Need some help choosing which Macbook to buy.

I've been going around and around in the Apple store for the past two months trying to decide which macbook to buy. I like the 13" white middle of the road macbook but also wonder if a macbook pro would last longer? On my current computer all I do is the basic surfing, downloading music and stuff for school. My last dell gave me the blue screen of death and I couldn't resurrect it. I really don't need that to happen again and am hoping the stability of a Mac will help me. I want to keep the price at a minimal. I don't need anything fancy but I also want it to last me a couple of years. For all you experienced mac'ers what do you suggest? 13" white mac book or the 15" macbook pro? Thanks for checking out my post!

Oh and one more thing... I haven't found a concrete answer to this question, so if someone could humor me and answer it I would appreciate it. What is the difference between the middle of the road white mac book and the black mac book? Other than the amount of memory?

THANKS!

The only difference between the blackbook and the mid range white is the hardrive Black=250gb, white=160gb. They call it the black tax lol. For your needs i would say the midrange white macbook would be more than adequate, for you a mbp would be overkill. And actually a MB is far more durable than a MBP because the mbp's aluminum case can get dented very easily. Hope that helps!

Hey,

I'm not a Mac owner (yet) but pretty much in your situation as I'm planning to switch soon.

I was also in the same case in deciding which Mac I was going to get, MB or MBP.

1st thing I did is figuring out what is my use of a laptop (email, browsing, listening music & watching movies, instant messaging/skype, typing report for work/uni). Well pretty basic tasks as you can see.

2nd, I thought about what kind of laptop I wanted to have in terms of size. Currently I have a Dell 14" and I really want to have something smaller for easy carrying when I have to go to uni (almost going everyday).

Based on those 2 points, I found out that the MB would be perfect for my needs and use!! Althought at the beginning I was really interested in getting a MBP, then I thought about the price differences. Ok the MBP has an aluminium case, a better video card & some nice features such as multi touch trackpad, illuminated keyboard, firewire 800, DVI, etc

It would be nice to have all of those but only if you really use them
For example, I'm not really using DVI or any firewire peripherals, as I'm not doing any heavy photo/video editing or game I don't really need a powerful video card

What I'm trying to say is just that to make your choice, I would recommend to:
1: what are your use and needs for a laptop
2: what kind of machine you want

About what you say, I definitely think that a MB would be perfect for you!

Between the middle of the road MB and the black, except the color and the size of the hard disk, nothing's different. If you don't really care about the color and the size of the disk just go for a White MB (which already has a big disk)

Hope that helps

I just bought the middle MacBook (white with 160GB HD). I actually made an appointment to go to the Apple Store (made the appt. on Apple's website; there's no requirement to buy anything) and one of the sales guys spent 45 minutes with me going over the MacBook (although I had read lots of stuff about Macs, it was my first real good intro to Macs). I surf the web, do some light photo editing, word processing, and some graphics light games. He suggested the middle of the MacBook because it has 2GB Ram instead of 1GB that the low end MacBook has. He also said that since I was not in love with a black instead of white case, I could save $200 by getting the middle one and use part of that $200 to buy a large external (much bigger than the 90GB difference between the white and black MacBooks; I subsequently bought a external 160GB HD for $79 ). I followed his recommendation (and appreciated the fact that he actually recommended a cheaper MacBook) and am absolutely in love with my MacBook. As far as the MacBook Pro goes, the extra $ didn't make sense for me and probably doesn't for you. You won't regret switching (I can't believe how much better Leopard is than Vista) and won't regret getting the MacBook.

Magyarbill said:

As far as the MacBook Pro goes, the extra $ didn't make sense for me and probably doesn't for you.

Click to expand...

That's exactly what I tried to explain but you just did it better and shorter

The MB has only a glossy screen right? I've been reading threads to understand what's the best between a matte and glossy screen.

Fidou said:

That's exactly what I tried to explain but you just did it better and shorter

The MB has only a glossy screen right? I've been reading threads to understand what's the best between a matte and glossy screen.

Click to expand...

Yeah macbook only has a glossy screen. Glossy=Very bright and vibrant , Matte= TRUE colors, so they are not distorted in anyway, its more for people who do photo/video editing so they can get the colors right. But some people just prefer on over the other. I have 2 dell laptops at the moment in the house, 1 is glossy and the other is matte. I personally prefer the look of a glossy screen.

iApple said:

Yeah macbook only has a glossy screen. Glossy=Very bright and vibrant , Matte= TRUE colors, so they are not distorted in anyway, its more for people who do photo/video editing so they can get the colors right. But some people just prefer on over the other. I have 2 dell laptops at the moment in the house, 1 is glossy and the other is matte. I personally prefer the look of a glossy screen.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the info. I currently own a Dell D610 but not sure what kind of screen it is.

if the glossy screen is very bright and vibrant, is it likely to suffer from glare to the point that it gets really annoying to use?

Some say yes some say know, I like apple's glossy screens and use them in office lighting and have no problems at all with bright florescent lights.

Do not compare/assume they are anything like HP/Compaq, or Dell's glossy screens, those are complete garbage compared to apples. I know because I currently have a Compaq v2000 with the glossy screen. Its a good looking screen but then when you look at a macbook it puts my compaq to shame.

rich6490 said:

Some say yes some say know, I like apple's glossy screens and use them in office lighting and have no problems at all with bright florescent lights.

Do not compare/assume they are anything like HP/Compaq, or Dell's glossy screens, those are complete garbage compared to apples. I know because I currently have a Compaq v2000 with the glossy screen. Its a good looking screen but then when you look at a macbook it puts my compaq to shame.

Click to expand...

I've just checked and my Dell is a matte screen. Thanks for the info about comparison between HP/Compaq and the Apple's glossy screen

Usually I'm using my laptop indoor so I guess the glossy screen wouldn't be annoying for me and as I'm not into photography, etc it's not essential for me

Now I definitely think the MB is perfect for me )

I myself just went with the middle macbook this past week. I'm coming from using a Windows PC all my life but the instability had to stop lol. I'm going to college this fall,not for graphics or anything, but I still felt that in the long run, this would be a great investment. Didn't need a high end graphics card or huge storage. And just for the heck of it, installed parallels and installed Vista on that so whenever I need to do anything Windows related I can use that alongside my OS X. I might try Boot Camp later on but Parallels is pretty neat itself.

Also can't forget the Back to School promo they have with the free ipod! Because I live in CT, they have a stipulation that the iPod was INSTANTLY free, so I walked out the store paying for just the macbook and a remote control, and came out with those and a free Touch! Can't beat that.

Then you can decide to either keep the iPod or resell to recoup some costs so all in all, it's a win win.

are you a Pro? if not then dont get the mbp..

Thanks for all the great advice. Everyone is right, I would never get the full use of a MBP. I bought a Wii to do some gaming every once and a while and think I've used it twice. So, I'm going with the middle of the road mac book and getting the free I-pod touch (YESHHHH!) and free printer. I also bought the purple case to protect it and make it look unique.
Thanks for your advice ppl this forum is great!