MBP for college, lots of specific questions.

Soon I will be getting a 17" Macbook Pro. I am a sophomore graphic design student at a University so this is pretty much a no brainer for me.

I have a couple of questions:

1. The 17" MBP is not LED correct? What is it then? How is battery life like from such a huge non-LED screen? Also, what kind of programs should I run to make sure my screen and everything else is okay?

2. Glossy or Matte? I know this is always a personal choice, but I was hoping someone here is in my position.
I'll be using this MBP for design work, yet I still will be using it for DVD watching and internet browsing.
I do live in a dorm, but I can't imagine taking it to coffee shops or travelling too much with it. I just cannot decide if I need saturation or anti-glare. Sure, I'll be starting at the screen a lot and glare isn't fun, but I also want my work and play to look while doing it. I'm leaning towards glossy, but I don't want there to be a huge color difference from screen to print. I'm obviously torn, please help.

3. Upgrades. Would you reccomend them? I was thinking of upgrading the hardware to 160 GB or upgrading the screen's megapixels. Not both, I cannot afford it. What would be the best long term, rewarding option?

4. I am an avid music fan. I currently runn windows xp and the p2p I use is called Soulseek. It's great for unsigned, no name music and that's mostly what I listen to. There is a mac version of this program, it's called SoulseeX. Does anyone use it or have experience with it? It's still in Beta and the website is not very informative.
Here is the site: http://chris.schleifer.net/ssX/
Here is the mac site: http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/17228/soulseex

There seems to be a lot of problems, but then again, people with no problems don't complain.
Anyone here have any advice or info on this? If not is anyone willing to try it out?

5. Also, I will be using my campus' network. I have NO IDEA how this works.
Someone please explain that and what that means for me as MBP user. I know it is a mac friendly enviorment, but other than that, no clue, I did not live on campus last year.

And thanks!

 

1. No, it isn't LED-backlit (as it is, 15.4" LED-backlit panels only recently just became available with the MBP, so it's still a while before there will be a 17" panel). It is regular CCFL-backlighting, although still quite good (I've heard particular praise for the new 1920x1200 panel). It does drain power relative to a 15.4" MBP, but it does have a bigger battery life to make up for it. I haven't seen too many real-world battery life quotes though.

You can usually run any number of dead pixel tester programs which will fill the screen with solid colors of various types, which should tell you if there's anything wrong with the screen.

2) For design work, I think matte is still a better choice. The matte screens are still quite good for color reproduction, etc. so they are suitable for design as well as watching movies, etc. The saturation can be more problematic than anything for design work.

3) Depending on what you do, the high res 1920x1200 resolution could definitely be worth considering. First, I've heard people describe it as an excellent display, and secondly, that higher res will be useful for your design work.

4) No ideas about soulseekx.

5) You shouldn't have any problems with connecting to your campus network. Networking is usually pretty straightforward, and if the campus is Mac-friendly, it shouldn't be difficult to find instructions/assistance in getting set up. It's usually pretty automatic.

 

Eh? Plenty of graphic designers use PCs.

It has CCFL backlights (i.e. not LED backlights). If you're not planning on moving it at all (as mentioned below), battery life shouldn't be an issue

Go with the matte. The colors are more accurate, and you won't notice a huge difference watching DVDs anyway. Even though it doesn't have LED backlights, the matte screen on the 17" MBP still is decent.

If you want to talk about long-term, get the higher res. Even though it may void your warranty, you can upgrade the HDD yourself in the future relatively easily. The screen would be very difficult to upgrade yourself.

Not me, sorry.

No effect whatsoever as far as internet connection goes, in theory--since your campus is already mac friendly, and wireless is wireless, more or less. As far as SoulseeX - if your campus has a restrictive policy on file-sharing, you might run into some problems there (especially if what you're downloading is illegal). Some schools networks actively try to block certain types of traffic (i.e. irc, bittorrent, p2p apps, etc).

 

Yeah, I thought I might run into problems with this SoulseeX business.

Thanks for pointing out that I can upgrade HDD but not my screen. Good point.

I am still on the fence about the matte screen because the 17" lacks the LED. I know Apple claims that the only difference is battery power, but I can help but feel a little unverved about its lasting power.

 

I'm not sure, what exactly are you unnerved about?

And again, if you're looking at a 17" system, you're probably not going to find LED-backlighting at that res for a while.

I wouldn't worry about it. I recall PC Magazine's review of the 17" MBP with the 1920x1200 resolution actually described it as one of the best screens they'd ever seen.

-Zadillo

 

I suppose I'm a bit worried about it's brightness or lasting power. The 15.4 is getting such great reviews of the LED so I suppose that by getting a 17" I feel left out! You can't have everything though!

I guess I feel as though a glossy screen might make up for that. Bah humbug.

 

Again, the high res 1920x1200 17" MBP panel has also been getting excellent reviews...... I've seen a few declare it one of the top LCD screens out there right now.

Glossy isn't going to help you there, and it's frankly going to be a detriment to your design work (it makes color accuracy more difficult than normal). And things will still look fine on the matte screen. Seriously, if you'll be doing design work, it is worth it to get the matte screen.

-Zadillo