I'm Considering buying a Mac, but I have several questions about it.

So I'm really thinking about buying the Macbook Pro 2011 15'' higher end model. My school has an onsite Apple store that gives us discounts. Anyway I've done my research on the MBP's but I have a few questions about them. Sorry if I'm asking a lot, but I'm going to be spending a little over $2000 on this I'd love to have all my ducks in a row

1.) I have the option to upgrade from the 5400rpm HDD to the 7200rpm HDD with a little less space. I was told that by doing this it will reduce my battery life by 20% or so. Is this true? And if so, would I save battery life or even extend it if I opt for them to install an SSD?

2.) Is it worth upgrading the monitor on the 15'' displays from 900 to the 1050? For gaming and watching videos does the resolution make any difference in quality? Also do you recommend getting the matte display? I've heard people say that the matte display ruins the colors and makes everything look washed out.

3.) How good is the HD 6750 GPU on the 15''? I know that it is not a gaming machine, but can it handle games such as Sc2, WoW, SWTOR, and EVE? I mean on max graphics and such. I'm guessing it won't be able to work well with Crysis, BF3, and etc.

4.) Do you recommend buying an Anti-virus for Macs? I've never actually owned a Macbook, but the one thing a Windows guy like me hears is that Macs don't get viruses, or at least a lot less than Windows. My school sells Norton 360 Mac version for about $30-35 so I'm wondering if it's worth it for the peace of mind or if that's just wasted money?

5.) Is it worth buying the Apple care warranty? I've heard people say that it is, but my problem is that whenever I've bought parts for a computer if they die on me or are faulty, I would notice it at the very least within a year or purchase. And since all Macs come with a 1-year warranty right away I'm wondering if it's really worth it.

 

1. SSD will greatly improve batterylife and overall performance (id rather have a 5400 with more space than a 7200 with less since the performance is very similar)

2. Monitor value is based on how you use it. If you are asking this then you prob. should save your money and put it towards accessories. Both monitors look good, but the higher res allow you much more room for windows (powerpoint, word, photoshop, etc). Gamingwise you'll get much better performance running 900res.

3. 6750 is pretty good. You can play most games on medium/high in windows.

4. No comment, but if you are smart you should not have to worry.

5. Applecare is definitely worth the investment. If you don't have the cash up front you have a whole year to purchase it.

Good Luck!

 

I know gaming wise I'll get better performance with 900 instead of 1050 but also for watching movies and etc. One big reason I'm thinking about a mac is later this year I'm going to start studying aboard such as the Middle East this winter and then Russia next summer. So on top of extremely long flights, my laptop will be my only tv and etc...so I'm curious if the res is noticeable and even worth it. And also if the matte screen washes out colors or not.

On the side of the SSD does it actually improve battery life? I read from Apple that the MBP can run for 7hours, but then again I'm not sure how they tested for the drain. But if it does run for 7 hours..would putting an SSD reduce power usage to even boost battery life like 30min to an hr even?

 

1. I'd stick with the cheaper 5400rpm drive, less vibrations and slightly better battery life.

2. I'm running the 900p screen on my MBP 15, and it's very nice, I don't need 1080p.

3. Decent mid-range GPU, check out the benchmarks and gaming tests: AMD Radeon HD 6750M - Notebookcheck.net Tech

4. I'd stick with a free anti-virus like ClamXav or PC Tools iAntiVirus. For other software, take a look at the free software thread: http://forum.notebookreview.com/apple-mac-os-x/515768-ever-growing-free-mac-os-x-software-list.html

5. I think AppleCare is worth it if you plan to keep it for a while. I haven't had the same laptop for over 2 weeks.

 

regarding question #5 about AppleCare. I'd say it is very much worth it. We have a 15" MBP from early 2009. The screen hinge just cracked recently and the display had a strange watermark stain dead center on it.

our 3yr AppleCare covered it all, so I'm very thankeful we had the 3yr coverage.

regarding the 5400 vs 7200 RPM, I'll simply say I have two 7200RPM 500GB drives in my MBP with no problem of noise or vibration. About the battery life, I'm almost always at a desk with a power source plugged in so I don't rely on battery life as much as a student who traveled from class to class alot and had to have a battery last them all day. About SSDs, I'm waiting for a year or two longer for the technology to mature a bit more and for prices to drop further before I buy any more of 'em. I have two SSDs in one of my Dell workstations but that was just for grins. I'm happy with the 7200RPM hitachi 500GB drives in my other laptops.

Regarding screen resolution, I'd get the higher res and probably get the matte (simply because I've never had a matte Mac and would like to try it )

I have no comment on the other stuff. Good luck

 

nah.. 20% is exaggerated. There is a very minor increase in speed, and a very minor increase in power draw. I haven't really found 7200 rpm drives to be worth it... they are really only noticeably faster in benchmarks, not in most day to day tasks. Most SSDs will be MUCH MUCH faster than any hard drive, and use slightly less power... but they are much smaller and more expensive.

you know how resolutions work right? Everything on the screen is little squares called pixels. A higher resolution has more pixels on the screen, meaning the pixels are smaller. The picture will be sharper, less jagged lines of squares stuck together to make diagonal lines and such... you have physically more space crammed down onto the screen, so all the windows and such on your screen will be slightly smaller. You can run the 1680x1050 screen at 1440x900, or even lower.. it is not forced to run its max resolution. but know it still has exactly 1680 pixels across by 1050 pixels down, so if you run a lower res, some things might look slightly blurry or odd. This doesn't matter much with gaming, so for game performance you could still run the game in something smaller like 1280x800, and it will still be fullscreen.

its quite good. As long as you do not raise the resolution up too high, it can run many games on higher settings... but what is good enough to play and what is acceptable is all subjective.

I recommend running an antivirus, but not buying one...
Norton is HORRIBLE... do not install that on your Mac.
Sophos Antivirus is the best I've found, and its free for home users.

its all a gamble. Usually if a machine dies its really soon.. or really late... not usually in year 2 or 3, but it does happen. If it does, getting parts to fix a MBP is very expensive... much more so than the warranty ever was.

 

At my school I have option to either change the 750gb 5400rpm hdd into a 500gb 7200rpm or 128gb SSD for $90. So I'm curious if it's worth it really. The only thing I'm worried about is 128gb of space really. 750gb is overkill, 500gb is still too much. Ideally I think about 150-200gb would be perfect for me but I'd wondering if it's worth the price to have them install that ssd. I've only ever used HDDs so I've never really seen how fast SSDs are. My desktop itself uses 2x 10k rpm HDDs in Raid 0 and it seems decently fast to me lol

 

1. Get the 7200rpm if gaming/performance is an issue, get 5400rpm if better durability and less noise is what you want. I have the 5400rpm one and i realized i should have upgraded to the 7200rpm one. SSD is overrated and expensive wait till they make sense then swap out the 750gb with the ssd.

2. The 900p is good try it out, 1080p is a waste for gaming since 6750m is bottleneck at that resolution, only playing 1080p movies makes sense.

3. 6750m performs very close to GT 555 and 6770m, i was about to get a m14x but bought a MBP with 6750m instead it was a better choice. A much balanced laptop.

4. Using Windows 7 24/7 so no idea.

5. AppleCare is worth it i had to send in my laptop twice because of electric shock issues.

 

How is your battery life with the 7200rpm hdd? I keep hearing say that SSDs boost the battery of life of the macbook pro because it uses less power. And then the battery life was rated using the 7200rpm hdd instead of the 5400rpm so battery life with the 7200rpm is lower than what it should be.

 

In all reality, SSDs don't drastically boost the battery life of the MBP line. They slightly increase it but that also depends on how you actually use the MBP. Other aspects such as bluetooth, wi-fi, and backlight brightness are going to drain the MBP's battery much faster than either a 5400RPM or 7200RPM hard drive compared to an SSD. I came across a website that conducted some tests and, at most, the SSD increased the battery life by 10 minutes, maybe 15 if they pushed it. A 10 minute increase out of an already long 7 hours isn't really all that much and by no means is it drastic.

As for the 5400RPM vs 7200RPM debate, I highly doubt you would notice a difference between the two. Both are going to perform about the same when it comes to random file access and when copying/moving smaller files. The larger difference is going to be from sustained access but again, it isn't anything major. SSD is going to produce much, much better results than both options. OS X Lion is going to boot in about 25 seconds with either hard drive option while that is cut down to ~10 seconds for SSD. It is also going to take 1-2 seconds for programs to load instead of 5-10 seconds. Read and write speed are going to drastically increase with an SSD and any speed increase is going to be much, much more noticeable than going from a 5400RPM to 7200RPM hard drive.

Personally, I would go with a 5400RPM hard drive for now and save up for a larger capacity SSD in the future. Then you can always optibay your MBP. That is where you take the hard drive, put it where the optical drive goes, and then put something else (an SSD) in the spot where the main hard drive went. The SuperDrive will then be put in a USB enclosure so you can still use it. That way you have a primary SSD for installing Mac OS X and programs while the secondary HDD can store media (because that doesn't need to be on an SSD).

That is my eventual goal. Right now I have an Optibay kit coming along with a 1TB 5400RPM hard drive (they also sent a USB enclosure for my SuperDrive for free). I am going to plop that in there and keep my upgraded 750GB hard drive in my MBP until the prices of 256GB SATA III drives come down to ~$250 (since 128GB would be cutting it kind of close since my current hard drive has about 94GB used just in programs and whatnot).

There is also a thread discussing the importance of anti-virus software for OS X, you may want to read through it to get more input on that. I have Sophos installed on my MBP for several reasons:
1. It can actually protect against content that OS X hasn't been updated to handle. MacDefender is a prime example as Sophos was able to stop the installation of that back when Snow Leopard would let MacDefender install itself.

2. It helps stop the spread of malicious content to Windows systems. There are some instances when a malicious Windows file (whether it be a virus, trojan, worm, etc.) gets on a Mac. It doesn't do anything but sit there so it is of absolutely no harm to the Mac. However, that file can still be easily transferred via e-mail or through USB media to a Windows PC thus infecting it.

3. Sophos barely uses any system resources. FireFox consumes a lot more resources than Sophos and so does Finder (the Mac equivalent to Explorer.exe on Windows, not to be confused with Internet Explorer). If there is something out there that can protect me, is free, and won't slow my system down, why not use it?

 

1. I'm not sure what you think the difference is between "saving battery life" and "extending battery life" but the SSD will definitely give you extra minutes of usage on the battery over a standard HDD. They are also a lot faster than the standard HDD and massively more expensive.

2. I personally like having more screen real estate and would go for the higher end display. As far as the matte screen, it does kill the color vibrancy somewhat, but I would still get that. I've gone through a few glossy screens with glass and the reflections are insane. I'm tired of seeing myself and people walking by in the display, and god help you if you try to use it outside. However, if you are using it on a desk and can possibly adjust the lighting to prevent reflections, you might be ok without the matte screen. Most people prefer glossy.

3. The 6750 is a moderately powerful gpu, especially compared to previous offerings in the mbp. A few people will cry foul, but I would recommend using boot camp to play any intensive games for performance reasons. I think you should be OK with all games listed, including BF3 and crysis, although not at max settings. I don't think you will be able to play SC2 at max settings either, because max settings kill performance even on desktops. Of course, the highest graphics settings change the look of the game minimally over "high" settings and cut performance drastically. You might benefit from doing more research and testing of graphics settings per game rather than "max or nothing".

4. I would recommend not buying Norton at the very least. Either nothing or sophos as mentioned above is probably good.

5. You can decide whether to purchase the warranty any time during the first year. I'm not sure what the most cost effective method is. I do know that I have had plenty of repair bills from apple ranging from $100-1000 (all covered) on different laptops.

 

a 128gb SSD for 90 is a steal, I would grab that then optibay the thing, and get yourself a 1tb drive (around 90)

 

The Optibay website is selling their kit for $100 and they also have the kit bundled with a 1TB hard drive for $200. So, unlike their prices for SSDs, buying the two together from the Optibay hard drive really isn't all that bad especially considering the cost of shipping the Optibay kit, buying the 1TB hard drive, and shipping that from another site. I calculated it out as if I was buying from Newegg and buying straight from the Optibay website (which is what I eventually did) saved around $7 vs buying the Optibay kit and then buying the 1TB hard drive from Newegg. Just something to point out.

 

I would grab one from maxupgrades, their optibay setup (identical to the OWC) is sold with a ODD case (so you dont lose the ODD) a caddy for the ODD (so you can install the SSD in there, its better this way trust me) and the 1tb drive for 168

 

I feel like I might sound a little stupid for asking this but what exactly is an optibay setup? I'm not very experienced with working with laptops really. I thought that either keep the SSD itself on machine to preform all hard drive duties or keep an SSD for the OSX and games while having an HDD that has music and videos on it that way the SSD works for main apps, games and bootup/shut down.

 

OptiBay, allows you to replace your optical drive with a space for a 2nd hard disk or SSD.

Most people leave their operating system (in this case OS X) and select programs on the SSD, while devoting the hard drive for their data files like music, movies and documents.

This also makes backing up a cinch.

 

MCE's solution also comes with a USB enclosure for the SuperDrive but it is $199 for the OptiBay kit and 1TB hard drive. It sounds like Maxupgrades is less expensive (by $30). I may have to cancel my order with MCE (which I was referring to as "The Optibay website") and go through Maxupgrades. I didn't realize that the OptiBay route was offered by more than one company. In fact, I think I am going to cancel my order now (it still hasn't shipped) and go through Maxupgrades since the price difference is rather large.

 

Oh I love the optical drive. It's actually one of the reasons I'm getting the MBP over the MBA. I'm right now just debating weather to get the default 5400rpm hdd or 7200rpm hdd or just pay $90 and upgrade to the SSD. The problem is I know there are good SSD companies and bad ones, and I have no idea which Apple uses, and if the $90 is worth the speed increase instead of the $0 replacement of the 5400 into the 7200.

 

Well, I would not go through Apple for an SSD upgrade simply because (last I heard) they were still using older SSDs. There is still going to be a speed increase over a 7200RPM hard drive but why pay the money for an SSD option when it is something from the last generation of models? Also, as previously pointed out, the actual noticeable speed increases of 7200RPM vs 5400RPM are slim to none. I think you would be better off just getting the 5400RPM drive (since it is the largest capacity) and then holding off on the SSD until you can afford to do it aftermarket. Not only would you be getting better performance out of the SSD but you can always stuff the larger capacity 5400RPM drive where the SuperDrive is. You won't lose the SuperDrive going the OptiBay route, it just won't be built into the computer anymore and that shouldn't be an issue unless you use your drive on a daily basis (some do but the majority of people out there are phasing away from optical media all together, I know someone who spent $100 to upgrade their notebook's optical drive to Blu-ray and it has just sat there never once playing a CD, DVD, or Blu-ray).

 

I can chime in on the screen... one of the only regrets I have with my 15 MBP was not getting the higher res with antiglare... really when it comes to putting stuff on my screen 1680x1050 is way way better. and you can run a 1680x1050 at 1440x900 if you want higher FPS in games... and the 6750M should be able to handle all those games pretty well... Crysis (1 and 2 should do ok, perhaps not maxed but reasonable playable), i don't know about BF3 (no idea what it needs), but I'll bet it will at the very least run reasonably well at low???

 

I would do it, I thought that you were referring to OWC, since people here always go there for upgrades. But yes MCE was the first company to make the optibay for macs

 

I just actually went in to the Apple store a little while ago and they had a 15'' MBP high res and a 15'' MBP high res w/ anti glare. I couldn't really tell the difference between them except that the glossy one was crazy reflective although that might have been the work of the bright lines inside the Apple store, but I don't know.

 

thats the difference between glossy and matte.

 

I'm not going to be going photography, but mostly playing games and watching videos and movies. Is the Glossy really that much better for it? Is it the same as getting the glossy and getting an anti-glare screen to do the same thing as the matte screen?

 

It seems Apple's glossy is extra glossy. It becomes a big problem if you have films with a lot of dark scenes.

 

What I don't understand is does the matte display really wash out the colors?

 

Matte displays do not wash out colors, they represent colors to a more accurate degree. Matte screens will look more washed out when you first use them, but after a few days you will love your matte screen for how accurate everything looks. Also my matte screen because it is not glossy and has no reflections, makes everything on the screen look real, like it isn't actually on a screen, but hanging in mid-air. Matte screens work much better in situations with lots of light, they make your eyes have less fatigue. Most laptop screens are simple, they do not have amazing contrast in comparison to external displays, like my 23 inch 1080p LG. In the day I prefer my matte screen, at night with the lights out n my room, i prefer my LG because it has such a great picture and with no lights there is no reflection, so the glossy screen really makes movies the colors pop.

Apple does make some nice machines though, you should look at both the glossy and matte apple and decide based on your perceptions which one to get.

The 6750 is decent, my brother has it in his HP DV6, but he only plays League of Legends, he can run it on very high, I have the basic Intel HD3000 in my laptop and I run League on High, but with no shadows.

 

Well I plan to use this in class for notes and around campus for studying, web browsing and some gaming. And I plan to use this while I travel, so when I head to Israel and Russia in the coming months this will be my only tv basically so I'd like to have a very fine quality screen also. So this will be like an all-around screen.

 

more color accuracy? the panels are the same, just with matte coating for matte models.

 

The colors are more accurate, more real, because they donot have a gloss sheen over them distorting the colors and making them have more pop than they really do.

 

So do games and movies still look good on a matte screen? Or do they look more dulled out?

 

You got really lucky on the screen, when it gets the mark you are talking about that is usually a pressure mark which is considered under accidental.

 

Once you use a matte screen for a few days, you will love it. Me and my brother play League of Legends, he has a glossy screen I have a matte screen, the game looks better on my screen, no glare, no shiny reflection from light sources etc...

It is really a personal choice, you should look at both types in person. For movies it is the same, they look great, very real.

 

This. After walking into Best Buy and seeing all the glare reflected off the laptop screens, it was Matte or bust for myself.

OP, matte is the way to go. While a glossy or glass covered screen will supposedly make colors appear more vibrant (I've never seen it.....ever, despite marketing materials saying so) the hassles of having to adjust to the glare outweigh the negligible benefit IMO.

 

On the other hand, I have always been a fan of the glossy displays even going back to my Dell Inspiron XPS Gen 2 in 2005. The glossy display Dell put in there produced more vibrant colors (and blacker blacks) than the matte option and I still think the same holds true for the MBP displays. I like my 13" MBP display over the 15" matte option when they are put side by side. All of this comes down to a personal preference as there is no single way to go. You either prefer glossy or you like matte better. Not one answer is right so the best thing to do, as previously suggested, is go have a look at the displays for yourself.

 

MCE sells you optibays for an arm, a leg, and a soul. You can pick them up online for ~$15 and it'll work just fine.

Glossy's look better in stores, and I think the black "bezel" looks amazing, and the edge to edge glass screen is stupidly easy to clean. Otherwise, matte is superior in every way... it's just more practical. And you'll get use to the silver.

 

I agree the matte is much more practical. I don't think matte is more accurate. I think technically glossy is more accurate (closer to neutral).

Basically if I say "red on" "green off" "blue off" the color you get should be as red as possible. I think this holds more true for glossy than matte, and I believe glossy is more accurate.

If you're doing photos, what is important is that the color that you see on your monitor is the same as the color that other people see on their monitor. At that point, accuracy really depends on what device(s) are in use by your audience. Most desktop monitors are not glossy, so you might be closer to what other people are using. Maybe. Most mac laptops are glossy.

 

The advantage of glossy screens is that they’re simply beautiful and more fun to look at in good lighting, the downside is any screen with glass infront of the LCD takes a hit on color accuracy and consistancy. There are exceptions to this in $1500 + professional screens with a special polarized and treated glass but no one puts that kind of effort into a laptop.

MasterChief I have to disagree somewhat. the colors " appear "sharper on a glossy display but those of us that professionally calibrate our screens see a 5-15% hit in gamut and calibration on any glossy screen. its the basic prism effect of putting light through glass and causing a distortion. ( extra layer = extra refraction and light/color loss )

 

technically, the glass doesn't have to refract the light. It could be neutral. I need more information, but the point of the glass isn't to refract light.

The matte coating definitely has polorizing and refracting effects on light.

It's not a big deal, I definitely still prefer matte.

 

any substance will reflect light in a certain degree, when it starts being worrisome is another story

 

Get the higher res scfeeen, you can always replace drives as technology improves. I myself went with stock 5400 rpm drive for max battery, no noise/vibration without paying SSD premium. I recently installed WD Scorpio Blue 1TB drive(5200rpm) to handle all my music(400g) and have noticed no dropoff in performance whatsoever. Highly recommend

 

I just have to say that Apple support is some of the best IF you come in during your warranty period. I came in with a tiny bright spot on my screen and since the issue took some time to resolve they replaced my computer with the $2.2K model when I had the $1.8k model.