Is it worth it?

[Snoekie]

Hi there,

I am contemplating moving over to Mac and quite keen however I do have a packard bell laptop at the moment that i would have to forsake for the macbook i have on offer to me..comparison is as follows:

Packard Bell(PC):
15.4 inch
320gig hd
2gig RAM
ATI Radeon HD 3470 Graphics
AMD Turion X2 64
and Vista

Macbook:
White 13inch
MAC OS X Version 10.5.6
2.1GhZ Intel core 2 Duo
Memory 1GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
120gig HD
Graphics : Chipset Model: GMA X3100, VRAM: 144Mb

sooo.. i am hoping the stats stack in the favour of the mac more on the graphics side, the hd drive size and laptop physical size i am not too worried about its more about performance for graphics apps.

and the mac is selling for R7K. besides the price, would I be downgrading from a performance perspective??

Appreciate all comments,

Thanks,
S

 

[ADRAM3L3CH]

Less ram and worse graphics in the mac. What is the packard bells cpu clocked at ?

 

[Synaesthesia]

The Mac will feel faster, especially if you upgrade the RAM and install Snow Leopard. The Intel CPU is quite a bit faster than any AMD mobile, and Snow Leopard is a fast OS.

The aspect in which it which it is slower is 3D graphics, so gaming performance will be way down. But if you don't use a lot of 3D, then yeah, it's faster.

 

[Snoekie]

the prob is i will it mostly for 3d graphics applications...case not looking good for the mac at the moment then..

Packard Bell processor is: AMD Turion (tm) X2 Dual - Core Mobile RM-70 2Ghz, what would be a comparable or better mac spec? this model(the MAC) is said to be late 2008 but it does not have a DVD-RW drive?

 

[wheunis]

The mac is better, but you need to compare the correct models against each other.

What im saying is, compare to one of the new aluminium macbooks.
All in all, they beat most laptops hands-down, mainly due to DDR3 memory used and also appropriate bus on motherboard.

Anyway...

Put it this way.
I have a R17,000 Acer notebook right in front of me, received as gift...
If you buy a aluminium macbook and dont like it... i'll trade you...

I FRIGGIN WANT A MAC AND I WISH MY DAD KNEW IT BEFORE HE BROUGHT THIS CRAP FOR MY BDAY!!!

 

[Snoekie]

wheunis i too would looove a mac and agree that the aluminum macbook would suit me plenty..however i have this white macbook in front of me that i am tryin to make case for. why don't you just sell the acer and get a macbook?

 

[PeterCH]

wheunis i too would looove a mac and agree that the aluminum macbook would suit me plenty..however i have this white macbook in front of me that i am tryin to make case for. why don't you just sell the acer and get a macbook?

Intel graphics will not work if you want to use Final Cut Pro or Motion 2/3. You'll need a dedicated GPU - NVidia or ATI. Secondly the RAM is shared with the Intel solution which means LONGER battery life but graphics performance is worse. Saying this, you'll still have a snappier system than with Windoze Vista or 7 for sure. The shared RAM means less available system RAM and slower graphics. 3D acceleration is possible (OpenGL) but not as fast and with less features than Nvidia/ATI.

 

[phiber]

wheunis cant he return the Acer??

Snoekie, can you give the macbook a test run ? If you can try some of the apps you plan on running (maybe you can get a demo or 2 ) and see how it performs?

 

[wheunis]

Snoekie,

The white macbooks are awesome in their own regard... sadly that regard was about 4 years ago...

Essentially, the whites are either one of 2 things.

1) Old
2) Extreme low-end "budget" systems.

With that said; Yes, whites have their own merit and are still very useful for smaller application.
The aluminium models are the newer models, and the newest (early 2008 - with the big glass trackpad that doesnt have a button) boasting DDR3 as its main performance point.

I myself would not have a use for the whites, as I mainly use for graphics work, and for that you really want as much whooomp as you can fit into it.
I wouldnt however go as far as to start advocating the new macbook pro's... boy those are expensive as hell. But if i could afford 30 grand into a notebook i would wholeheartedly acquire one.

The case made for whites imo: only in small doses. If your main concern is just to have something to carry around for purposes of slight document, email, internet and possibly entertainment use... Yes the white fits. But in that same regard, one has to acknowledge the major hit my opinion has taken on these little netbooks that started coming out some time last year.
The little buggers are fast, and im not kidding when i say that the better ones boot Vista to desktop and usable in under 10 seconds...



Among the other questions... No, my dumbass dad cannot return the Acer. He brought the thing 3 months in advance of my bday... stores have a 7-day swopout period for exchanges. The best i can do now is try selling it "second-hand".
In that aspect i have gotten as far as a 14 grand offer, but that buys me nothing more than an Macbook White... and it really doesnt compare at all to the Acer, or even my older P.Bell laptops.

Specs if anyone has any interest:

P.Bell:
Intel DualCore 1.8
1GB DDR2
80GB HDD
ATi x1600 GPU

Acer:
Core2Duo 2.2
2GB DDR2
250GB HDD
ATi HD2400 XT (512MB Native, 512MB Shared)


So... to replace the Acer with an equivalent, or P.Bell with a better (i upgrade, i dont sidegrade...) would be Mac Aluminium.

 

[wheunis]

Forgot to add...

The whites have the integrated generic video cards that just fail dismally under any sort of REAL workd thrown at em.

Aluminiums all boast the NVidia dedicated GPU's

 

[Snoekie]

wheunis thank you so much for your guidance on all this, much appreciated and you have answered every possible question i could have had on the white macs vs the aluminum. In regard to pricing I have seen the macbook - aluminium, selling for R12999, or are you specifically chasin after the macbook pro? thanks again. will have to wait around for a better deal on a macbook alu. then.

 

[wheunis]

Hmmm...

Prices may have increased or decreased over the last 6 or so months... The model i was eyeing priced in at 16k if im not horridly mistaken.

But no, a macbook pro would actually be a waste on me. their battery life isnt all that great either... what would you expect from dual graphics card laptops though lol?


EDIT ACTUALY: Just checked out the macstore...

Seems price has dropped quite a bit.
R13,499 for the basic model (ie: no extra cables mousies and bits)

EDITING THE EDIT::
Wow... mac has chopped it up again...
ALL ALUMINIUMS are now classified as MacBook Pro's.

With that said... the model i had my eye on went up in price to 21k... darnit lol
http://www.zastore.co.za/macbookpro0906.php

 

[Synaesthesia]

Actually the Macbook White has the same specs as the Macbook Aluminium now - Geforce 9400M graphics etc. So they're not too shabby.

But the Aluminium Macbook does have a higher quality screen, and backlit keyboard. And they just look awesome. Well maybe you'll find one yet

 

[wheunis]

White still uses DDR2... HUGE point right there


Ok, so relooking at he whole thing...
http://www.zastore.co.za/macbookpro0906.php

from that screen... the top 3 used to be named just plain Macbook Alum.
Now they just lumped them into the same category name as the Macbook Pro's.

PS on the Macbook Pros and the backlit keyboards... used to be that only on 17" models the keyboard was lit...
I really hate when companies do this...


So anyhow Snoekie...
Youre looking at the top row of 3 Macbook "Pro" models as what i referred to as the Standard aluminium models earlier.
http://www.zastore.co.za/macbookpro0906.php