Buying a new MBP this weekend, need help with the final touches.

Hey guys,

So I've finally decided to take the plunge on a macbook pro.

I'm going into Engineering next year, and have read up about as much as I can, and it came down to the 13 or the 15, and I decided on the 15.

A couple things I wanted to just nail down were specs/addons.

I've seen that the upgrade to the 2.53 i5 isn't really worth it, and the i7 I can't afford regardless, nor is it useful.

Harddrive-wise, should I upgrade it to a 7200rpm? Or just leave the 320g/5400rpm in there until I upgrade to an SSD? I have an external terabyte drive so space isn't really an issue for now.

As well, I know I want the high-res, as that's what I'm used to, but I'm unsure of Glossy or AG. We don't have an apple store close by, and BB doesn't carry High-res models. So I'm wondering if it's worth it or not? Or anywhere (pics?) I can get a comparison.

I'll decide on iwork/msoffice as I can pick those up later...

Regarding applecare, I've seen people on here suggest that buying it off ebay is a hell of a lot cheaper, which I saw, but is it legit? And how can we tell?

I think that's it for now...

Thanks!

Wes

 

Wait for the SSD.

If you are indoors most of the time, then glossy. Colors will "pop" on the glossy. Florescent lighting won't be much of a bother since the brightness can overcome it except on dark screen backgrounds.

Office.

Can't recommend the eBay ones. There are potentially some good ones. But you never know. All you get is a warranty code that you enter into Apple's site. You could find out a month or two later that it is invalid. Then you're SOL.

Get it from Apple for peace of mind. BTW, you don't have to buy the Applecare up front. You have up to a year to buy it.

 

Ebay has a thing where you can "rate" sellers. Some people are "top rated sellers". They have like 100% feedback on 1000 items. You can check if people have already bought apple care from them.

I think if you buy something from one of these people its like $135 for Applecare for a 15 inch. That is a pretty good deal. I guess you could spend $200 more for the 15 minutes it would take you to research an Ebay server.

 

Also consider upgrading yourself to Seagate Momentus XT. It delivers a close to SSD experience.

Downside is a slight increase in noise and vibration.