MacBook pro 13 vs 15

Bpmull

I am buying an Apple MacBook pro for college. I will be getting iWork so I will be primarily using the laptop for typing documents using iTunes surfing the Internet etc. I will not be using it for gaming. I have 2 options both from apple store ireland

Option one
New 13.3 inch MacBook pro
500gb hardrive
4gb ram
Intel dual core Processor I5
Intel HD graphics 3000
Cost 1219 euro.

Option two
Refurb 15.4 inch MacBook pro
500gb hardrive
4gb ram
Intel quad core processor I7
Intel HD graphics 3000 and AMD Radeon HD 6490M
Cost 1381 euro.

Which would you go for. I am nervous about buying a refurb but can't afford the 1819 euro price tag of a new 15.4 inch pro. anyone had experience of them. Any comments advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

yoyo

Moved to Mac.

frozenfrozen

You should consider getting a macbook air if all you're doing is surfing and typing up documents. problem could be the battery life which is quite low (5 hours most for me properly using it) Definitely get the 15inch if you're going just for one of those two though, you don't need to spend the extra money IMO

Bpmull

This will be my first mac. I always wanted one so I have decided to take the plunge now and buy one.

Sad Professor

Refurbs are fine. Most people report getting a perfect machine. There is the risk of getting a lemon, that's why they are discounted, but if that happens you just package it up and return it. Tbh there's just as much chance as getting faulty new machine.

If it's going to be your primary machine, then I'd recommend the 15-inch. But since you you'll be dragging this around college, the 13-inch would be the better option.

And you should consider the MacBook Air. They are extremely light and portable and they have an SSD, so they are very fast.

And you might also want to wait. MacBooks are due an update soon and it will be a pretty significant one.

frozenfrozen

New screens coming actually, hold out if I were you, I forgot about that!

Bpmull

Is it true that the new upcoming model has no DVD drive at all.

Sad Professor

Bpmull wrote: »

Is it true that the new upcoming model has no DVD drive at all.

We don't know, but that's the rumour. And chances are it's correct. Nobody really uses optical drive anymore.

Sad Professor

I don't agree about the Air not being suitable for college. I use mine for college and I find it great. How much space do you need for college documents? My drive isn't even half full and all my college related documents take up no more than a few gigs. The lack of Ethernet has never been a problem either but I guess it depends on the college.

conor.hogan.2

13" imo. I have only had 13" Macbooks (1 Macbook and 1 Macbook pro) and the size has never been a problem.

Shift-it is a small app that allows for a finer tuned aero-snap type feature and you can switch spaces left and right very easily.

I would not get an Air until it provides a bit more space and Ethernet. I would never get an Air anyway because I need 250GB. (I am not going to transfer on and off music and other items from an external drive just to have a smaller machine)

For college I would go pro as you will often need to install windows and/or burn a CD.

padraig_f

For the screen, go and look at them in PC World or somewhere if you can. For me it would be a no-brainer, for an extra €100 to get the bigger screen and faster CPU. Don't think you ever regret getting too big a screen. I'm typing this on a refurb 15", which I've had about 3 years with no problems, this is the standard experience.

conor.hogan.2

padraig_f wrote: »

for an extra €100 to get the bigger screen and faster CPU.

Say what?

A 13" is 1219 or 1524 and a 15" is 1829 or 2235. So it is an extra 300 euro minimum between the models. Basically all you are getting is the bigger screen size unless you have a need for a quad core (or a more powerful chip in general) and an extra graphics card.

padraig_f

conor.hogan.2 wrote: »

Say what?

A 13" is 1219 or 1524 and a 15" is 1829 or 2235. So it is an extra 300 euro minimum between the models.

Say what? I thought the two options in the OP were:

Cost 1219 euro.

Cost 1318 euro.

conor.hogan.2 wrote: »

Basically all you are getting is the bigger screen size unless you have a need for a quad core (or a more powerful chip in general) and an extra graphics card.

Sounds like quite a lot to me.

Bpmull

Sorry my mistake in the op it should be 1219 for the new 13.3 inch and 1381 euro for the 15.4 inch reburbised mac sorry for the confusion and thank you all for your advice so far Its a great help

Sad Professor

Will this be your primary machine, OP? Are you leaving home to go to college? If so, I'd probably say get the 15-inch MBP. But keep it mind it is quite a bit less portable than the 13-inch. I mean, I wouldn't be able to fit a 15-inch in my backpack. They are lovely machines though and if I was getting a new Mac tomorrow, it's a 15-inch MBP that I'd get. But again, you might want to wait and see what the new models are like.

However, if you don't need Ethernet or an optical drive, you should seriously consider the Air over the Pro. I got 13-inch MBP originally for college and I regretted it because I had no need for the optical drive, nor the extra ports, nor the crappy slow hard drive. It was just extra weight to drag between lectures and back and forth to college everyday. It's bad enough dragging books around.

conor.hogan.2

padraig_f wrote: »

Say what? I thought the two options in the OP
Sounds like quite a lot to me.

My bad, should have rechecked OP to see these were second hand. In this case go 15" if you do not mind the extra weight*.

For that price the extras are quite a bit. I was working of Apple brand new prices where I do think the 15" is worth it.

*There is quite a difference in weight and size.

avalon68

I have a 13 inch mbp - its a great machine but I regret not getting the 15 inch. I usually hook up an external monitor if I have a lot of work to get done. I find the tiny screen space a pain if I need more than one document open - but the 2nd screen is an adequate solution for me. Probably not ideal if you plan on working from the library/away from home a lot though.

acous

conor.hogan.2 wrote:

I wouldn't advise a macbook air for college

I strongly disagree. You rarely need an optical drive and 128gigs is plenty for documents, music and a few movies. If you have a lot of HD movies or something you'd probably need an external hard drive, but having a second drive for backup is something I'd recommend anyway.

avalon68 wrote: »

I find the tiny screen space a pain if I need more than one document open

To further pimp the Air :P, the 13" model has the same resolution as the entry level 15", and much higher resolution than the 13" Pro. Even the 11" air has a higher res screen than the 13" pro.

frozenfrozen

Also the SSD as standard is really handy not having to spend a minute starting up and shutting down all the time. I get around 8 second boot up on my 11 inch i7 MBA.
They're all great laptops so if you feel you need an optical drive and an ethernet port then go MBP but otherwise air is more than enough for what you need and it's light and fast.

conor.hogan.2

I am a corner case so hence me not recommending the Air. OP if you do not need to read/write CD/DVDs and do not need a lot of space then go with the Air.

I never turn off my MBP (except to update) so boot up is rarely an issue for me personally.

frozenfrozen

conor.hogan.2 wrote: »

I am a corner case so hence me not recommending the Air. OP if you do not need to read/write CD/DVDs and do not need a lot of space then go with the Air.

I never turn off my MBP (except to update) so boot up is rarely an issue for me personally.

A mechanical HDD spinning while you're walking around could do some damage i'd say! be careful that it completely stops spinning!

conor.hogan.2

frozenfrozen wrote: »

A mechanical HDD spinning while you're walking around could do some damage i'd say! be careful that it completely stops spinning!

None of my HDD have broken yet. I obviously put it to sleep while moving it, but rarely shut it completely down.

I have left it spinning while moving it while encoding video/audio and other longer things that i needed to leave the laptop running but needed to move around college and never had a problem although I agree I would avoid doing it unless I really had to.

Sad Professor

conor.hogan.2 wrote: »

I have left it spinning while moving it while encoding video/audio and other longer things that i needed to leave the laptop running but needed to move around college and never had a problem although I agree I would avoid doing it unless I really had to.

Really? Did you disable the motion sensor? Because otherwise the drive would have been constantly spinning up and down which would put a lot of stress on it. I'm surprised it didn't roast itself to death.

In fact, I have a theory that people moving the machine before the drive has spun down is a major cause of hard drive failure in MacBooks. Apple's hibernation mode (which delayed how long the machine took go to sleep considerably) combined with the motion sensor probably killed a fair few drives. I'm always super careful about never moving the machine while the drive is spinning.

So you have a helluva lot more faith in hard drives than I do. One of the main reason I'd recommend the Air because of how much more reliable SSDs are. At the very least you don't need to worry about heads crashing into the platter.

conor.hogan.2

Sad Professor wrote: »

Really? Did you disable the motion sensor? Because otherwise the drive would have been constantly spinning up and down which would put a lot of stress on it. I'm surprised it didn't roast itself to death.

In fact, I have a theory that people moving the machine before the drive has spun down is a major cause of hard drive failure in MacBooks. Apple's hibernation mode (which delayed how long the machine took go to sleep considerably) combined with the motion sensor probably killed a fair few drives. I'm always super careful about never moving the machine while the drive is spinning.

So you have a helluva lot more faith in hard drives than I do. One of the main reason I'd recommend the Air because of how much more reliable SSDs are. At the very least you don't need to worry about heads crashing into the platter.

I used some app called Insomniax I think. I only did this twice as I was encoding video/audio once and downloading an extremely extremely large file another time.

I carried it around in my bag in a case opened and the fan/back end pointing outwards and not inwards with the bag slightly open around college. You are right it was very dodgy as the machine was working very very hard and would be quite warm in general never mind the fact it was being moved and inside a bag…

I have faith in HDDs in a sense but I also have everything immediately important backed up to Dropbox and various places.

I certainly would never recommend doing it. But one thing Apple seem to have gotten right imo is there drives especially with the way their fans work and the motion sensor but still very very brittle drives by their very nature.

Sad Professor

It would must have destroyed your battery life.

I have to say the only CPU intensive tasks I do on either of my Macs is watch YouTube videos. The advantage to this is that anytime I hear the fan running I know there's something wrong.

Bpmull

Thank you all so much for your help. If I buy a MacBook pro would it be worth paying an extra 203 euro to get a 128 gb ssd rather than the standard 500gb Drive another option is to get an 8gb ram also 203 euro but is it really necessary. Is the mac slow with the standard drive? As you are loosing alot of storage just to get the ssd. Anyone that has one with a standard drive do you find start up slow etc? Thanks again for your help.

viclemronny

Get as little ram as possible and then get the upgrade yourself, it's much cheaper to buy the extra ram.

Also, if you don't need a disc drive, consider getting the pro anyway and then you can buy your own SSD and swap that in for the regular 500 HDD. then pop out the disc drive and pop the HDD in there. There are small 'holders' (long day, you know the type of thing i mean) that will hold a hdd in the disc drive space.

conor.hogan.2

Sad Professor wrote: »

It would must have destroyed your battery life.

I have to say the only CPU intensive tasks I do on either of my Macs is watch YouTube videos. The advantage to this is that anytime I hear the fan running I know there's something wrong.

Do you mean not shutting down destroyed my battery life as opposed to the leaving it on in a bag to do processing did?

My battery cycles are ridiculously high but then again my laptop is my TV, I uses it for college and now work along with music, videos etc

Ah hearing the fan? I rarely notice anymore….

1.5 years and battery is at 85%

Sad Professor

Yeah, processing with the hard drive spinning. I assume you were plugging it in every chance you got.

Re getting RAM yourself, yes, but keep in mind you can't do this with the Air. The RAM is built-in and you can't upgrade it. So don't under any circumstances get the 2GB model.

conor.hogan.2

Sad Professor wrote: »

Yeah, processing with the hard drive spinning. I assume you were plugging it in every chance you got.

Re getting RAM yourself, yes, but keep in mind you can't do this with the Air. The RAM is built-in and you can't upgrade it. So don't under any circumstances get the 2GB model.

Oh, well I only did it twice so it did not have any meaningful impact on the battery AFAIK. (the Macbook is still going strong on the same battery.)

The Air can not be upgraded? Well I suppose 4GB is plenty for an Air considering you are unlikely to be using it for "heavy lifting".

Sad Professor

No, the RAM is soldered on to the logic board. I really don't think Apple should selling the 2GB model. It's alright now, but a couple of OS update later and it will be useless.

conor.hogan.2

Sad Professor wrote: »

but a couple of OS update later and it will be useless.

Well I think you answered your own question there .

Sad Professor

I don't think it's necessarily for that reason. There are cost issues with the Air - it's only the low-end 11-inch model that comes with 2GB. And Apple may surprise both of us and continue to support that machine for quite some time.

conor.hogan.2

Sad Professor wrote: »

I don't think it's necessarily for that reason. There are cost issues with the Air - it's only the low-end 11-inch model that comes with 2GB. And Apple may surprise both of us and continue to support that machine for quite some time.

Ram is dirt cheap and Apple are known for their ridiculously high ram prices (but for them to add it, it is dirt cheap)

So I think it is for that reason only. 4GB should be a min considering the price of all Apple laptops.

Bpmull

Anyone that has a mac do you find the iworks software good or is windows office better.
The iworks is €80 a good bit cheaper than the €130 for windows office for the mac. But what I am asking is which is the best for presentations, typing word documents, spreadsheets, etc? Thanks so much.

DubDJ

Bpmull wrote: »

Anyone that has a mac do you find the iworks software good or is windows office better.
The iworks is €80 a good bit cheaper than the €130 for windows office for the mac. But what I am asking is which is the best for presentations, typing word documents, spreadsheets, etc? Thanks so much.

You can get Office 2011 for Mac here OP. It comes in as around €80 also. So the choice really comes down to which you prefer. I have an iPad/iPhone with iWork so I went for that because of the iCloud document sync.

Bpmull

Is it necessary to get anti viruse software for the mac. If so which is the best to use.
Thanks.

Sad Professor

No, no need for antivirus on the Mac at the moment.

Bpmull

Thank you all so much. I have alot to think about before I make my decision. I'll post up which one I decide to order when I decide. All your advice has been a great help thanks.