Advice on what MacBook to buy and a few Mac queries?

[Darius]

Right then CS I need your help, I'm going to be buying a MacBook in the next few days I think. Below are the deals I can get which is the best to one to go for? Please bear price in mind when making an opinion, could you suggest pros and cons against certain ones perhaps?

Lion or mountain lion OS much different?

Can I torrent on Macs? Can I watch AVIs using something like VLC?

I will be using the laptop for Internet browsing, streaming media, downloading media, running windows in boot camp, light photoshop, iTunes, editing word/PowerPoint etc, and I like to have near enough all of the above bar photoshop open at once:s

Brand New MacBook Air 13"
4GB ram
128gb SSD
i5 processor
Mountain lion OS
£739

Refurbished Macbook Air 13"
4GB Ram
256gb SSD
i5 processor
lion OS
£739

refurbished MacBook Pro retina 13inch
8gb ram
128gb SSD
i5 processor
lion OS
£828

MacBook Pro 13inch
4gb ram
500gb HDD
I5 processor
Mountain Lion OS
£754


To obtain the deals btw I'm using the £100 cash pack offer from currys/pc world, 1.5% cash back from quid co and 10% off using a work scheme. Just need to ring up on Tuesday and check the 10% off works with the cash back.

All advice appreciated,

Regards
Darius

 

[Darius]

Anyone please??

 

[rdoxenham]

OK, *all* of those machines will be capable of downloading torrents and watching movies in VLC (there's a Mac version of VLC available).

Just to clarify, boot camp is a dual-boot mechanism (unless things have changed recently), so you'll want to use something like Parallels or VMware Fusion if you want to just virtualise a Windows desktop or applications, that will allow you to not have to reboot every time you need something Windows-based. In addition, the upgrade to Mountain Lion is not expensive and you may find you'll just wait for the next one anyway, they are not worlds apart.

My questions would be as follows-

1) Do you care if it's brand-new or not?
2) How much hard disk space do you think you'll need and do you care so much about a performant hard disk?
3) Do you care about upgradability in the future?

The reason I ask these questions (ignoring #1) is because the models do vary quite a lot. The MacBook Retina for example can never be upgraded, so you'll have to literally buy a new laptop if you want to make it faster or have more capacity. The older MacBook's are upgradable, although I'm not too sure of what you can/cannot do on some of those so I suggest you do your research, but most can support hard disk changes and memory upgrades. 128GB isn't that much at all, but then again it's very quick and if you don't use much space then it'll be fine.

Out of those choices above I'd be tossing up between:

Refurbished Macbook Air 13"
4GB Ram
256gb SSD
i5 processor
lion OS
£739

refurbished MacBook Pro retina 13inch
8gb ram
128gb SSD
i5 processor
lion OS
£828

I'd definitely want more than 128GB disk space but that retina screen is stunning. I'd be edging towards the Air due to the larger disk space and you'll probably be fine with 4GB memory for the above workloads, although for your Photoshop work, the screen may take the edge. Tough one, I'm confusing myself now.

Hope this helps somewhat, I went for the Retina because the screen is unbelievable, and FYI I frequently use up the vast majority of my 8GB memory!

 

[Darius]

OK, *all* of those machines will be capable of downloading torrents and watching movies in VLC (there's a Mac version of VLC available).

Just to clarify, boot camp is a dual-boot mechanism (unless things have changed recently), so you'll want to use something like Parallels or VMware Fusion if you want to just virtualise a Windows desktop or applications, that will allow you to not have to reboot every time you need something Windows-based. In addition, the upgrade to Mountain Lion is not expensive and you may find you'll just wait for the next one anyway, they are not worlds apart.

My questions would be as follows-

1) Do you care if it's brand-new or not?
2) How much hard disk space do you think you'll need and do you care so much about a performant hard disk?
3) Do you care about upgradability in the future?

The reason I ask these questions (ignoring #1) is because the models do vary quite a lot. The MacBook Retina for example can never be upgraded, so you'll have to literally buy a new laptop if you want to make it faster or have more capacity. The older MacBook's are upgradable, although I'm not too sure of what you can/cannot do on some of those so I suggest you do your research, but most can support hard disk changes and memory upgrades. 128GB isn't that much at all, but then again it's very quick and if you don't use much space then it'll be fine.

Out of those choices above I'd be tossing up between:

Refurbished Macbook Air 13"
4GB Ram
256gb SSD
i5 processor
lion OS
£739

refurbished MacBook Pro retina 13inch
8gb ram
128gb SSD
i5 processor
lion OS
£828

I'd definitely want more than 128GB disk space but that retina screen is stunning. I'd be edging towards the Air due to the larger disk space and you'll probably be fine with 4GB memory for the above workloads, although for your Photoshop work, the screen may take the edge. Tough one, I'm confusing myself now.

Hope this helps somewhat, I went for the Retina because the screen is unbelievable, and FYI I frequently use up the vast majority of my 8GB memory!

Thanks for that mate! Made my descision hard now lol, I've seen a pro 13inch used in good nick i5, 320gb HD, 4gb ram for £500. Think im going to get that whack an SSD in and upgrade to 8GB ram.

 

[rdoxenham]

Thanks for that mate! Made my descision hard now lol, I've seen a pro 13inch used in good nick i5, 320gb HD, 4gb ram for £500. Think im going to get that whack an SSD in and upgrade to 8GB ram.

Job done then mate! Memory upgrades and SSD's are reasonably priced too so sounds like you're onto a winner. Good luck

 

[Darius]

Job done then mate! Memory upgrades and SSD's are reasonably priced too so sounds like you're onto a winner. Good luck

I've got 2 x 4gb sticks spare anyway