[RobbieJ8]

My wife and I want to purchase a MacBook Pro. Interested in a few things. We have had 3-4 desktop tower type PC's in the past 12 or so years we've known each other.

Always end up having issues with Windows. Latest one purchased at the time you could get a free upgrade to Vista but had XP installed on it from the store. Needless to say we did not install Vista when it finally arrived. This version of XP hangs on Windows screen and requires a lot of restarts most days. So we are interested to see if we have less problems with a Mac like "everyone" says. Can't ever get back all the hours I tried fixing this one and the others.

Also we are tired of being confined to one room with a tower. Se we want a laptop to take to other rooms and and take it with us where ever we may go.

We use the computer for photography mostly. My wife is a photographer. Just mostly for editing and sorting. We store on CD's or External Hard Drive. Other uses would be the basic internet research, updating Facebook, updating blogs, and keeping some files in Word and Excel type programs. Pretty basic. No gaming or movie making. We do use and love iTunes.

So with all that which MacBook would you say is the best bang for the buck? I think we will go with a MacBook Pro. There are just so many options and some reviews I read make me more confused. So in laymans terms please....

[kylenstone]

My strongest recommendation would be to NOT buy the MacBook Pro 17" model. It is too highly-priced for what actually comes under the hood. I would highly recommend the 15" Pro 2.53 Ghz model, if you can afford it.

[Grr8008]

First of all, and I know this may sound silly, but have you tried the Mac? Do you like it? I ask this only because from what your post says, that "everyone" says this. Now, I like windows mostly but the Mac OS is pretty beautiful. Some of the interface changes can be a bit annoying, a little less straight forward, such as that you actually have to quit out of an app instead of just hitting the X. And don't believe everything you see. If you read the fine print on things like the battery life, you will notice that they say it was on 50% screen. Now as for which one is the best bang for your buck, from what you said you needed, I would say the 13 inch pro with the higher RAM and processor. If you want to get something with a bit more oomph in the graphics department and processor then the 15 inch. I would try out the two different models and see what you like. Of I had to choose and I could then I would definitely get the 15 inch. NO matter what, get the 4 gigs of RAM. Apple just upgraded their Operating system to take advantage of it. Any questions?

[smax013]

I have moved your topic to the Mac forum. The On Your Side forum is really for people who are having problems with some company or service and hope that PCWorld intervene in their case to potentially help solve the problem. The Mac forum is aimed at questions about Macs.

Now, as to your question...

I will not completely agree or disagree with kylenstone. I will agree that it might not be what you want. If you do not need/want the larger screen or want/need an ExpressCard slot, then you can get everything you need with a 15" MacBook Pro. You can configure the "top of the line" 15" MacBook Pro to basically have the same specs as the 17" except the screen size and ExpressCard slot. Thus, if you do not need either of those items, then I agree you are better off with a 15". Depending on the media that your wife's digital camera (I assume she is using a DSLR) uses, an ExpressCard could be useful. While you can certainly get USB card readers, there are also ExpressCard readers for things like CompactFlash. In addition, you can get an eSATA ExpressCard to get external drives.

But, my guess is that 17" is likely overkill for what you want/need.

I would say you likely would want to go with the 15" MBP over the 13" MBP due to screen size. While you can certainly use an external monitor, I would suspect that the larger screen would be better for photo editing.

For the stuff you described, I do not believe you need a dedicated graphics card. Thus, the "base" 15" MacBook Pro model would work for you in that sense. About the only reason you might want to consider the higher 15" models is to get a faster processor. If your wife does a lot of heavy duty work in Photoshop, then a faster processor might be worth it. Having said that, the 2.53 GHz processor of the "base" 15" MacBook Pro will certainly do what you need it to do. Thus, you should be fine with the base 15" model.

So, in the end, I am guessing the 2.53 GHz 15" MacBook Pro is likely a good call for you. If you do not mind a 13" screen, then you can get the same nominal computer with a 13" screen for $200 less.

[KeithDeLong]

RobbieJ8, on 03 November 2009 - 12:36 PM, said:

So with all that which MacBook would you say is the best bang for the buck? I think we will go with a MacBook Pro. There are just so many options and some reviews I read make me more confused. So in laymans terms please....

I believe the sweet spot for MacBooks is either the 15-inch 2.53GHz ($1699) or the 2.66GHz ($1999 list).

1.Going down to the 13" is a bit small unless you're using it mainly for for email and highly value something small and light for travel.

2. The 15-inch 2.53GHz ($1699) is a great all around machine that'll probably suit you perfectly.

3. For $300 more, the 15-inch 2.66GHz ($1999 list) gets you a small (unnoticeable) bump in processor seed, a bit larger HD (320GB vs. 250GB), and 256 MB of video memory. The major value is in the extra video memory if you're doing video intensive stuff or if you value the extra bit of HD space. As an all around machine, you'll never notice the difference to the cheaper 2.53GHz MacBook.

4. The $2500 17" is a beautiful, big beast -- overkill in size and weight unless you really want the real estate of a 17" notebook and don't mind the bulk.

I run a software business. We have 7-8 Macs and several notebooks of various vintages. In terms of processors, there's not been a noticeable 'day to day' speed improvement in any of the last macs released over the past 18-24 months. The big news and noticeable improvement (especially for video and games) was the new NVIDIA GeForce 9400M that is standard in all the MacBook Pros.

[smax013]

KeithDeLong, on 04 November 2009 - 12:35 PM, said:

3. For $300 more, the 15-inch 2.66GHz ($1999 list) gets you a small (unnoticeable) bump in processor seed, a bit larger HD (320GB vs. 250GB), and 256 MB of video memory. The major value is in the extra video memory if you're doing video intensive stuff or if you value the extra bit of HD space. As an all around machine, you'll never notice the difference to the cheaper 2.53GHz MacBook.

Be careful...a small bump in processor can be rather noticeable in some situations. For someone that does HEAVY duty Photoshop editing (i.e. applying filters and other serious edits all day long), then even a small bump in GHz can mean a significant savings of time. Same thing for encoding videos.

And I would not go from the base 15" MacBook Pro to the one for $1999 just for the larger drive. If you only care about the larger drive, you can do a custom order of the base 15" MacBook Pro with a 320 GB for $50 more (or even a 500 GB for $150...or upgrade it yourself). The only reason to go to the $1999 15" MacBook Pro from the based model is the faster processor and/or the dedicated video card.