Looking for a new mac, but can't find what I'm looking for?! PLZ HELP!!!

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Good Evening,

I've been an avid mac user now for the past 6yrs, I mainly use it for college, lots of pictures, and also tons of music. I currently have a MacBook Pro 17-inch early 2008, with 4gb of ram, 2.5 GHz processor, and a 250 GB hard drive! I'm looking for an upgrade, mainly a bigger hard drive looking for something around the 1TB range and at least, at least, 8GB of ram. But my problem is that Apple does not offer anything like that, so i was wondering if it would be possible to buy a Laptop from another website like toshiba or Dell. Personally, I don't like Microsoft or anything that has to do with windows!!!! ;P But i'm really at the point where i need a new laptop and don't know what to do, should i wait or should I buy one from a competitor and format it and throw OS X Lion on it?! PLEASE PLEASE, any help, ideas, or suggestions are appreciated!

Thanks,
Philipplin
 
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Philipplin said:
i was wondering if it would be possible to buy a Laptop from another website like toshiba or Dell. Personally, I don't like Microsoft or anything that has to do with windows!!!! But i'm really at the point where i need a new laptop and don't know what to do, should i wait or should I buy one from a competitor and format it and throw OS X Lion on it?!

Don't mess around with Hackintosh. You might be able to install Lion on one of those laptops but, take it from me, it's not worth the headaches. It's almost impossible to find a machine which is fully compatible, and every software update brings with it the potential of new and disastrous incompatibilities.

I don't know what your budget is, but you can order a 17-inch MacBook Pro with 8 GB of memory for $2699; just select "Configure" on the Apple website. It only comes with the 750GB hard drive by default, but as far as I know it's a standard 2.5" SATA. You can pick up a 1 TB replacement like this one for a little over $200 and install it yourself. In total, that's $2936 - probably more than one from Toshiba or Dell, but I'd say it's worth it for the peace of mind alone. :)
 
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Throwing Lion on anything other than a Mac is illegal, so I wouldn't do that.

The latest MacBook Pros are configurable so you can add a bigger hard drive and extra RAM yourself. Doing a google search for either will bring back answers on how, I believe it's straight forward.
 
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Definitely appreciate the feedback, very helpful. I think i'm going to buy one from Apple and just customize as much as I can do myself, increasing RAM, Hard drive, etc.... And also downgrade to the 15' inch for easier transportation, even though i do like the big screen for multitasking but its just too bulky!
Also are MacBooks ready to handle 12GB ram?!

Thanks.
 
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The latest 15" MBP will accommodate 16GB of RAM.
 
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We tried putting Snow on an i5 ThinkPad and it didn't work, we also tried it with two other different PCs with still no luck. Buy a 13" or 15" MBP upgrade the RAM to 8gb or i guess 16gb if you have the 15" and but a 1tb HDD in it. I dislike Windows just as much as you do man so save yourself the pain and buy the new MBP and upgrade it.
 
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You can always do your own HDD upgrade and RAM upgrade. Its pretty easy, just follow some youtube videos!

I ordered my laptop on eBay and it came with an SSD, and its awesome.
 

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