A few Macbook questions

im...LOST

Howdy all. Just a few questions as I'm considering getting a new Macbook for when I start college. When I say Macbook I refer to the ones in this link http://store.apple.com/Apple/WebObjects/irlstore?family=MacBook

I'm also refering to the cheapest one in relation to these questions

1) Just to confirm that a MacBook can run XP via Bootcamp or Parallels.

2) Seeing as windows can run, does this mean that some games can work too?

3) If I wanted to upgrade the Ram or Hard drive size in the future, would it be an easy enough task to do?

4) How does Photoshop run on it? Would it run fine on just the 1GB of Ram?

5) And finally video editing. I know it's very resource heavy but is it easy to do and quick to do on the Macbook.

Any other words of Wisdom or advice?

Thanks in advance!

su_dios

Yes to all of your questions. I've been toying around with autocad on parallels but its no comparison to bootcamp.

I just bought a new MBP and have upgraded to 4gb ra from crucial. Very cheap too! apple wanted 750$ for this and my way I got to keep the 2gb ram and give it to my brother. For the price ram is going at the moment you may as well upgrade to 2gb ram or so. 1gb will be fine for photoshop though but more will help depending on what file size you're working with. Hard drives will void warranty though so like me you will have to go to mactivate and pay horrible prices. I wonder can you buy a harddrive and bring it to them and pay them to install and transfer images of harddrives?

You will get ilife 08 with your new mac and you have some good free and easy to use video editing software on this.

Narcissus

im...LOST wrote:

Howdy all. Just a few questions as I'm considering getting a new Macbook for when I start college. When I say Macbook I refer to the ones in this link http://store.apple.com/Apple/WebObjects/irlstore?family=MacBook

I'm also refering to the cheapest one in relation to these questions

I have one, fantastic machine.

1) Just to confirm that a MacBook can run XP via Bootcamp or Parallels.

Yes it can. There is also a program called Fusion. I havent tried any of these but I've read that windows runs smoothly using these programs.

2) Seeing as windows can run, does this mean that some games can work too?

I believe so, but again I havent tried.

3) If I wanted to upgrade the Ram or Hard drive size in the future, would it be an easy enough task to do?

Apparently it's very simple, just a five minute job. Unscrewing one or two screws beside the battery, putting the new Ram in and that's it.

4) How does Photoshop run on it? Would it run fine on just the 1GB of Ram?

5) And finally video editing. I know it's very resource heavy but is it easy to do and quick to do on the Macbook.

I don't have experience with either of these so maybe someone else can be of assistance with these two.

Oirthir

im...LOST wrote:

3) If I wanted to upgrade the Ram or Hard drive size in the future, would it be an easy enough task to do?

As said, reasonably easy task if you're anyway tech inclined, but I'm pretty sure your warranty is null & void if you do it.

su_dios

Oirthir wrote:

As said, reasonably easy task if you're anyway tech inclined, but I'm pretty sure your warranty is null & void if you do it.

Don't think warranty is void with the ram as its made easy to access. Just under the battery, but the hard drive requires taking the laptop apart. Its apparently easy to change the hdd on a macbook though. Youtube has a few videos on how to do it. I just did my brothers ram on his macbook and it takes about 2mins start to finish.

Rollo Tamasi

su_dios, how much did the RAM cost you and where did you get it from?
also, what imaging software did you use?

su_dios

Rollo Tamasi wrote:

su_dios, how much did the RAM cost you and where did you get it from?
also, what imaging software did you use?

crucial.com

I bought from komplett and it cost me a few euro extra but had it delivered pretty fast and when putting in shipping costs on crucial.com I think it roughly works out the same anyway! So that was 260eur for 4gb(2x2gb)

440Hz

Rollo Tamasi wrote:

su_dios, how much did the RAM cost you and where did you get it from?

http://www.crucial.com/ best place!

chrislad

Only 4euro difference between Crucial and Komplett, and Komplett is a bit faster, from what I've heard. That'll take me up to my 2gigs for the Macbook now. Thanks for the links, guys.

im...LOST

Thanks lads. I'll just do a bit more research before I take the plunge but thanks again for your help.

Creamy Goodness

chrislad wrote:

Only 4euro difference between Crucial and Komplett, and Komplett is a bit faster, from what I've heard. That'll take me up to my 2gigs for the Macbook now. Thanks for the links, guys.

crucial send by UPS express which is a 48 hour service that's guarateed by 12pm.

think crucial's shipping is 7 euros where as an post is 13 euros for a shoddier service.


changing the hard drive in the macbook shouldn't void the warranty as apple give a guid on how to do it on their site, to me this implies they will allow it and not void warranty.

http://manuals.info.apple.com/en/MacBook_13inch_HardDrive_DIY.pdf

it's easy to change the hard drive on a macbook but i can't stress enough the need for the right tools.

the guide above says you need a No. 0.00 phillips screwdriver to open the hinge but what it fails to mention is that the drive has a slider with the white tab screwed on to it and it doesn't use your standard phillips head screws, you need a T7 torx screwdriver.

you need to get this slider off and place it on the other drive your putting in otherwise if you don't have that white tab on the drive you ain't getting it back out.

i done a RAM upgrade and hard drive upgrade to my macbook 2 weeks ago so it's still fresh in my head.

both screwdrivers can be got in woodies buy unfortualately you've to buy a set to get the one you want maybe maplins might sell them separtlately.

im...LOST

Cool! Thanks Cremo!

su_dios

Cremo wrote:

crucial send by UPS express which is a 48 hour service that's guarateed by 12pm.

think crucial's shipping is 7 euros where as an post is 13 euros for a shoddier service.

Ye an post prices for that was something else. I could not get over the waste in packaging also! As you know or will know soon, those ram chips are very very small and come in boxes a good bit bigger. So I got two seperate boxes for the ram but each box was then in its own box again.. as if it was two seperate orders!

chrislad

I've re-ordered with Crucial as Komplett were saying not being shipped until September 3rd.

decob

im...LOST wrote:

4) How does Photoshop run on it? Would it run fine on just the 1GB of Ram?

Should run fine... haven't had any real issues running it.

im...LOST wrote:

5) And finally video editing. I know it's very resource heavy but is it easy to do and quick to do on the Macbook.

have fcp running on mine, runs fine... rendering down can sometimes take a couple of mins but nothing really time consuming. I've generally been working at SD from a hdv source... working at hd would be more resource heavy.

jmck87

Cremo wrote:

....you need a T7 torx screwdriver.

You sure its not a T8? I could be wrong...

Breezer

Cremo wrote:

you need to get this slider off and place it on the other drive your putting in otherwise if you don't have that white tab on the drive you ain't getting it back out.

I was wondering about this, the Apple HDD replacement guide didn't mention anything about taking the slider off and I'd never seen anything like those screws before. In the end I just put the drive in without it. And took it back out. And put it in again. Sellotape is a wonderful invention Its probably not recommended but it didn't do any damage in my case

Oh while we're on the subject of dodgy laptop-opening, I can also confirm that if you don't have a ridiculously small and short-handled Phillips screwdriver for removing the RAM bracket, a Swiss Army knife will do an excellent job! Done it 3 times and no problems at all

Now, to address several questions at once: Windows XP runs fine under VMWare Fusion and allows you to run the Windows version of Photoshop, but it's a little sluggish with 1GB of RAM - runs lovely and smoothly since I upgraded to 2GB with the above-mentioned dodgy knifework. The Mac version of Photoshop will probably be OK on 1GB though I can't vouch for this - make sure it's the CS3 version though, as the CS2 version is Power PC only, and on Macs with Intel chips it runs through emulation over Rosetta, which I'm told slows it down horribly.

And yes, some games will work on XP, though not newer graphic-intensive ones since the Macbook uses integrated Intel graphics. If you're going to be doing a lot of gaming a Macbook Pro may be a better solution or perhaps even buy/build a dedicated Windows box.

To clarify: upgrading the Macbook's HDD does NOT void the warranty and is NOT difficult (my sellotape adventure not withstanding ). Apple even provides a step-by-step guide on how to do it. It voids the warranty on a Mabook Pro.

Creamy Goodness

jmck87 wrote:

You sure its not a T8? I could be wrong...

i'm almost certain it's a T7 but it could be a T8 as when i was installing the hard drive i had to run up to woodies to buy a set of torx screwdrivers cost 20 euros but the set included T6/T7/T8/T9/T10/T15/T20.

Breezer wrote:

I was wondering about this, the Apple HDD replacement guide didn't mention anything about taking the slider off and I'd never seen anything like those screws before. In the end I just put the drive in without it. And took it back out. And put it in again. Sellotape is a wonderful invention Its probably not recommended but it didn't do any damage in my case

i was thinking of doing the sellotape thing as well but then i said **** it i'll buy the set of screwdrivers as they will come in handy, a bit of side info, if you have a sony ericcson phone these can be opened using a T6 screwdriver.

Yoda

su_dios wrote:

I bought from komplett and it cost me a few euro extra but had it delivered pretty fast and when putting in shipping costs on crucial.com I think it roughly works out the same anyway! So that was 260eur for 4gb(2x2gb)

You can put 4GB of Ram in a MacBook?

Edited: Ah. I see you cannot.

deevey

but you can upgrade to 3 gb linky

su_dios

Yoda wrote:

You can put 4GB of Ram in a MacBook?

Edited: Ah. I see you cannot.

Nope I'm on a macbook pro. Macbooks are limited to 3gb

Yoda

su_dios wrote:

Nope I'm on a macbook pro. Macbooks are limited to 3gb

3GB is more than the 2GB I have... how does the configuration work? The OWC site is a little vague.

I have a MacBook 2,1
Intel core 2 Duo
Bank 0/DIMM0 - 1GB DDR2 SDRAM 667 MHz
Bank 1/DIMM1 - 1GB DDR2 SDRAM 667 MHz

Yoda

Ah here: http://eshop.macsales.com/Reviews/Framework.cfm?page=/Tips/macbookcore23gb/macbookcore23gb.html

chrislad

Damn, Crucial are fast. Ordered on the 18th. Arrived today. So, just one working day. Impressive.

K.O.Kiki

Yoda wrote:

Ah here: http://eshop.macsales.com/Reviews/Framework.cfm?page=/Tips/macbookcore23gb/macbookcore23gb.html

Hot.
Terrible Halo results though (15fps? :eek: )

Creamy Goodness

chrislad wrote:

Damn, Crucial are fast. Ordered on the 18th. Arrived today. So, just one working day. Impressive.

much better shipping options than komplett yeh?

komplett cost like 1000 euros for next day delivery.

440Hz

Cremo wrote:

komplett cost like 1000 euros for next day delivery.

lmao!!

Breezer

Crucial only gave me one delivery option and when the package arrived it was marked urgent. Personally I'd have preferred to have paid less and had a non-urgent service as I wasn't in a hurry. The option would have been nice in any case.

But yes, they are fast. My hard drive from Komplett only took one day longer though, and that was sent through An Post