The one suggestion I will have if you are buying an apple:
Don't max out the options at the apple store.
Apple makes horrendous margins on the ram.
After a quick browse of the online store, it looks like they charge between $75 and $150 for ram upgrades.
You can get 2x2GB for ~$66 elsewhere online.
And, depending on your comfort with swapping out hardware, the same could be said for the hard drive.*
newegg has 320GB 5400RPM laptop SATA drives (Samsung & Toshiba) for $80
Apple charges $100 to upgrade to the 160GB version.
I don't mean to bash on apple (I've used them all my life), they make great computers. But they also cater towards the kind of people who would never
think of opening the thing up.
Be smart about where you buy your upgrades from and you can save few hundred dollars.
* one thing to keep in mind about the hard drive (especially in the laptops): faster hard drives run hotter. And the enclosures may not be able to syphon off
all the heat that a 7200RPM hard drive puts out.
-Terry
-----
"so listen up boy, or pornography starring your mother will be the second worst thing to happen to you today"
TF2: Spy
Don't max out the options at the apple store.
Apple makes horrendous margins on the ram.
After a quick browse of the online store, it looks like they charge between $75 and $150 for ram upgrades.
You can get 2x2GB for ~$66 elsewhere online.
And, depending on your comfort with swapping out hardware, the same could be said for the hard drive.*
newegg has 320GB 5400RPM laptop SATA drives (Samsung & Toshiba) for $80
Apple charges $100 to upgrade to the 160GB version.
I don't mean to bash on apple (I've used them all my life), they make great computers. But they also cater towards the kind of people who would never
think of opening the thing up.
Be smart about where you buy your upgrades from and you can save few hundred dollars.
* one thing to keep in mind about the hard drive (especially in the laptops): faster hard drives run hotter. And the enclosures may not be able to syphon off
all the heat that a 7200RPM hard drive puts out.
-Terry
-----
"so listen up boy, or pornography starring your mother will be the second worst thing to happen to you today"
TF2: Spy