which apple

[art b]

my lad matt, who is of to uni in sept is thinking of getting an apple lappy,

any particular ones he should avoid,
what sort of spec is acceptable,[we not really up to speed with the specs]

any thoughts on something like this....

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Apple-Macbook-2-16GHz-Intel-Core-2-Duo-2-GB-160GB_W0QQitemZ330343313363QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_Computing_Apple_Laptops_ET?hash=item4ce9feefd3&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=65%3A12%7C66%3A2%7C39%3A1%7C72%3A1690%7C293%3A1%7C294%3A50\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Apple-Macbook-2-16GHz-Intel-Core-2-Duo-2-GB-160GB_W0QQitemZ330343313363QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_Computing_Apple_Laptops_ET?hash=item4ce9feefd3&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=65%3A12%7C66%3A2%7C39%3A1%7C72%3A1690%7C293%3A1%7C294%3A50

[HardRockCamaro]

Pretty much any of them will be fine.

Go for a MacBook (which means a 13" screen) or a MacBook Pro (which means a 15" screen) but the latter are expensive as they are aimed at pros and are made form aluminium as opposed to plastic.

These have Intel processors in them (which you want) as opposed to the older Powerbook and iBook models which had a very old PowerPc processor called a G3, G4.  They are very outdated now.


He wants 2GB of RAM at minimum.

Disk space is a case of the more the better as it's surprising how fast ou can fill 'em with photos, music and movies.

Regarding the optical drive, Apple call a drive which can burn CD's but only read DVD's a "Combo Drive".  A drive which can read AND write DVD's is called a "Superdrive".

All Apple laptops have wired network ports, wireless network cards, bluetooth, built-in webcam, USB 2 ports and with the exception of a couple of short lived reent models, firewire ports for hooking up video cameras or high speed external hard drives.

The latest operating system is version 10.5 and is called Leopard.  The previous version was 10.4 and was called Tiger.

All Apple machines come with a package called iLife, the version of which changes every year, ie the current version is iLife 09.  This includes iTunes, a photo editing package called iPhoto, a movie editing package called iMovie, a DVD making package called iDVD, a music making package called Garageband and a web design package called iWeb.

You will need a copy of Microsoft Office for it as well probably, there is a Mac specific version.


All Apple laptops had a 1 year warranty when new.
The Apple extended warranty is called AppleCare and covers the machine for an additional 2 years, brining the total to 3.  this warranty could be bought at any time before the original warranty runs out.


As laptops are moved are moved around a lot and shaken and put in bags and so on I would highly recommend paying more one which has a warranty.  If the main board (called the logic board) or the screen goes it's hundreds of pounds to repair and in essence a skip job.


Apple sell their own refurbished systems which are a much safer and relatively economical buy.  They include a 12 month warranty and pretty much look as-new.

They are selling a MacBook at the moment for £579.  T%his would be my suggested buy.  But move fast, Apple refurbs do not have around long as they offer good money off a new machine and s/hand ones are pricey (as Apple stuff holds its value).

http://store.apple.com/uk/product/FB881B/A?mco=MjE0NDk5Mw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://store.apple.com/uk/product/FB881B/A?mco=MjE0NDk5Mw



EDIT:  All brand new Macs can be bought with an educational discount.  The exact amount varies depending on which college etc.  They will need to see proof of education status, so a student card or whatever.  You'll probably get 15% off.  You also get a massive discount on the extended warranty, which drops to about £59 per year instead of £199 (or something like that).  If you do buy new the base Macbook is fine.

There is currently a back to school promotion which means you get a free iPod with the purchase of a new Mac.  This is a nice bonus or it could be sold on ebay to help offset the cost of the new machine...

[Cunning Plan]

Macbooks = uber!

[art b]

nice on andy,
i will forward that on to him to pick the bones out of it...

[Incursus]

Orange Cox Pippin 4tehwin

[ianjpage]

nah good ol granny smiths lol

[art b]

1st apple bought  

mac book, 1 year old, 430 bucks on egay,

now im wondering wether to get a [cheap on egay], g4/g5 imac to replace my pc....
as its only used for net surfin,invoicing,watchin porn] photo viewing...
anyone have any ideas,

[philoldsmobile]

If you dont play games, there is no comparison between a mac and a PC, the apple kicks PC's off the face of the planet, much quicker to boot up, more secure, more stable, no virus threats, and the standard apps are much better than microshite (i.e itunes, iphoto, etc.)

if you have any software that can only be used on a PC, you can partition the mac using the boot camp facility, allowing windows to be installed on it too (for example for invoicing), leaving you with a mac for surfing, and a PC for the non mac bits, even my mac mini at £399 does this, and runs windows perfectly well, although now i've finished college, i rarely boot it in XP as OSX is so superior.

its worth noting that used apple equipment is far more valuable than PC's often retaining 60 or 70% of their value a couple of years down the line, should you want to upgrade.

there is a saying, "once you go mac, you never go back" and its true.

[a91_formula]

Quoting: philoldsmobile

there is a saying, "once you go mac, you never go back" and its true.

Here here.  I bought a Macbook White 6 months ago for £300 off fleabay - best move I ever made.  Never look back.

I still have a Windows PC for COD4 playing, but hubby runs bootcamp on his Macbook to run the game and apart from a slightly higher ping on the game - no problems at all.

We both however run laptop coolers as the fans do tend to run quite a bit.  We found a free application called Temperature Monitor and it's a good app to run to keep an eye on things.

[Titsy]

Quoting: art b

now im wondering wether to get a [cheap on egay], g4/g5 imac to replace my pc....
as its only used for net surfin,invoicing,watchin porn] photo viewing...
anyone have any ideas,

How about a Linux based machine...? Cheap as chips...

[HardRockCamaro]

Linux machines are for uber nerds.