Looking to buy a Macbook but have some concerns!

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Hello,

I am a new user here, and have read the forum rules/features/ediquette pages to make sure I'm not breaking any rules :).

I have been eyeing the macbook for quite some time, and am very happy to see that the $1099 dollar macbook now comes with 1 gig of memory stock!

I also think that they now come with iLife 08, can anyone confirm this? I am not too sure if it comes on the macbooks, or does that include the "on all macs" part? Just to make sure :).

Now, my plan is to purchase the Macbook when Leopard comes out, is this a good idea? Or should I purchase one now, and purchase Leopard when it comes out? Is there any set release date for it? And will Macbooks come standard with it in the first place?

I will be using the notebook for college, starting with General Education, then going straight into advanced biology, science, and sociology and psychology courses! I like the glossy screen idea for the pictures I will need to be examining, but is the macbook good for research and writing overall? I know Macs are more for media, but I really like all of the ones I have played around on at the Apple stores!

Also, would the $1099 base model be enough? Or do you recomend the $1299
model. What is the difference between the second and the black Macbook besides the finish and larger hardrive? Is the screen not glossy?
 
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20" iMac Core 2 Duo 2.16Ghz, 500GB HDD, 1GB RAM, 128MB ATI Radeon X1600
...Of course it is included in the 'on all macs'...uh...it is a Mac right...yeah, I just checked, it is.

When Leopard comes out in October, MacBooks will come preinstalled with it. But I would just buy a MB now and get Leopard then. Unlike SOME OPERATING SYSTEMS AROUND HERE *COUGH COUGH COUGH* it will run fine on current computers, without needing to upgrade it.

Macs are not at all more for media, there are plenty of writing tools, such as Pages, Microsoft Word, Neo Office and Open Office.

The last question I can't answer. Whatever floats your boat. But the difference is that its black...Yes, they charge you more for a black MacBook. It sucks, I know.
 
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20" iMac G5 2.16 GHz 1gb Ram 250gb Hard drive, Macbook 1.83 GHz 2gb Ram 120 gb Hard drive
i think you should just buy one now...then buy the ne OS when it comes out....i used my macbook all last school year and it was great..never had a problem...go for it man...and in my opinion i do not think it is worth it to buy the black one...the white one is fine man
 
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Also, would the $1099 base model be enough? Or do you recomend the $1299
model. What is the difference between the second and the black Macbook besides the finish and larger hardrive? Is the screen not glossy?
The main three differences between the $1099 and $1299 white MacBooks are the processor speed (which you won't really notice), the hard drive (which you may notice, depending on how much space you need) and the optical drive - the base system only has a DVD-ROM/CD-RW drive, where as the $1299 is a full CD/DVD writer. So it all depends on what you need.

As for the BlackBook, the screen is exactly the same (glossy), but the finish of the MacBook itself is more matte and not glossy like the white MacBook. These two really come down to whether you prefer black or white to be honest.
 
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I think I prefer the white one, but I heard that it easily gets discolored to a yellowish color, is this true?

I think I will go for the $1299 one since I do like the CD/DVD writing feature.

How much will Leopard cost new? And will it be easy to install over the old OS?
 
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Welcome to Mac-Forums, SAAB.

If say you buy the MacBook and it happens the new iLife and iWork suites (they have been released only at the beginning of the week, after all) are not packaged in the box, you can ask Apple to send you the newer versions free of charge: just make sure you get all the details when you buy your MacBook.

The only thing that concerns me with you using it for science oriented classes is if you will be using MatLab: I've never used this app but you might make sure the MacBook has enough power to run it. Perhaps you will need to look into packing in more RAM in it.

Ask around, see what others in your situation have done. :)

Leopard will cost the same as if you were to buy Tiger today. And yes, it is easy to install a newer version of OSes in the Mac world. You have three ways of installing an OS over the older version: Upgrade, Archive and Install and Erase and Install.
 
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Oh ok that sounds easy :).

Another question I have is if the Macbook can run Java? Not Javascript but just Java? I play poker online and the site I go on uses Java to function, and some other sites I go to use Java as well.
 
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I think I prefer the white one, but I heard that it easily gets discolored to a yellowish color, is this true?
That was on an earlier model. Apple fixed the problem.
 
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Ok then I am more partial to the white one :).

I think I will be getting the $1299 one, and getting 2gigs of memory instead of the stock 1. I hope it won't be too expensive.

Thanks for all of the help everyone! If I think of any more questions, I will post them here instead of making a new thread and taking up space :).
 
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Your Mac's Specs
MacBook Pro, 15-inch, 2.2GHz 2gb RAM 15-inch Widescreen
i recommend getting it with 1gig, and then getting the extra memory from http://crucial.com its ALOT cheaper.
 
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Not necessarily if you have to throw away 2 512MB RAM sticks.
 

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