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White Macbook: More Ram or Faster Processor?

I

ItzCooLz

n00b
Joined
Mar 4, 2004
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Hey guys! A ton of us (~80) people are splitting to buy a friend a white macbook, and we've raised about 1350.

Due to student discount, and the fact that we want to buy him MS Office, I have fiddled with the numbers, and it basically comes down to these two options:

1) 1.83 Ghz Macbook with 80 GB Hard Drive and 1 GIG of Ram, NO superdrive
2) 2 Ghz Macbook with 60 GB Hard Drive and 512MB of Ram, w/ Superdrive.

he is not a power user at all (primarily word processing, e-mail, photo viewing, listening to music and such... but maybe a new computer and OS will change all that).

i guess a third option would be the stock 1.83Ghz Macbook and Applecare.

so the biggest question is... bigger hard drive and more ram or .17Ghz faster processor? what do you think?
 
The 1.83 duo is more than powerful enough for 99% of the laptop purchasing market.
 
Really, what difference will he see with an extra 170mhz? Unless you're a gamer (not possible on a MB, and even then still very little difference) or a poweruser (or need the power to make up for other less, bragworthy parts of your life) that speed will be somewhat worthless.

On the other hand... the difference between 512mb and 1gb of ram in a Mac is FANTASTIC. Upgrading even a 867mhz powerbook G4 to 1gb of ram (from 512) helped me keep it for an entire year longer. Seriously, for us Mac people, RAM is the way to go.

On a side note, who wouldn't enjoy an extra 20gb of HD space for, let's say, a windows partition? :rolleyes:


Oh and you have PM.
 
Get the 1.83 with extra RAM - but get the RAM from a third party, not Apple. Apple charges extra for installation, and for the price difference you can get extra memory, a laptop sleeve, or something else.
 
I'll give another vote for the 1.83 model with more ram and a little extra hd space. It's much more machine for the buck then upping the processor speed just a tad.
 
GET THE SUPERDRIVE MODEL!

If he wants, he can pick up more RAM for cheap (512MB for $50, 1GB for $100). The superdrive is worth it.
 
pixelbender said:
GET THE SUPERDRIVE MODEL!

If he wants, he can pick up more RAM for cheap (512MB for $50, 1GB for $100). The superdrive is worth it.
Click to expand...

He said hes not a power user, so he aint gonna want to install ram himself.
 
Go with the 1 GIG of ram. There is really no reason I see for the SuperDrive. The only justification I could see for that is if he likes to burn his own DVD movies, otherwise a CD burner works wonders.
 
I'd go for the 2 ghz for a few reasons.

1. It is easy to upgrade memory. The cpu on the other hand is not. There is not a big difference in the speed but hell the faster one would be better.

2. Superdrive. This is the big deal breaker I think. The dvd burner will make backing up faster. Figure a digital photo from a good camera is what 2 to 3 megs each if not more. I have a bunch of photos and I perfer using less disks. Also if the person does get into downloading music or whatever you have a better way to back stuff up. Which this drive can be replaced once again ram would be easer.
 
illgiveumorality said:
Do they have any MacBooks in refurb yet? Probably not, but that would be worth it.
Click to expand...

No, they don't. It will probably be at least another month before the refurbs appear.
 
I'd go with the first option. 20GB of extra space and an additional 512MB RAM is worth the slight reduction in CPU speed.
 
Go with the 1.8GHz option you described. You can always get an external drive later if you need it. I just want to say that he or she is very luck to have such good friends. Lol I wish I had friends like you ;)

RAM is the way to go for macs
 
I feel that you should order a MacBook with the larger hard drive and then order some ram seperately because Apple cheats you on that stuff pricewise. That way you get the best of both worlds and you spend almost the same amount, but any way you look at it, you will want more ram. I have 1.5gb in my PowerBook G4 and I don't feel that it is adequate. Good Luck.
 
he'll regret not having the superdrive later on down the road... guaranteed.
 
hey! update...

so... we presented him with the gift yesterday, and it was more just a figurehead gift cuz i bought him a 1.83 GHz macbook that he will be returning soon (since the upgraded hard drive model will take too long to come).

we will be going with option 1, but some of you mentioned that ram is expensive going through apple? if you order online, they charge 90 dollars to upgrade from 512 to 1gig. isn't that a pretty good deal? i looked at ordering ram separately and installing it myself, and 1 gig usually runs at least 100, and it would be nice not having to sell the two 256 sticks of ram myself.

so, i'm most likely going to upgrade ram (90 bucks) and hard drive (40 bucks) online. sound good?
 
ItzCooLz said:
hey! update...

so... we presented him with the gift yesterday, and it was more just a figurehead gift cuz i bought him a 1.83 GHz macbook that he will be returning soon (since the upgraded hard drive model will take too long to come).

we will be going with option 1, but some of you mentioned that ram is expensive going through apple? if you order online, they charge 90 dollars to upgrade from 512 to 1gig. isn't that a pretty good deal? i looked at ordering ram separately and installing it myself, and 1 gig usually runs at least 100, and it would be nice not having to sell the two 256 sticks of ram myself.

so, i'm most likely going to upgrade ram (90 bucks) and hard drive (40 bucks) online. sound good?
Click to expand...

$90 bucks for 512mb is a rip.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...09221136+130911434&Submit=ENE&SubCategory=381

Most 1 gig PC5300 DDR2 SODIMMs go for $70-90 bucks. The gigaram ram should be sufficient. You can leave 1 of the 256mb sticks in and just replace the other with a 1gig sodimm. This gives a total 1.25gigs of ram which should be good for his purposes.
 
IMO, the only reason for going the 1.25gb route would be if the end user plans on upgrading to 2gb sometime in the future, otherwise stick with 2x512mb from apple and call it good.

PS- 512mb sticks are running $35 a piece, factor in shipping and going with apple is actually pretty reasonable.
 
you guys talked about the referbs, did you guys bring those up becuase their quality is the same but the price is lower? im not experienced in macs at all, so im just curious. also if they will come out in another month, and it is less priced and what not ( depending on your guys reply to this reply ), then maybe that will be a good option for them to spend their money on
 
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