Solved! Apple MacBook Pro 13" (April 2010 Onwards Model)

[mayu]

Hi, I am planning to get a new laptop currently I have a Dell 700m and the Dell M1210. Ill be honest I am not happy with the Dell M1210 because of its battery issue. It costs 153.99$ on Dell website and lasts like a year that's it. The Dell 700m is a donkey its slow so I hardly ever use that. I already have a powerful Intel i7 930 at home which I made myself and I use for gaming and other heavy stuff. The laptop will be used for school work(programming since I am doing Bachelors in I.T), music, movies and just general web surfing and stuff. I am very interested in the Apple Mac Book Pro 13" because of its ultra slick design and small 13" screen I like small portable laptops plus I also want to know the Mac OSX. My question is from experts here I have a budget of 1500.00$ to 1600.00$ is the Apple Mac Book Pro 13" a good choice for the purpose I am using the laptop for and also one key question they are offering Intel Core 2 Duo with the 13" Mac Book Pro not the i3 or i5. Should I wait until Jan, Feb 2011 maybe then they will offer the i3 and i5 for 13" Mac Book Pro or just get the current old CPU from Apple the Core 2 Duo. Kindly help with this matter I would really appreciate your input.

 

[N.Broekhuijsen]

If your so worried about the 150$ cost of a single battery, why in gods name are you considering plunging your valued savings into a stupid apple macbook??

for 1500$ you can get the most godly laptop with an i7, why pay the same for a C2D, or i3 for that matter?

My advice is to just stay away from apple altogether.

 

[overclockingrocks]

I'll second xbeater's sentiment. there are lots of PC laptops that are 13 inch and plenty powerful. Case in point I saw an i5 powered Acer timeline X at my local Staples a few days ago when I stopped in to pick up some printer paper. 13 inch 8 hour battery life a decently powerful 5 series ATI (believe it was a 5470) and an i5 and it was CHEAP to boot I think somewhere in the region of $799 or so CDN. for the $1500-1600 you're looking to spend I could have bought this beast of a Toshiba with an 18.4 inch screen,Blu Ray a 1GB ATI card (can't remember which model but it was pretty damn powerful I think it may have been the 5870) and a 1TB dual hard drive setup. Basically when you buy Apple today you're paying for 2 things, 1) Design Aesthetics with the nice aluminum body and such and 2) The price of looking cool to your non Mac owning friends (though if you're doing a bachelor's in IT you'll probably look like a douche to your non mac owner friends) Anyways not trying to bash you here. Point being is save your cash and spend it in the PC world. You'll get far far more for your dollar and let's be honest the Mac is not the IT world standard Windows for the corporate desktop and Linux/Unix/BSD is the standard environment for the server at least at any larger company I've worked for.

 

[N.Broekhuijsen]

I'll second xbeater's sentiment. there are lots of PC laptops that are 13 inch and plenty powerful. Case in point I saw an i5 powered Acer timeline X at my local Staples a few days ago when I stopped in to pick up some printer paper. 13 inch 8 hour battery life a decently powerful 5 series ATI (believe it was a 5470) and an i5 and it was CHEAP to boot I think somewhere in the region of $799 or so CDN. for the $1500-1600 you're looking to spend I could have bought this beast of a Toshiba with an 18.4 inch screen,Blu Ray a 1GB ATI card (can't remember which model but it was pretty damn powerful I think it may have been the 5870) and a 1TB dual hard drive setup. Basically when you buy Apple today you're paying for 2 things, 1) Design Aesthetics with the nice aluminum body and such and 2) The price of looking cool to your non Mac owning friends (though if you're doing a bachelor's in IT you'll probably look like a douche to your non mac owner friends) Anyways not trying to bash you here. Point being is save your cash and spend it in the PC world. You'll get far far more for your dollar and let's be honest the Mac is not the IT world standard Windows for the corporate desktop and Linux/Unix/BSD is the standard environment for the server at least at any larger company I've worked for.

Well yeah, I work in a computer store (worked...), and in a couple of branches we sold a similar model from ASUS. A variant of the UL30. Absolutely phenomenally fast 13.3 inch, and a stunning design. Close to as pretty as the apple designs, but cooler, especially in sleek black brushed aluminum. Obviously damn powerful, mostly i3, and occasionally we had an i5 model but not often.

I loved them

So yes I would recommend something in the Asus UL30 range

 

[mayu]

I'll second xbeater's sentiment. there are lots of PC laptops that are 13 inch and plenty powerful. Case in point I saw an i5 powered Acer timeline X at my local Staples a few days ago when I stopped in to pick up some printer paper. 13 inch 8 hour battery life a decently powerful 5 series ATI (believe it was a 5470) and an i5 and it was CHEAP to boot I think somewhere in the region of $799 or so CDN. for the $1500-1600 you're looking to spend I could have bought this beast of a Toshiba with an 18.4 inch screen,Blu Ray a 1GB ATI card (can't remember which model but it was pretty damn powerful I think it may have been the 5870) and a 1TB dual hard drive setup. Basically when you buy Apple today you're paying for 2 things, 1) Design Aesthetics with the nice aluminum body and such and 2) The price of looking cool to your non Mac owning friends (though if you're doing a bachelor's in IT you'll probably look like a douche to your non mac owner friends) Anyways not trying to bash you here. Point being is save your cash and spend it in the PC world. You'll get far far more for your dollar and let's be honest the Mac is not the IT world standard Windows for the corporate desktop and Linux/Unix/BSD is the standard environment for the server at least at any larger company I've worked for.

Thanks for taking time and interest in my question. Let me ask you some more, all Mac Book Pro come standard with Boot camp with which I can easily install Windows. So I can do every thing and more by having both the OS on the laptop. From a programming point of view don't you think this is even better to have Windows and Mac OS X on one machine? I know that there are less softwares for Mac's as I have all my life used Windows based PC's but for the reason that I am buying which is, school assignments, making documents, Slides, Internet surfing, music and movies and with Windows installed programming is not an issue at all is a perfect machine pretty too . A lot of people have said that you cannot do as much with a Mac as what you can do with a Windows based PC and I totally agree but they also say the what little Mac does is way way better than a PC, because the hardware and Apple software integration is way better than a Windows based PC do you agree with that? I have a Dell XPS 700, Dell 700M, Dell M1210, Compaq Presario and my latest beast Intel i7 930 @ 3.3Ghz Overclocked on EVGA X58 Classified Tri SLI Motherboard, 2x500GB HDD, 6GB Corsair 1333Mhz Memory, Corsair CPU Water Cooler, Corsair Obsidian cover, Corsair 750 Watt power supply and Nvidia GTX 280 Video Card. And I love that Windows based PC. But do reply about the questions I asked it always helps in making a decision.

 

[Guest]

Well, I am no computer expert and all, but I thing buying a Mac has to do with more than plain specs lists.

I just know that, as an architecture student, being just cool and different from everyone else is part of the fun, so mostly everybody in my school (and i must say, i live in brazil), uses macs, ipads and such...

but it isn't to say that the computers are bad, not even close to that... i myself work with the newest 13" macbook pro, and i'm very happy with it's 3D drawing and rendering performance, it's reliability (osx works just beautifully, and i don't have windows on my laptop) and also important, it's looks...

beauty is something deeply personal, but i myself have never found a computer even close to the macbooks in terms of beauty...

if you value pure specs and raw power, though, just get a gateway or a toshiba (or even a Vaio)...

now would be the time to call me fanboy

 

[mayu]

Best answer selected by mayu.