Which Macbook? (Buying tomorrow!)

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So tomorrow I'm buying a Macbook Pro, after ages of lusting after one!

I want the 15 inch one, glossy screen (thought about matte for a good while but i've decided against it, like the look of the glossy one tbh)

Anyways, I'm stuck on what spec I want. There's £150 between the two, and I would be fine paying that if I could appreciate the difference between the 2.
Here's the 2 laid out...
Macbook 3.53GHz, 320GB hard drive, Video Card- NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics
Macbook 3.66GHz, 250GB hard drive, Video Card - NVIDIA GeForce 9400M + 9600M GT with 256MB (what does this extra bit do?)

(Heres a link to where the specs are laid out side by side on the Apple store- http://store.apple.com/uk/browse/home/shop_mac/family/macbook_pro?mco=MTAyNTQzMzk )


I'm doing a multimedia course in uni, so I'm a frequent user of Photoshop & Lightroom, video editing programs and other Adobe programs and that. (And I'll probably be running several at the same time).

I'm wondering if the better processor and video card will make a big difference speed wise and that, or if I'm better off spending the £150 elsewhere.
Anyone have any experience of the 2?
What do you think?
 
To be honest you wont notice a massive difference so do yourself a favour and stick the £150 in your pocket, or buy a wireless time machine to help with backing up.
 
Paulmack said:
To be honest you wont notice a massive difference so do yourself a favour and stick the £150 in your pocket, or buy a wireless time machine to help with backing up.
Click to expand...

this is what my course director said!
i'm edging towards the lower spec one now.
But I was just chatting to another MBP owner and he said I should even think about getting a bigger hard drive as I would do a lot of photo editing. But my logic is that if i can happily edit (well, plugins like Topaz adjust etc aren't the fastest..) on my pc laptop, a macbook (even the lower spec one) will definitely be fast enough! :thinking:
 
Don't keep loads of photos on your Macbook hard drive.. keep it free for apps. An external hard drive would be better suited for photo storage :)
 
I would get the cheaper one, I doubt you will notice the difference and you could upgrade the hard drive to about 500gb for a lot less than £150.

Are you able to get a Educational Discount, well worth looking into if you haven't already..

:thumbs:
 
Right its the 2.53 and 2.66 processor models and such a small difference in processor speed is going to unnoticeable. So for your £150 you are getting 80 gig of extra HDD space yet you could buy a 500 gig hard drive for £60 and either stick it in the laptop or stick it in a caddy and connect via usb.

There really is nothing in it with the spec so personally I wouldnt spend the extra money
 
The extra money is on the graphics card. The higher spec model has two, one lower spec but less batter hungry one for general use wile writing essays and surfing the internet, and a higher spec but more power hungry one for when editing photos, HD video, gaming etc...
Personally, given what you say you do with the computer, if you can stomach the extra cash I'd go for the higher spec one. You get a slightly quicker processor in with the deal as well and a slightly bigger HDD.
Bear in mind that it isn't easy or cheap (or maybe not even possible) to upgrade the graphics once you've bought it.

It's also worth contemplating upgrading to a faster HDD (one of the 7200rpm ones) as that will give you a noticeable increase in performance as well.
 
There's been lots of rumours about an imminent update to Macbook pros so you might think about holding on for a better spec or a cheaper price on the current spec, unless you absolutely need one tomorrow.
 
I am waiting for the i7 processor to come out before i buy mine.
The 9600M GT with 256MB is dedicated memory for graphics. I would definitely buy this especially for your movie editing.
Buy the best you can afford others wise you might regret it afterwards. Unlike laptops, macbooks are very hard to improve e.g the hard drive, after purchase.
Make sure you get your uni discount - 15%
 
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