New to MBP, seeking some opinions before buying

Hi guys. This will be my first apple purchase. Just some questions specific to the macbook pro before I buy (looking at the 15')

1. Buy now, or wait for next cycle? I'm ok with waiting a few more months

2. For general use (movies, light gaming, word etc etc), is 2.4GHZ i5 good
enough, is the increase in price to upgrade to 2.53 or i7 worth it?

3. For harddrive, upgrade to 7200rpm worth it?

4. Finally, for display, worth the upgrade to hi-res?

TIA for any feedback

 

1. there is always a "next cycle" and the nearest one might be next Feb to Apr
2. yes, the baseline 15 inch should be able to handle what you mentioned.
3. if u r going to replace it by a ssd or other HDD, then stay with 5400, otherwise why not
4. go to one Apple Store and try both of them by yourself, the answer is depend on your eyes not anyone else's opinion.

 

Pretty much what ceshimm said.

1. If you're a student, obviously buy now to take advantage of the student discount, if not, anytime is a good time. You could also take a look at refurbs as they generally offer ~15% off retail price. People say they're basically brand new, you just don't get the spiffy retail box.
2. The performance increase between the 2.4 and 2.53 and 2.66 i7 for what you want to do is going to be negligible. If anything, an SSD will yield more performance then jumping up your processor speed, which brings us to 3.
3. I wouldn't upgrade to a 7200rpm drive. If you want more speed, get an SSD. If you're worried about losing space, get an SSD, then replace the ODD with the HDD that came with your apple. Lookup MCE Optibay .
4. Hi-res is totally up to you. Some people like the higher pixel density, some don't. Like ceshimm said, go into an apple store and compare them yourself, same thing with glossy vs. matte.

Hope this helps.

 

Thanks for the feedback guys. Reading around, it seems the 3 year apple protection is a good idea as well? Defcon, would you mind elaborating on point 3?

 

Well, if you want speed for your hard drive, don't get a 7200rpm, as that's just useless heat and vibration. You're better off getting a solid state drive (SSD). Yes, they are expensive, but totally worth it. If you can't afford a high capacity one, that's fine, around 80gb or so is good. If you need more space, you can take the 5400rpm drive you got with your MBP in the first place, and put it where the CD drive is in your MBP, so essentially you have two hardrives in your system. Then your CD drive is put in an external case, and attached via USB.