Macbook or Macbook Pro?
With the new Macbooks the lines have been blurred between the Macbook and Macbook Pro. So, why should one choose one over the other? Let’s look at a few situations and you can figure out which one you fit into. :)
The Professional Designer or Editor – Macbook Pro
If you are a designer or editor for your profession (Photo, Video, Audio) or even a budding editor then there is no better choice for a mobile editing solution than a completely maxed out Macbook Pro. With processors up to 2.8ghz Dual Core, 3Mb cache, DDR3 Memory and the GEForce 9600M there is more than enough grunt to cut together the latest commercial or even an independent movie. (I know people who have on previous generation Macbook Pros). The integrated Firewire 800 port is backwards compatible to Firewire 400, so all your drives and camera equipment will work.. including your Digi002. The awesome 15in screen will give you great color reproduction and quality and keep your eyes from falling out of your head because of long hours of sitting at the machine.
Working in this industry I am sure you already are familiar with the fact that we have Photoshop, Flash, Illustrator, After Effects, and all the other fun Adobe toys. Web designers also can pick up the really awesome Coda for one stop site design.
The broke full time student, lawyer or average user – Macbook
If you are a broke full time student you have no excuse not to have a Macbook. It is a machine built to last. The base model Macbook will keep you cruising along virus and trojan free your entire school career well into grad school while your friends are all getting bombed with problems and complaining that their email wont work right.
Switching from Windows? NO PROBLEM.
There is not a thing that you can do on a PC that you can’t do on a Mac. Go ahead, trust me.. switch from Outlook Express to Apple Mail.. you will love it. Your digital camera should work with iPhoto RIGHT OUT OF THE BOX with no drivers and more than likely your printer too! You know they make Office for Mac don’t you? You get all the great iApps as well. iCal for managing your class schedules and band practices, iTunes for your music (which will work with that iPod you already own..), Safari with it’s ACID 2.0 compliance will be rock solid for browsing and iChat or Skype with the Macbook’s integrated high resolution iSight cam will keep you in touch with your friends (or that hottie across campus at 3:00am.. ;) ).
Oh no! that jerk professor is forcing you to use an application that only runs on Windows? No problem. With plenty of virtualization options such as the $79 VMWare Fusion or the also $79 Parallels Desktop you can run Windows on your Mac WHILE you are still running the super stable Leopard.
Have an extra desktop monitor lying around from that Dell Mom and Dad bought? Great, just pick up a $29 display port adaptor and plug in your external monitor! Then you can watch Hulu or John Stewart while you crank out that term paper.
The Software Engineer – Macbook or Macbook Pro
I am a programmer and I can say that the new Macbook is a great machine hands down, but depending on what types of applications you are building and if you need to be more or less portable is really where it boils down to.
If you will be building web applications, GPhone or iPhone apps and cranking in XCode.. love portability, battery life and need all the basics for a great price the Macbook 2.0 is a SOLID upgrade from your previous Macbook or year and 1/2 old Macbook Pro.
On the other hand, if you will be doing tons of compiling, GL code and graphics coding.. or just taking your machine from point A to point B. There is no reason not to go for the Macbook Pro.
You probably already know we get the completely bad ass Textmate Editor, Ruby, Rails, PHP, Python, Perl (yuck…), Apache, MySQL, XCode, iPhone Development Toolkits, Interface Builder, GCC tools and all the wonderful goodies including the awesome debugger that comes with XCode toolkits.
What I chose and why
I chose the Macbook Aluminum 2.0 and picked up some after market ram. Why? Simple. I get exactly what I need and nothing more. I code web apps, I build iPhone apps, I work with music software, I need it to be highly portable. I need plenty of power but I know that I don’t have to go completely overboard to do what I need done. I know that machines usually only last about a year for me until I want to upgrade. Not because I beat up the machine.. I am very careful with my equipment. I also know that unless you plan on keeping your mac for quite a while longer than a year getting the first model is usually not such a great idea. The price will usually drop after 8 months when the new models come out. Applecare comes standard on the machine for a year. This way I give the next person the option to pick it up. Just using the AppleCare that is included saves me bucks since I know that I am only going to keep the machine until the included AppleCare runs out anyway. I AM NOT OPPOSED TO APPLE CARE.. if you are going to keep your machine longer than a year trust me… you want it.
Conclusion
I hope this gives you a few scenarios to work off of to decide where you fit. While everyone’s needs are different this should give you an idea of what you need to base your decision on. If there are specific questions, you can always leave a comment and I will punch out a reply.
;{) – Stay frenchy interwebs.
