[dngonzales]

Well i am a student and i have $3700 dollars to buy a laptop with and at first i was think i would wait till april 1st to see if they came out with a macbook 17 but then i started thinking i could just buy the current macbook 1.83 w/ 7200 drive and 1 gig of ram ( 1 stick ) that would leave me with enough money to buy a 60 gb ipod for transfering files between my 1.25 emac and macbook and music with enough money to spare for extras
one question i had was does the crucial memory work without any problems in these new intel macs ?
does anyone know of an intel imac with crucial upgrade? does it work without errors ?
or should i just wait till aprill first and see whats next ?
sure i could wait and possibly get a 17 or whatever they will have but i will be flat broke afterwards till fall semester but they might not even have what i am looking to buy in april then i will have wasted 2 months waiting for nothing
what would everyone do if they had the same situation dont forget to reply on the subject of crucial memory
P.S i know crucial memory is the only memory to get for a mac if you want no problems but will he same apply to the intl macs
P.S does the intel macs have trouble waking from sleep?

[neiltc13]

$3700 on a laptop, are you crazy?

[dngonzales]

not certifiably but possiblly
thats also what my wife said ( that it was crazy to spend that amount of money on a laptop )

[Luca]

A few things:

- If you get a powerful laptop, you won't really need an eMac anymore, will you? Just sell it.
- There are other (MUCH cheaper, and faster) ways of transferring files between computers than using an iPod. Like networking.
- Do you really need to drop that much on a laptop? Just think whether you're actually using even your eMac to its full potential. Most people don't need more than about a 1 GHz G4 and 512 MB of RAM to make OS X pleasant to use for everyday things.

[dngonzales]

Are you suggesting i get the 17 powerbook g4 instead ?
wouldnt that mean that my laptop will be outdated sooner?
arent the powerbooks allready outdated?
and yes networking is a good idea too

[chucker]

Why do you feel the base configuration of the 15-inch MacBook Pro doesn't work for you?

[Luca]

No, just get what you want. I think the MacBooks are a pretty major improvement in performance, and they make the PowerBook G4s look like bad deals. The still-high price of the PowerBook G4s makes me hesitant to recommend anyone buying them. If they all dropped $500, then maybe they'd be more worth it.

At the same time, the iBook series is also a bit long in the tooth. The main problem with them is the screen. You really should get something with more than 1024x768 resolution, but the iBooks don't offer that. They should, which makes me hesitant to recommend those too.

The MacBook Pro seems like the only really desirable Mac notebook right now. The others are just lacking in so many areas. It could be a while before we see Intel updates for other Macs (iBooks, 12"/17" PowerBooks), or maybe it'll be soon. No one really knows. It seems that you can afford a MacBook Pro, so why not just get one now?

Oh, and to answer your question about Crucial RAM, it should work fine. I don't see any reason why it wouldn't.

P.S. chucker's right, the base MacBook Pro is really the sweet spot. The higher end model isn't worth what they're charging, really. Very few of the extra features are worth much.

[dngonzales]

well about the base model macbook i was just leaning towards the higher end with the 256 video card to future proof it for a little while
and to prevent my self from saying well " i should have gotten "
this will be my first purchased laptop and i just want to know i got the best at the time
"concept" like why would you buy a new mustang with a V6 if you can afford the V8 GT
on another note why would you buy a mustang with a V6 period or a Dodge ram with out the cummins or so on
i just want one to last for 3 years till i get out of college maybe ill sell it maybe i wont
i know a computer is not an investment to be resold but if i ever needed to "trade up" i would assume it would bring better offers

[chucker]

But you're currently on an eMac. This would be a huge leap from that.

[dngonzales]

true and in no way am i unhappy about the performance of the emac since ive had no other mac to compare it to i purchased it for $400 from compusa auctions so i think i did ok
i am anxious to see what kind of leaps ill see
and i am aware of the hurdles i may have to jump also

[badgerbadger]

compusa auctions? what the...?!

tell me more.

[psmith2.0]

It's a shame they don't offer the VRAM upgrade on the $1,999 model...because that's what I'd do if I were in your shoes: get the $1,999 MacBook Pro, upgrade it to the 256MB graphics AND the 7200rpm hard drive.

The money you'd have left over: RAM, RAM and more RAM.



I'd probably notice more difference from those two components (especially as time went on) than a 1.67>1.83GHz.

But Apple is odd like that. They limit and monkey with various BTO options on their stuff, it seems. Kinda locks you into having to lay out $500 more to go with the nicer graphics, instead of them offering it (even at $200) on the $1,999 model via BTO.



Always makes it tough to get the EXACT Mac you really, really want (and can afford). They've done this for years...they always make at least one desirable component NOT upgradeable via BTO, and then you're a) stuck without it, or b) break your budget by getting the "next up" model when you really didn't plan to.

[Batman]

I've never had any problems waking my iMac Core Duo from sleep. Hope that answers that part of your question.

[Luca]

Having 256MB of VRAM really won't help much. Even the 64MB to 128MB upgrade had barely any effect, and going from 128MB to 256MB will be even less noticeable.

[DeadMan]

Originally Posted by Luca Having 256MB of VRAM really won't help much. Even the 64MB to 128MB upgrade had barely any effect, and going from 128MB to 256MB will be even less noticeable.

i think i would be really happy to have an option that i can update my Vram, but i think the difference is not significant!

yes, according to my experience on X86 pc, there are not significant differences in gaming testing between 128VRAM and 256Vram. once i tested nVidia 6800XT(256VRAM@256BIT, 2.0ns), and to my surprise, i cannot find noticeable differences between 6800XT and 6600GT(128VRAM @128 BIT, 2.0ns). ps: the 3Dmark 2005 scores are 37** vs 35**

[canyon_Carver]

PS-- Apple does NOT recommend using the iPOD as a transfer drive. Yes its capable of doing so...but it wears out the drive.

You could buy an 80gb Firewire Pocket drive, and have money left over for a iPod.

[dngonzales]

i didnt know that they dont recommend using it for file transfer but now i do thank you and thanks everyone for their replies i guess im gonna pull the trigger on the macbook
im mostly using my mac to archive dvd's and what i really want to do is use it to transfer the recorded shows off my Cox dvr 6412 via firewire to hard drive
the only other 2 notebooks ive considered are the 17 in powerbook and the toshiba qosmio but it makes me cringe to think about going back to windows

[macleod]

Installing additional RAM in your intel iMac doesn't void the warranty does it? Also how hard is it to install the memory? Getting into the case isn't hard right? Like I won't damage he appearance of the case by opening it up to put in some RAM?

[Luca]

Originally Posted by MACleod Installing additional RAM in your intel iMac doesn't void the warranty does it?

No.

Originally Posted by MACleod Also how hard is it to install the memory?

Very easy.

Originally Posted by MACleod Getting into the case isn't hard right?

No.

Originally Posted by MACleod Like I won't damage he appearance of the case by opening it up to put in some RAM?

No.

[chucker]

You don't actually open up the case to install RAM. There's a little trap door for that.