higher speed HDD? Intuitively, it feels like I should go with Amazon.com on this one.

Can anyone help?

My advice: Memory upgrades, hard drive upgrades... do them yourself. Order the 15" MBP stock (no extras) and save. Later on you can add more memory and install a larger and faster hard drive. Both are easy do it yourself projects with the newer MBP. A faster hard drive - 7200 RPM versus 5400 RPM is not going to make that much difference for what you'll be using the machine for anyway.

Another advantage to upgrading the drive yourself is that after swapping out the original hard drive with a newer faster larger one, you can use the drive you removed for external storage.

But, it's your money. You have to ultimately decide.

Regards.

chscag said:

My advice: Memory upgrades, hard drive upgrades... do them yourself. Order the 15" MBP stock (no extras) and save. Later on you can add more memory and install a larger and faster hard drive. Both are easy do it yourself projects with the newer MBP. A faster hard drive - 7200 RPM versus 5400 RPM is not going to make that much difference for what you'll be using the machine for anyway.

Another advantage to upgrading the drive yourself is that after swapping out the original hard drive with a newer faster larger one, you can use the drive you removed for external storage.

But, it's your money. You have to ultimately decide.

Regards.

Click to expand...

Thanks so much for your advice. You basically confirmed what I'd already expected re: the difference between a 7200RPM and a 5400RPM HDD. I didn't realize I could upgrade the HDD later though. That's good to know. I went ahead and pulled the trigger on the stock configuration @ Amazon.com. I can't wait until it comes!!!!