I Might Buy A MacBook Pro Either Tonight Or Tomorrow. I Have Some Questions On It.

I recently sold my iMac on ebay because I wanted a laptop. I recently purchased a Sony FE890 laptop that I might return to Sony, because I miss using a mac and I liked the Mac OS X a lot better than Windows Vista. I am considering in purchasing the MacBook Pro. The model that I am looking at is the one with the 2.16GHz cpu and 1GB of ram. I have a few questions on it.

1. I do not plan on gaming on it, do you think it worth in getting the $2499 model?
2. What is the ram speed on it?
3. Is it easy to upgrade the ram to 2gb and does it matter if the ram brand is different and will it void the warranty?
4. Do I have to purchase the extended warranty on the day that I buy the MBP or do I have a chose to purchase it within the standard warranty time?
5. I read that there are issues with MBP like it gets extremely hot, loud fan, and whining sound. When I went to Fry's yesterday, the MBP had some of those issues. Have these issues or any other issues have been corrected by Apple?
6. What screen is better: the standard screen or glossy screen?
7. What is Apple's dead pixel policy?
8. How are the speakers sound quality?
9. Is the keyboard quality good, because I went to Fry's yesterday to check the MBP, the keyboard keys felt like they were about to pop out of the socket.
10. Does the built-in wireless network card have excellent reception? and does it drop the wireless signal?
11. The Sony FE890 laptop that I will return has a very silent fan, does the MBP have silent fan?

 

1.i dont game and I have a 2.33. i do lots of graphics tho..
2.Bus Speed: 667 MHz
3.no idea
4.you can wait. you have one year to decide.
5.i dont feel it gets to hot. worth the extra few degrees for a 1" thick case..
6.matte
7.warranty. rarely will you see a mac with dead pickel tho
8.good, but no bass of course.
9. feels good to me. my space bar makes different noise than other keys, i like it.
10.best reception i ve ever had, and i only owned PCs before this MBP... i ve had it for 2 weeks, and never dropped on me yet.
11.super silent.

buy it.

 

agreed with all of the above, except i have the glossy screen and i think its better for multimedia purposes but apples screens are amazing and sometimes i cant tell if i have a glossy or a matte screen.

 

I just got a 2.16GHz model.

The 2.33 model is not worth it for the following reasons:

1. The 2.16GHz comes with 1GB in 1 slot. All you have to do is pop a $68 1GB stick in slot 2 and reboot. Bam! Herpes and 2GB ram.

2. With the added ram, the $1999 model is now $2067. Compare that to the $2499 model: It's more than $400 and all you get is 128MB VRAM and 173MHz per core.

I'd like to have the VRAM, and everyone want the ultimate model, but in this case, it's just not worth it. I bought Windows Vista Home Premium and the whole thing is still cheaper than the $2499 model.

No user could tell the difference between 2.16GHz and 2.33GHz in normal use. A 3d render or audio/video compression might finish 2% quicker. Yippee.

I bought one last week. I do not think that it gets too hot. I never notice the fan under OS X.

 

yeah ever since ive opened mine last night ive had it on the whole time. been about 20 hours now, ive had multiple apps running, played a couple movies and not once has it become hot. it gets mildly warm, but all computers do that. the video ram will help but you said you dont play any games...so then why would you need more ram for?

you would be much better off adding 1 gb ram later, and using the 400 or so bucks on other more important things.

 

Do not forget about the education discount.

I only have one complaint about MacBook Pros: really crappy resolution displays. The new Lenovo 14.1" laptop has the same resolution as the largest 17" MacBook Pro. I heard rumors Apple will fix this problem with the new MacBook Pro series.

 

Mac laptops have NEVER offered hi-res screens. Part of the reason is philosophy. I think they just think the lower res screens are just easier on the eyes and easier to use. Also, it's kind of hard to design web graphics and stuff on hi-res screen. It's also such a shocker to see stuff you design on a hi-res screen looks like on a low-res screen. OMG! It's so huge! But yeah, still, there is NO reason for them not to have offered hi-res screens as an option.

My PC laptops have had 1600x1200 and 1680x1050 res screeens at 15.4" and I like the real estate.

It does not bother me that much, if I'm at home, I just hook it up to an external LCD and drive 2 screens.

 

Other than that one flaw, MacBook Pros are great laptops. I agree with you 100%. Apple should have more options with screen resolution, video cards and processor. I might need to rely on Excel and that requires a large display. Well, it makes it easier for me.

 

1.The 2.16 is fast enough and you can easily upgrade your ram later.
2.667 MHz
3.Easy, how to do so.
4.You have upto a year to decide.
5.The heat issues were solved with the core 2 duo models.
6.I prefer matte, glossy seems brighter though.
7.You don't need to worry about that, the warranty will cover it.
8.Speakers are so/so, you could get away with watching a movie though.
9. I feel that this seconds thinkpads in having superb keyboards.
10.I've had reception problems (range wise), when my friend's macbook has a week connection I cant even connect.
11.MBPs have fans? Just kidding, there very silent.

 

I get my MacBook Pro on Monday (so excited) so I'll give you my first impressions later. In general, the $2499 MBP model isn't reasonable due to the fact that no one needs to spend an extra $500 for only .16Ghz increase in CPU speed, 128MB video RAM, and 1GB RAM.

Other answers to your questions have mostly been answered, however I always just want to warn people who are interested in a Mac NOT to think of it as a "I'll run Windows on it" notebook because it's designed to run OS X.

As for cosmetic blemishes you've seen on the MacBook Pro at Fry's, in-store displays are always abused beyond belief. What you see there is a worst case scenario in terms of what happens when you don't take care of your laptop. It's not an average case by far.

 

1: As others have said, no.
3: It is easy, but ou need the smallest screw drivers (size 0 phillips I think). It does not void your warranty.

5: Those issues have been fixed. A long time ago. It worries me that fry's would be demoing a bad unit like that. I mean, those were fixed over 6 months ago.

6: mostly a matter of personal preference. If you have a lot of light (IE sunlight) then matte. Otherwise glossy. It's easier on the eyes. Things are brighter, more saturated. The only real drawback to that is if you're a pro level graphic designer, but if you were, you'd already have known this.

7: think 5, or whatever the standard for most companies are.

8: Great quality ( I think better than my logitechs) just not very loud.

9: Best laptop keyboard I've ever used. Just needs a backspace key (not the backspace key that is labeled as a delete key).

10: I'll put it this way.. When everyone with IBM's, Gateways, and Dell's in my lab are loosing signal, I'm still going strong.

11: Very quiet. Only time I hear the fan is when the fan RPM goes up REALLY high. And thats only when gaming pretty heavily.

 

I decided to order the 2.16GHz MBP tonight from Apple. I decided to return my Sony FE890 to Sony and return my HP DV9000t back to HP that will arrive tomorrow at my home that I ordered 2 weeks ago, since the dv9000t is too big for me.

 

Yep, I did the same and returned the dv9000t that I ordered a month ago. Be careful though, HP customer service is rather annoying in trying to give you free upgrades so you will keep the laptop. And give them a 1/2 decent reason to return it so they won't hound you.

 

I bought the $2499 version but bought it refurbished and got it for the lower MBP price.. Same warrnty and it does not even look refurbished. So far I am happy...

I just need to learn OS X

 

Actually with any customer service people you have to be completely unreasonable. Say no to EVERYTHING. Hard drive upgrade? NO. Warranty upgrade? NO. Just turn down EVERYTHING. If they frustrate you, yell at the top of your lungs, "Listen to me you dipshit, I'M RETURNING THIS (insert expletive of choice-IEOF) LAPTOP, YOU'RE GOING TO PROCESS THE (IEOF) RETURN FOR ME, AND HP IS GOING TO GIVE ME A (IEOF) REFUND!!!! CAPISH????"

It'll feel good knowing that the CSR can't do anything about it. If they do anything about it, sue them for it.

Of course, yell at as many people as it takes for them to get the point.

 

I was going to buy the MBP yesterday, but where is a good place to purchase it. I noticed the circuitcity.com has them for 12 months with no interest financing, but I am not sure if they have the latest builds or should I just order it directly on apple's website? or is there any other place do you reommend?

 

I'd recommend getting it from apple. CC sucks :-D
Some people use amazon.

 

getting it from apple will ensure your warantee privilages arent compromised, and you will get the latest build from apple. FRESH from the factory.

 

I finally ordered the 2.16ghz version with the matte screen through Apple. I am glad that I am back being a mac user since I sold my iMac last week. I would never go back to a pc again. Once you switch to mac, you never go back to a pc. Time for me to ship back the HP dv9000t laptop to HP. When I called HP for the return, I said that I am going to be switching to a mac and HP's Canadian customer service agent (at least I did not get India's HP customer service agent) said she was not surprised by this and she said that they had plenty of calls about people swithing over to mac while doing the return process on their HPs, and also she said that she is is going to buy a mac this week and will be ebaying her HP laptop. At least theye were not trying to bribe me with a $200 cash back, and a free 2 year warranty, or any other free upgrades.

Tomorrow, I will be shipping my Sony FE890 laptop with the hicolor screen back to Sony, because I do not like the the whitish gray color on in it, sometimes it looks like a light greenish gray color.

I hope that I will get the MBP by end of the week. Next month I am going to be upgrading the memory to 2gb and I will be buying the extended warranty in the next few months. I know that I made the right chose by switching over back to mac again and if I want to switch back to windows, I always have that option with the mac. I know that macs are excellent computers and have a great resale value (look at the mac G series, they are selling for a decent amount on ebay, when a comparing to a pc that is about 4-5 years old that people post on ebay).

 

Dis they change the design of the MBP ? I thought initally it did not have a fan ?

 

I miss being on a mac *sniffle*

 

They have two fans...always have. Apple revised the fan control software so that they run all of the time which reduced the heat buildup in the machines. Fortunately, Apple uses high quality fans which essentially make little to no noise when running at low speed. They are essentially silent.