Posted: 1/23/2007 7:15:09 PM EDT
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I just ordered a 15" MacBook Pro today through my university program. I ordered one with Intel Core 2 Dual 2.33 GHz, 2 GB SDRAM, 120 GB @ 5400 rpm, SuperDrive 6x (DVD+R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW), and ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 graphics with 256MB SDRAM. Oh, and I ordered the matte screen version. I can still change the order - so, questions: Should I upgrade the hard drive? 160 GB for $90 more or 200 GB for $180, with education discount. How about the screen? It's my understanding that the matte screens are better for outdoor use, and the glossy screens better for multi-media. In any case. the screen options are the same price. Also, the MacBooks have iSight cameras built in, but do they have integrated microphones? Any software/security recommendations? I've always used PCs, but wanted to make the switch now, and can always install Windows on this system. I appreciate any input. Thanks. UPDATE: I called in and upgraded the hard drive to 160 GB @5400 rpm. I also have an empty 320 GB Firewire/USB 2.0 HD for iTunes, back-ups, and whatever else on hand. Thanks people! UPDATE #2: I've had it for a week now and absolutely love it. Been doing all of my work on it, and am just now getting used to the Mac/PC difference in navigating. I will definitely keep using my PCs, too, but can't imagine wanting anything other than my current set-up. I still need to install Boot Camp or Parallels for Profiler+ and a few other programs, but otherwise am pretty impressed with compatibility, as I've been transfering projects back and forth a good bit. Thanks for the help, and I'll take any more thoughts anytime. |
Yeah, so what's the deal with boot camp? I get what it does, but it was my understanding that the newer MacBooks were ready for Windows - is that not the case? Any idea how much boot camp runs? I'm also not sure I understand wireless N drivers and Apple's Air Port Express/Extreme - Apple says most of its current computers are N-compatible, but they all run Gs. What does this mean for me? Sorry, I'm an idiot. Thanks, BTW! 
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Forget boot camp and run paralells. It allows real time switching between OS. As for 802.11n, are you running a high speed home network or just surfing the web? Regular wifi @ 11mbps is more than enough for regular internet use. xxx.n is only useful for LAN usage (@ this point and time). |
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I love my 15" MB pro, I was a PC guy until I got this MB pro from work a few months ago and there is no way I'm going to give it up. get the matt screen we have a glossy screen in the office and I don't like it, there is tons of glare off of it. I would suggest the 160 HD. yes there is a built in mic, i've never used it so I'm not to sure how well it works. for software that all depends on what you are going to use the MacBook for. I would recommend NEOoffice and it's free. if you want to runs windows, i would suggest running parallels as it allows you to run OS X AND Windows XP/Vista at the same time and allows you to drag and drop files between the two OS's. also install vituredesktop it's a great little app. let me know if there is anything else you would like to know. |
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This weekend, I upgraded from my old Powerbook G4 and got the exact computer you ordered. The 120GB HD is plenty - I moved all my old stuff over including thousands and thousands of photos and many videos, and all my previous applications and I still have about 85GB left. That's plenty and I'll probably need a new computer before I fill that up. The glossy screens suck in my opinion. They reflect light, so you always have to be careful where you position the screen in relation to light sources. The matte screen is great to use with clear and accurate colors, no smearing if you touch it, and never reflects light. The way I look at it is that this computer is already a splurge compared to the next lower version with the 2.16 processor (really, all that I probably needed). So, if you keep adding upgrades to this already nicely configured computer you are just wasting money unless you know you will absolutely need it. If you aren't sure, you probably don't need it. The only reason I purchased this one was because of the better graphics with the 256mb and the 2GB SDRAM of which I would have had to upgrade anyway. The only thing you might consider is waiting a few months until OS X 10.5 is included. As it sits now, I'll have to pay for that upgrade ($129 for one computer). But, I have to buy it for my wife's computer anyway, so I'l just get the famly (up to five computers) version for $199. I hope this helps. |
You will only be charged for boot camp if you don't upgrade to OS X Leopard as bootcamp is built into Leopard. Apple has to charge some sort of fee for the wireless 802.11n driver due to the Sarbanes-Oxley act, not sure if driver is built into Leopard. |
You can see for yourself. Go to store.apple.com, and then click on "Education - Savings for students, faculty and staff." If you an Apple store nearby, it's also worth going to see what open box items they have. My great-niece is a teacher, and about two years ago she got almost a $1,000 total off of an open-box 17" PowerBook with the open box and education discounts. IIRC, she also bought the nice three year warranty for $125 versus the regular price of $300.z |
The best place to ask would be here at mac rumors and go into forums. The place seems like ARCOM for Mac's. |
Go here: http://store.apple.com/1-800-780-5009/WebObjects/EducationIndividual?type=higherEd Select your university and you can then look at the educational prices. |
outdoors on anything other than a dim day/evening, gets washed out by the light, but I guess the glossy ones would glare more...
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Thanks for the feedback people! I'm totally new to Mac, but have been planning on the transition for a while. Parallels sounds like the way to go and seems like the setup the IT guy was demonstrating. That's pretty much how I'd like to run it if I find I can't get compatible programs for work. For the most part, this laptop is my daily user - my desktop goes pretty much neglected. I use the entire office suite, especially Word, Power Point, and Excel. I also travel a lot and do fieldwork abroad for 2 to 3 months/year/min, so when I'm traveling I need to make sure I have everything loaded on the 'puter that might be necessary. Additionally, I'd like to store much of my iTunes/iPod stuff on the MacBook. Right now, the 60 gig video is almost full. That said, I'm currently trying to combine my different computers' iTunes libraries and store it on a 320 gig external HD - I'll take ANY advice on how to get that done... Sounds like the 160 GB HD may be useful, especially with both OSs installed, research materials, DVDs, and iTunes and I don't mind laying out the bread. Have any of you ever had to use your AppleCare plans? I included it, to be safe. BTW: my rate for the system listed above, including the Apple Care Plan was $2538. Office will be around $130 when I go pick up the unit. |
| How about security? I've been told many times over that most Mac users don't feel the need for it due to low threats of Mac-targeted attacks and germs, but I'm a security freak. Besides, my Institutional Review Board requires me to secure certain sensitive data on participants in the field. So, how secure are these Macs, really, and what's out there worth mentioning for securing info? Thanks, again. (I feel like an idiot when it comes to Macs). |
Word of caution on MS office for Mac, it is slow on intel Macs since Microsoft wrote it for the PowerPC chips, it has to run in Rosetta (emulation). The next iteration of Office will not support VBA either, MS looks like they are going to jump ship in the next few years for Mac support. If you need a free office suite, Neo Office is the way to go and they will be adding VBA support to the suite in a month or two. Neo Office is basically Open Office optimised for the Mac. The Iwork suite is supposed to be being upgraded as Apple has seen that Micrsoft is probably not going to support them in future. They are supposed to be adding a spreadsheet program to the suite, I don't know if they will be adding Microsoft file formats to that suite neither. |
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Make sure to purchase the Apple Care extended warranty, just in case. (edit: good you already did!) I learned that the hard way many Mac's ago. Get the biggest drive you can afford. Get Diskwarrior 4.0. Best disk utility for the Mac. Download Onyx 1.7.8, run it often. Its a free utility that cleans caches, optimizes your disk, repairs permissions, etc. The built-in firewall should be sufficient for security. Don't worry about virus protection, I maintain dozens of Mac's and never had a problem in over ten years. If you need encryption its built-in, AES-128, but be careful I've seen it screw up more than one system when active. Read more here FileVault Buy a external Firewire 800 hard drive of equal or greater size to the one installed in the Macbook Pro for backups. Use Carbon Copy Cloner to sync the drives at lest once a week. The external disk will be bootable in case of an emergency. If you have anymore questions just ask. Good luck! Great Mac sites www.macfixit.com(troubleshooting) www.xlr8yourmac.com(troubleshooting) www.macupdate.com(software downloads) www.eshop.macsales.com(Drives, Cards, etc.) |
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Parallels is very nice and when you install an OS under it you don't have to say set aside 20gb for it. You just install the OS under the virtual partition it and as you install stuff under it naturally grows ensuring minimal space is wasted on your hard drive. This may not interest you at all, but since it sounds like you do a lot of research a program you might find useful is Devon Think Pro. It is an extremely good repository for large amounts of information. http://www.devon-technologies.com/products/devonthink/index.html |
It is very secure as it is Unix system (BSD), your account does not run as root like most Windows boxes do, which is a good thing. You can encrypt all your data in your Home folder too if you like. You can turn on built-in firewall if you like also, it is MUCH better than the Windows firewall. |
For most purposes just using the standard firewall is fine. By default all the ports are walled off. If you want to protect files you can use File Vault, which is built-in. It encrypts your home directory, and automatically decrypts the files when you open them. It's important to get enough memory on OS X boxes. They use a lot, and swapping on a slow laptop disk is painful. You should be fine with 2 GB. I usually try to back off from the very fastest CPUs in favor of more memory and more disk. Parallels is the way to go for Windows compatability. It sucks to have to reboot to get Windows. |
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Tag, I used to work for apple and now have a 15inch MBP and am curious what some people are saying.... I personally love it, my only complaints are 1) needs bigger HD, 2) the mouse sticks in safari at times, other then that....Im not a huge fan of the new intel processor....but have grown to see its upsides. |
Links to software shall follow soon... |
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Wow! You guys are on this thing! Thanks for the input. Sounds like the NEO Office program might be well-worth looking into... for my purposes, it's an absolute must to be able to write, import, and export documents in Word format. ...So, eodtech, is the office suite unstable, or just slow? As far as security goes, sounds like Apple has some impressive stability. Will the N drivers update G drivers, or simply provide for newer hardware? I'm still not sure I understand xxx.N/Airport Extreme/Express - I must be dense. It seems as though it will extend range and speed? i'll look around Mac Rumors a bit more. Slogger78, that DEVONthink looks very interesting - so, it essentially catalogues data for fast recall and sorting? I'll read up on it a bit more. Thank you. Jomac, I just went out last night a picked up a firewire 320 GB MyBook EHD for that very reason. I've tried to avoid add-ons in the past and have been really put-off by crank PC programs, but those you point out seem interesting - any other opinions on those types of programs? Does Apple have some on-board utilities that do the same? Thanks for the links. sned45, thanks for the info on the mic - it seemed as though there would be one and I'm sure it will suit my limited ambitions of chatting with my family when out of town. I think I will go with the 160 GB HD, since it runs at 5400 rpms, the 200 GB HD runs a bit slower at 4200 rpms, so I'm not sure how or if that would effect overall performance? I'm still interested in anyone's knowledge of combining my iTunes libraries. I've given it a couple of shots and googled it once or twice, but have just managed to create a bunch of mixed-up file packets - nothing irreversible, but frustrating. Any one feel free to chip in - you can adopt me as a project in exchange for future virtual favors. In any case, you guys are a great help! |
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VLC Hands down the BEST video playback software out there, and it's gratis. Toast The missing disc/disk image utility for the mac. Does burning and encoding. It's really a must have if you intend to do any advanced disk handling. Camino It's firefox, for the mac. Sometimes safari doesn't cut it, or sometimes you just want to render a page on the firefox engine. It's great to use as a backup browser, or a primary browser. The official firefox for the mac SUCKS, but camino runs the same engine and is MUCH better. Handbrake For BBedit is a great text editor. It's great for coding/scripting. It does way to much to describe, check out the page. TextWrangler is the free version. Quicksilver the absolute most useful program available for any system anywhere. It can literally do anything. It's a launcher type app, but it does so much more. People rave about how much this program makes their time spent on the computer more productive. You really have to check this out, and find some tutorials for it's many uses. I'll track some down for ya. Transmit An FTP client that is really superb. No more explanation needed. Delicious Library Frankly, it's just too freakin' cool. It's a library/collection app. Check it out for fun. |
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I would like to thanks each person on this thread for making it extremely educational, but it would start to sound like the Academy Awards and State of Union put together! So, as far as the order goes, I can still change it - I'm not too worried about RAM, since I can upgrade to 3 gigs later, but what's the consensus on the hard drive - 160 @ 5400 rpm or 200 @ 4200 rpm. 120 would probably suit me, but I'm a gear-head, even if I don't know everything about the gear 
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I own page 2! |
Wow, I just can't keep up with you guys! Speaking of plane rides... Apple states that the 15" MacBook Pro gets up to 5 hours of battery time - what are you guys getting out of it for document/multimedia use? PCmag suggests something more along the lines of 2.75 hours. I'm getting very excited about my first Mac! |
Good call - I'll check that out, but you guys are more fun
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Okay, I'm tracking on Office and good point on the HD. I save gaming for the 360, but my brother in-law is always on my case to play F.E.A.R. or other like-games with him. I'll probably keep putting him off or play a little, but this machine is mostly for work, travel, multimedia, and a lot of web browsing. You definitely own page 2. |
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Avoid anything from Norton or Micromat(Techtool)! Not worth the discs their burned on. Apple's Disc Utility is good for repairing permissions, formating, partitioning and wiping. As browsers go Camino is good, I used for a few years until I found Bon Echo. A Mac optimized by processor version of Firefox. Give it a try. Bon Echo Try this for the iTunes export to the Macbook. I haven't had to do one in awhile. Export |
Great, I'll try the export on the PCs this week and the Mac next week. Thanks for the heads on Bon Echo, too - I'll compare that to Camino. |
I have a 15" MacBook Pro with the same specs, it is amazing. The 2.33GHz Core 2 Duo will blow your socks off! I really see no reason to upgrade the RAM since you can only go to 3GB anyhow, but if you can, get the 160GB hard drive. Especially if you are going to run Parallels or Boot Camp, as the Windows OS and software will take up plenty of room. I would also suggest an external hard drive, you can get small 2.5" bus powered drives that will plug into either a USB 2.0 or a Firewire port, or a 3.5" drive that will require AC power. The bigger the better, use it to store files that you don't need on the internal and for backups. I have a 250GB external here that is already full since I archive all the installers for the software I use as well as old videos and pictures I download and a full backup of the internal drive. I guess it's time to upgrade  If you get the AppleCare insurance, you get a CD that contains TechTools. IMO it's a mediocre utility. Something else like Diskwarrior would be good to have when problems occur. Some software I have that I like: BBEdit, the best text editor ever. Firefox SpamSieve is a good spam filter that works with several email programs, I just use Apple's Mail program after getting sick of Eudora's bugs. Unison is a good newsgroup reader GraphicConverter is by far the best image viewer out there, and can open or save in almost any format and has some basic image editing functions. Certainly no Photoshop, but it's good enough for me. VLC is a freeware movie player. It will open most video files. Parallels is good for running Windows or other OSes without rebooting. Keep in mind that it will not play many games because it does not have direct video card access and has funky USB issues. Also remember that Boot Camp is still a beta and will be part of Mac OS X Leopard, but only allows you to install WinXP with SP2, and you MUST have an install disk with SP2 on it. Ambrosia Software makes awesome games and some good utilities, check their stuff out. iConquer is a simple but addictive game. Try the demo. First To Fight, FPS game where you are a Marine. Think of it as Rainbow 6 meets Americas Army... Good graphics and decent game play. BTW, I have Americas Army installed on the PC side in Boot Camp. It's a pretty good online game, but forget it if you are more interested in single player FPS games or don't have high speed internet(2.7GB download and ping times are crucial to good game play) |
5 hours with a MacBook Pro? Not likely. My old G4 iBook would get close to that if you were very aggressive in power management and didn't do much. PCMag's 2.75 hours sounds a bit more in line with reality, if you are careful you can keep it going for about 3 hours. Keep in mind that anything that uses the drives or heavy on CPU time will drain the battery faster, so don't expect to be able to watch a long DVD on battery power alone(the iBook would do that no problem). Bigger and faster machines will always have less battery life. So be sure to bring your power adapter. Speaking of power adapters... OMG, I *LOVE* the MagSafe connector they use on this thing! I really messed up my iBook, broke two power adapters and the socket inside the computer was all messed up by the time I was finished. I suppose I should be more careful about not dropping my computers, that was also the reason I had to open up the iBook(not recommended) to replace the crashed hard drive. Oh, and speaking of THAT, don't open the MacBook Pro. It's not as bad as the iBook, but doesn't have the easily replaceable drive that the MacBook has. Besides, it voids the warranty! *hides his MAKE magazine collection*
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jrollins, thanks! I just called and upgraded the HD to 160 GB right before you posted - I still wanted the 5400 rpm, so I decided against 200 GB HD @4200. I do have two Microsoft XP Pro packs, but they were pre-SP2, so I guess I'll have to get a newer one or Vista if I decide to throw Windows on the Mac. Good info on the games - I have played First to Fight and America's Army on Xbox - good times. I like Fire Fox, so I'll check that out on the Mac, too. I appreciate the feedback
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if you think you'll fill the 120 quickly, the 160 would be a good invvestement. otherwise, just buy a bigger drive 6 months or a year from now when you need it. i'd advise against the slower 4200rpm drive and its not worth the trade jsut to gain 40 gb of space. teh screen can be a toss-up. the color is slightly more vivid and the screen is brighter, but the glossy does glare. my personal choice would be the matte screen. plus the gloss reminds me of all the cheap PC laptops at best buy and and office depot. personally, i think the main reason it exists is so apple has something comparpable for those consumers that think its important. although viri and such are far less of a concern with os x, there are still many things you can do to really lock it down. read the nsa's security configuration guide for os x and the corsair whitepaper and you will be in good shape. both are unclassified and should be availble on the web. if not, let me know and i can send them to you. i'm not a big fan of file vault, as i think it creates too much overhead, but would recommend encrypted disk image files. unless you absolutely need to encrypt the whole drive, the image files are the way to go. if you're comfortable with the command line, you'll find that you need to buy very few, if any, third party utilities with os x. with what is included, you can do practically anything. most of the little haxie programs just slap a gui on the cli tools anyway. unfortunately, apples documentation of many of the tools, including the ones the have written themselves is often pretty bad. |
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I checked out the NSA and Corsair PDFs - they were dated 2005 and 2004, respectively, and designed around the OS X v10.3.x Panther OS. The NSA's PDF recommends not applying the measures to other versions. So, what version is on the new MacBook Pros? Tiger? I see that Leopard will be coming around soon. I'm not at all familiar with Mac OS evolutions like I am with Windows. I'll check out the Mac's utilities before I go nuts adding software - and it sounds like encryption mechanisms are in place, so I'll check that out. I don't think I'll be too hot on Command, initially, but will try to catch up. Thanks. |
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there is a version of the corsaire report for 10.4 from august 05. the nsa doc does cover 10.3 as you mentioned, but the fundamental concepts involved are still the same from 10.3 to 10.4. architectural differnces between the two systems are not that great. the mbpro should ship with one of the later versions of 10.4, probably 10.4.7 or 10.4.8. |
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I cannot praise Applecare highly enough. My son bought me an iBook several years ago for Christmas. He also purchased Applecare for me and told me to be certain to fill out the information and get my computer registered in the program. I didn’t. Oops. And then, one month before my 3 year Applecare was due to expire, my computer died. I called Applecare and explained the situation to a tech. He checked and saw that a valid Applecare certificate existed for my iBook. So, he worked with me and determined that my motherboard was toast. But, he couldn’t authorize me to send in my computer because it wasn’t registered. He put me in contact with someone else to see if my registration could be completed nearly 3 years after the computer was purchased. I faxed them the info they required. They registered my machine. Then they authorized the return of my machine for warranty repair. I returned my iBook. Not only did they replace the motherboard, but they put a new case on it and installed a new keyboard. It looks like new. Since I couldn’t do without a laptop while all this was going on, I purchased a 17” MacBook Pro. Boy does this thing scream! I made certain to purchase Applecare for my MacBook Pro. I wouldn’t be without it. P.S. I immediately registered with Applecare. |
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tortsin, thanks for all the info - you're right about 10,4 - I'm not sure about .7 or .8. Do updates cover all of the sub-version upgrades, or are they pay-revisions? Thanks for your help! viator, I'm glad I got the AppleCare, in that case. Thanks for the input. Is that the Arizona on your avatar? |
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Just like with ARs, get to know your Mac in its "stock" configuration, before loading a lot of crap on it. You may find that Safari is a great browser (it's probably the best out there), or that no additional security is needed (which is usually the case), etc, etc. Once you're comfortable with what you have, then buy what you find you need: eg. iPhoto not good enough for you needs? Then get some version of PhotoShop. You'll be amazed at the power, and security, and COMPATIBILITY with PC platforms that is built into OSX with its standard iLife suite. |
Your new machine will ship with 10.4.8. I got my sister a Macbook (the black one) for Christmas and her's shipped with that version. You'll be covered revision wise until 10.5(leopard) then you'll have to spend some money. Their is a ton of Academic software available for students at a nice discount here. Academic Superstore Always check with your local school bookstore first though, sometimes they have better deals. |
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That's pretty much the plan. Next week I'll put the Mac through its paces (as best as I can figure) before adding too much. Once I've got a feel for it, I'll be recalling this thread for all of the tips, as well as exploring the apple forums listed last night. Unfortunately, the Mac is going to find itself in the middle of of a huge writing project for the next few months, so I'll be forced to explore it a lot I like to keep my computers very streamlined, as far as software goes, so I won't go crazy with add-ons unless they serve a real purpose and don't jeopardize the stability and security of the system. ETA: There are two large universities within eight miles of each other here - while my university doesn't have an on-campus Mac dealer, the other has a fully capable MacStore and an official AppleCare build/repair/service center on-site, so I'm pretty well set-up for academic discounts, technical support, and repairs/add-ons if I should need them. |
Wow, I didn't see that one on the Glock website or at the MacStore, so I'll be stuck with the regular old G19 until I can find the iGlock  /
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I would take the the 160 at 5400 RPM. Anytime you're accessing stuff from disk or writing stuff to disk, it'll be noticeably faster than the 4200 RPM drive. |
I agree and upgraded this morning. Thanks for the input! |
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I got a MBP yesterday. I was in Microcenter and they were running a sale, and well, I just couldn't help myself. Mine the the entry level MBP: 15.4" widescreen 2.16 GHz Core 2 Duo 1 GB of RAM (at some point I'll upgrade to 2 gigs) 120 GB hard drive 128 MB video It is SWEET! The keyboard and screen are great. The speakers sound pretty good for a laptop. I used the Migration Assistant to move all my settings and docs over from my iBook over a Firewire cable. I decided installing the apps from scratch would probably make for a cleaner install, however. Copying 23.6 gigs via Firewire took about an hour. 
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Very exciting - I'm jealous, but my wait should be over within 25 hours. I wish I had firewire on my old laptop - I've been copying everything to my external HD and my desktop to consolidate on the My Book and MacBook Pro. |