New Alubook: What to check and what to add?

Hi guys,

So I walked into the nearest Smith store here in Melbourne and ended up walking out with a 2.0 Alubook. They were on 10% sale. I felt so awesome after buying it, almost screamed and jumped when I saw the saleslady bring out the box.

On my way home, it was the longest 30 minutes of my life, I could swear

Anyway, I have a 14 day return period and I want to know what should I look out for in the macbook? I dont have the slanted keyboard. My back cover is slightly, only slightly loose when i move it horizontally left to right, but its really not much of a difference. How bad are the loose covers as reported? I dont know if mine can be classified as loose or if its normal.

Also, after typing on the keyboard for a day, i notice that it leaves behind some marks, what is a good keyboard protector you would recommend? I dont like the silicone covers that makes it hard to type on.

I intend to upgrade to 4GB of memory and I know a shop here that could give me "original" Micron memory at 85 USD after shipping, that is the cheapest I can find. I have never heard of Micron and I dont want to risk upgrading the RAM only to stumble upon problems. I could wait till July when my cousin comes down from the states. If I plan to get it in the states, what brand should I go for? I am looking at the above price range but I want really good quality RAM with lifetime warranty.

Next up, upgrading the hard disk. This is something I dont intend to upgrade very soon, but is there significant performance boost between a 5400rpm and a 7200rpm hard disk? How much of battery life do you reckon I would have to sacrifice?

Cheers.

 

I would check the screen carefully. It's the one thing you're going to be working with and looking at for years to come. Look for dead/stuck pixels and also look for any sign of severe backlighting unevenness. These two things can be very annoying.

Try putting a thin piece of foam or foam-like material over the battery and see if it makes the cover more snug.

As far as RAM, I've always had good luck with Kingston brand but I think Micron is a good brand too.

I've rarely noticed a performance difference between 5400 and 7200 HDs in normal everyday use but when it comes to working with large files (when video editing for example) then the difference can be quite noticeable.

 

I'll second ATC's recommendations.

The MB has a good but not great screen so make sure you can live with it. Its contrast ratio is its weakest point and some find going into display preferences and calibrating it with the TV gamma helps. Wish they had used the screen from the MBA in the MB.

OS X runs pretty well for routine use in 2gb of RAM. I've tried 1, 2, 3, 4 in an experiment and found a large difference between 1 and 2, a modist difference going from 2-3 but noticable, and going from 3 to 4 improved battery life but little else. If you tend to run a lot of apps or will be running Windows in a virtual machine a memory upgrade is definitely worthwhile.

When booting or working with large files you notice some improvment going from a 5400 to a 7200 rpm drive but its not dramatic. If you want to put some real snap in application load times try a utility like XSLIMMER. I expect Snow Leopard will help when it is released as well.

 

thanks guys for the reply, as for the dead pixels, i did a check using the software PiXel Checker 1.2. It went thru, in full screen red, green, blue, black and white slides. No dead pixels

As for the cosmetic side of it, all looks good. I would be walking into a few stores to check out the bottom cover of the macbooks on display to get an idea if mine is acceptable. I did watch 2-3 videos on Youtube but thank god mine is nothing like that.

I installed Camino and Firefox, seem to like Camino better.
My MB is fast, but strange thing is that i have had coconutbattery, software update, firefox hand and quit itself. Kinda strange.

As for the RAM, I think I am getting the Micron RAM, found a site which works out at 85 USD after conversion, probably best to get here if there is any warranty issues.

Next thing I need is insurance, a sleeve and keyboard protector.

 

whatever excuses you might think of for buying a unibody macbook, truth is, it's all about freaking appearance ...

1. check the aluminium casing surfaces (unibody piece and bottom pieces) for dent or scratch.

2. check the battery compartment door can be properly closed. without any step or unevenness.

3. check the mic holes, and the battery indicator LED through holes. you need to have good eye sight for these, because these are laser-drilled pin holes. very small. the mic has group of pin holes, and sometime hole size is uneven among the pin holes. the battery indicator is easier. just press the button to see if the all the led brightness are even.

4. check the glass lcd panel for dent & scratch. check the edges where the glass is bonded to the alu casing, especially the bottom edge, for residue of bonding epoxy / glue. make sure the rubber casket is straight and even, without dent.

 

congratulations for your purchase. i confirm that you'll need 4gb RAM if you plan to use parallels or vmware fusion. i just bought a 4gb kit from ebay.

http://cgi.ebay.com/4GB-2x-2GB-APPL...5|66:2|65:12|39:1|240:1318|301:0|293:1|294:50

 

Wait for this to come back in stock before you upgrade your ram: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148191

No point in upgrading your hard drive unless you plan to be moving a lot of files or constantly reading large files from the hard drive (video editing). Every day use you won't notice much a difference.

 

also for the keyboard protection I recommend moshi clearguard

 

Micron D9 is a huge memory manufacturer. They supply a lot of memory chips to big manufacturers like crucial and corsair. Micron makes the infamous D9 chips which are popular with overclockers.