I haven't noticed any difference in battery life or anything else. A bit quicker but not a huge amount. Only really notice the speed increase when editing video.
I usually only convert video into different formats (I'm sure there's a better term than that though) from DVD's---would the time gains for converting a 2 hour movie be noticable?
I really don't think he's going to see a performance difference with what he's doing. The conversion of a video format is less dependent on the drive speed and more dependent on processor speed.
7200 rpm drive is good to have. It's a little faster than the 5400, just as quiet, doesn't take up a lot of power from your battery, and pretty inexpensive. Although I would not pay more for pre-installed, but rather install myself and save money.
Not a big difference in speed, but definitely louder. I ordered my late 2010 MacBook Pro with 7200 RPM and I kind of regret it because I can hear it spinning all the time, it's the loudest part in my MacBook.
I got a new MBP not long ago, kept it at the standard 500gb 5400rpm then swapped it out a couple of days later with a 500gb momentus XT which is a 7200rpm hybrid drive (tiny bit of flash memory). It made a massive difference and only cost $130AUD. Now i just need to get an enclosure for the spare 500gb drive which i'll turn into a time machine
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