Mac Hardware and Software |OT| - All things Macintosh

Jimmy Stav said:
$1300 is not cheap for me.
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It's still not a Ferrari. It's a laptop.

Honestly, just keep the netbook if you're going to worry about the MBA everywhere you put it. It sounds like a serious, life altering decision to you. If it is, you probably shouldn't buy it.
 
I'm not being condescending. I'm just saying it sounds like $1300 is breaking the bank for you. It's not worth it just for more convenience. If you have a netbook that does most of your work already, why strain your budget for a laptop? Not worth it.

I went back and forth whether to get a MBA. I had a Sony Vaio TZ that is perfectly serviceable. Eventually, I decided buying the MBA was fine. Money wasn't an issue. Spending the money, however, took a lot of thought. You can check my July MBA thread and see how I went back and forth over and over.

If it is a pain to pay the price, really think hard about spending your money over a superfluous purchase. Just some unsolicited advice.
 
So I decided I might want to upgrade my Macbook Pro to something from this year or last for the multi touch stuff and a bit more speed with lion (and to play Diablo 3 when that comes out).

I've been trawling craigslist since I probably can't afford to full out buy a new one, and I see this: "This is a 6 month old (like new) 13 inch Macbook Pro. This laptop was originally purchased for $1199 directly from the Apple Store, earlier this year. The computer is in perfect condition but no longer will charge and the battery is now dead. I'm selling this Mac for parts only, in hopes of getting an iPad. Serious inquiries only please! "

So I respond to see what's up with the battery, wondering if it's just like mine (battery won't hold a charge). Since that's no biggie to replace, it'd be a steal. Anyway, he says the charging component's broke. I ask if it's under warranty since he said he just bought it and he says this: "No, it doesn't work. The charging component is non functional and once the battery died, (without being fixed) it can't charge again, which is why I'm selling it for parts. I have quite an assortment of photography software that I've downloaded (pirated), therefore the warranty isn't valid. "

So my question is: The warranty isn't actually invalid is it? Is this just a dude that's too scared to take it in? Is it even worth that much like this? Can I replace a broken charging component, or can apple? Will Apple do it under warranty if I were to get it?
 
I've never heard of invalidating a warranty over pirating software. Just clean the HD if you're worried. Sounds like a potential steal. How much is he asking?
 
RDreamer said:
So I decided I might want to upgrade my Macbook Pro to something from this year or last for the multi touch stuff and a bit more speed with lion (and to play Diablo 3 when that comes out).

I've been trawling craigslist since I probably can't afford to full out buy a new one, and I see this: "This is a 6 month old (like new) 13 inch Macbook Pro. This laptop was originally purchased for $1199 directly from the Apple Store, earlier this year. The computer is in perfect condition but no longer will charge and the battery is now dead. I'm selling this Mac for parts only, in hopes of getting an iPad. Serious inquiries only please! "

So I respond to see what's up with the battery, wondering if it's just like mine (battery won't hold a charge). Since that's no biggie to replace, it'd be a steal. Anyway, he says the charging component's broke. I ask if it's under warranty since he said he just bought it and he says this: "No, it doesn't work. The charging component is non functional and once the battery died, (without being fixed) it can't charge again, which is why I'm selling it for parts. I have quite an assortment of photography software that I've downloaded (pirated), therefore the warranty isn't valid. "

So my question is: The warranty isn't actually invalid is it? Is this just a dude that's too scared to take it in? Is it even worth that much like this? Can I replace a broken charging component, or can apple? Will Apple do it under warranty if I were to get it?
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As long as he didn't open it and mess with it himself and the unit has sustained no physical or water damage apple will fix it for free within the first year of purchase; 3 years if it's under applecare.
 
i wouldn't even bother. you don't even have the option of checking to make sure the motherboard or display is fine, or if the serial number has been blacklisted if that turns out to be a stolen laptop.
 
Bboy AJ said:
I'm not being condescending. I'm just saying it sounds like $1300 is breaking the bank for you. It's not worth it just for more convenience. If you have a netbook that does most of your work already, why strain your budget for a laptop? Not worth it.

I went back and forth whether to get a MBA. I had a Sony Vaio TZ that is perfectly serviceable. Eventually, I decided buying the MBA was fine. Money wasn't an issue. Spending the money, however, took a lot of thought. You can check my July MBA thread and see how I went back and forth over and over.

If it is a pain to pay the price, really think hard about spending your money over a superfluous purchase. Just some unsolicited advice.
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My bad, then. The price isn't unbearable--I wouldn't be considering it if it was. I just tend to over think these kinds of purchases and I want my tech to work in harmony, so to speak. I guess I just hate the idea that my next laptop might actually make things less convenient, though I suppose that'd be the case with anything I end up buying (because I'll actually be able to use it as a laptop, whereas with my MBP I cannot).

EDIT: I feel like Airfoil is the key to solving all of my problems, but I don't think I fully understand what it does.
 
Bboy AJ said:
I've never heard of invalidating a warranty over pirating software. Just clean the HD if you're worried. Sounds like a potential steal. How much is he asking?
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Whoops, forgot to write that. It's $649.


scorcho said:
i wouldn't even bother. you don't even have the option of checking to make sure the motherboard or display is fine, or if the serial number has been blacklisted if that turns out to be a stolen laptop.
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You can have your computer blacklisted? How does that work and how do you check it?
 
Now that I've completely talked myself into getting an MBA this weekend, the new dilemma is 128 or 256. Even with the student discount, an extra $250 hard to stomach. I have no shortage of home storage solutions, but considering I'll have this thing for at least another three years, it may be nice to have the extra space. With only 128gb, I'll never be able to store my music collection locally.
 
Jimmy Stav said:
Now that I've completely talked myself into getting an MBA this weekend, the new dilemma is 128 or 256. Even with the student discount, an extra $250 hard to stomach. I have no shortage of home storage solutions, but considering I'll have this thing for at least another three years, it may be nice to have the extra space. With only 128gb, I'll never be able to store my music collection locally.
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Get the extra space, man. You'll be kicking yourself a couple of years down the road (or sooner!) if you don't.
 
Personally, I don't think the extra space is worth it unless you really want to load down your system. I mean, you should be using 80% of the space almost constantly. Otherwise it just makes too much sense to go cheaper but have an external hard drive.

If you really want to pack in your entire music/video collection into iTunes though, yeah, the extra capacity is probably worth it. (And will probably be moreso worth it for that 3 year stretch.)
 
I'm taking a very long view of things, because I hardly need the space now; I still have my old MBP (which will become a server) and a 1TB external drive, but I'm not sure how much access I'll have to that stuff come January of next year. My living situation will be in flux. Also, it'd be nice to be able to set up a Windows partition some time in the future if I end up wanting to. None of this is essential, but it would be pretty convenient.

Then again, carrying around a small, USB-powered drive wouldn't be SO bad
 
Jimmy Stav said:
I'm taking a very long view of things, because I hardly need the space now; I still have my old MBP (which will become a server) and a 1TB external drive, but I'm not sure how much access I'll have to that stuff come January of next year. My living situation will be in flux. Also, it'd be nice to be able to set up a Windows partition some time in the future if I end up wanting to. None of this is essential, but it would be pretty convenient.

Then again, carrying around a small, USB-powered drive wouldn't be SO bad
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Hmm, well that is a tough call. Certainly, the extra space will make a windows partition much easier to handle. And if you plan on loading up in itunes...yeah, I could see that. Hmm. I suppose I need to think about that too...
 
Put all your music online. Stream videos from a home server. Embrace cloud storage.
 
Bboy AJ said:
Put all your music online. Stream videos from a home server. Embrace cloud storage.
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When out and about with a laptop, I don’t think I would trust free wifi networks or 3G cell coverage to reliably stream my media. 3G has always been a little flaky for me for anything more than 256 kbps.

and storing… let’s see… 100 GB of music files will cost a big premium every year from whatever cloud service is out there. more than the one time storage cost for a bigger internal drive.

I think you’re right that this is the future and will happen eventually but right now I think it’s an overly complicated, costly and potentially flaky solution when cheaper and simpler ones exist.
 
Jimmy Stav said:
EDIT: I feel like Airfoil is the key to solving all of my problems, but I don't think I fully understand what it does.
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When you buy AirFoil, you're buying an app for your computer that can accept audio from both AirPlay enabled devices or another computer running the AirFoil transmitter.

This means you can have a computer set up with nice speakers and play your audio from your laptop, iPad, iPhone, iPod or other Mac over to it and listen on your good speakers instead of the headphones or built-in speakers. Best $25 ever.
 
LCfiner said:
100 GB of music files will cost a big premium every year from whatever cloud service is out there.
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Free on Google. Of course, as of right now. Spotify would do it for me, though.
 
Jasoco said:
When you buy AirFoil, you're buying an app for your computer that can accept audio from both AirPlay enabled devices or another computer running the AirFoil transmitter.

This means you can have a computer set up with nice speakers and play your audio from your laptop, iPad, iPhone, iPod or other Mac over to it and listen on your good speakers instead of the headphones or built-in speakers. Best $25 ever.
Click to expand...


I discovered this after downloading the trial. Even with its limited features, I can't imagine not actually buying it.

Edit:nvm
 
I've had my 13" entry level air for a week now, the day after finally finding a buyer for my 2010 15" MBP (I sold it for the money but the Air seems faster).

This machine is simply awesome and I can't see myself going back to a MBP.

Anyway, is it normal that CoconutBattery was at 96 and 97% when I bought it?
 
I calibrated it on the second day I had it, just as the Apple website says, and it now switches from 95 or 96, rarely 97. Did I get a less than ideal battery because my MBP was over 100% even after a couple of calibrations?

Current capacity: 6482 mAh

Design capacity: 6700 mAh

96%
 
I have a question I hope can be answered.

I have a Bootcamp partition on my SSD. But tonight I had to partition my main OS X partition to add a new part and noticed a warning in Disk Utility saying that it may make Windows unbootable. I went ahead with it anyway because I can always reinstall Windows if I have to. I only use it for Steam (Which is synced and will redownload stuff) and other small Windows only games. So I tested it and sure enough, Windows does not show up in the boot list.

Is there a way to fix this from OS X, BootCamp Assistant or Windows install DVD itself? Or do I actually have to reinstall it?

Thanks!
 
So my computer screwed up for the first time last night. This is amazing to me because I have had my Macbook for over 4 years now, but bad because it may be pretty messed up. My computer has been running slow ever since I installed Lion, so I was considering upgrading.

Well, last night while trying to take an online test for a class, the program gave me an error message and stuck me on this one page and I couldn't leave it or close the browser (it's a special browser for my school that we take tests on that locks out the computer). I had to hold in the power button to restart. When it started up, it took a little longer than normal, but nothing too long. Finally get logged in and all of the sudden the computer turned into pudding. It wasn't doing anything and was moving very very slow. This whole time, I was on a timer since I had started my quiz and was trying to get Keynote open. After about 10 minutes of it chugging along, and my CPU being at almost 100% the entire time, I got very frustrated and held the power button down again (it wouldn't even let me click the shut down button in the menu it was so bad!!!).

Well when I tried booting up again, but I just got the gray start up screen and it just sat there. It sat there for a good 20 minutes, doing nothing and then finally shut itself off. Tried again and had the same issue. I decided to go on the internet and search and found some stuff, but most of the people who had this issue got to the Apple with the loading icon. I cannot. I tried entering my old install disk, and booting from that, but nothing. I tried several different key-holding combinations as recommended, and got nothing except one point where I got a pointer on the screen that moved around very slowly.

I am frustrated and pissed off now. I am not really sure what to do and am reserved to buying a new macbook pro, but I don't really have the money right now and with the rumors of updates coming within days, I am afraid to order one. What I am hoping is that someone can help me fix this. I don't want to take it to the apple store because there's no telling the amount they would charge me, and spending $200 to fix something I am going to replace in the next 3 months regardless is pointless to me. So can someone please help me get this damn thing working?
 
omgkitty said:
So my computer screwed up for the first time last night. This is amazing to me because I have had my Macbook for over 4 years now, but bad because it may be pretty messed up. My computer has been running slow ever since I installed Lion, so I was considering upgrading.

Well, last night while trying to take an online test for a class, the program gave me an error message and stuck me on this one page and I couldn't leave it or close the browser (it's a special browser for my school that we take tests on that locks out the computer). I had to hold in the power button to restart. When it started up, it took a little longer than normal, but nothing too long. Finally get logged in and all of the sudden the computer turned into pudding. It wasn't doing anything and was moving very very slow. This whole time, I was on a timer since I had started my quiz and was trying to get Keynote open. After about 10 minutes of it chugging along, and my CPU being at almost 100% the entire time, I got very frustrated and held the power button down again (it wouldn't even let me click the shut down button in the menu it was so bad!!!).

Well when I tried booting up again, but I just got the gray start up screen and it just sat there. It sat there for a good 20 minutes, doing nothing and then finally shut itself off. Tried again and had the same issue. I decided to go on the internet and search and found some stuff, but most of the people who had this issue got to the Apple with the loading icon. I cannot. I tried entering my old install disk, and booting from that, but nothing. I tried several different key-holding combinations as recommended, and got nothing except one point where I got a pointer on the screen that moved around very slowly.

I am frustrated and pissed off now. I am not really sure what to do and am reserved to buying a new macbook pro, but I don't really have the money right now and with the rumors of updates coming within days, I am afraid to order one. What I am hoping is that someone can help me fix this. I don't want to take it to the apple store because there's no telling the amount they would charge me, and spending $200 to fix something I am going to replace in the next 3 months regardless is pointless to me. So can someone please help me get this damn thing working?
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Which model of MacBook is it? White or unibody?

Apple Store won't charge you just to look at it. And at least they can tell you what's wrong.

Sounds like possibly a hard drive died to me. Surely you've backed up your data I hope? If so, you'd be looking at a $50-60 hard drive and if it's the white plastic models about 5 minutes to replace. Then a reload.
 
Vyer said:
Which model of MacBook is it? White or unibody?

Apple Store won't charge you just to look at it. And at least they can tell you what's wrong.

Sounds like possibly a hard drive died to me. Surely you've backed up your data I hope? If so, you'd be looking at a $50-60 hard drive and if it's the white plastic models about 5 minutes to replace. Then a reload.
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It's a mid-2007 white macbook. I do have an extra drive laying around and I did luckily backup all of my music and movies about a month or two ago, so it should be fairly up to date. If I take it in and they do say it's the hard drive, is it as simple as putting the disc in and booting from it to install on the hard drive? If this works, I think I am going back to Snow Leopard.
 
I'd be lying if I said I wasn't tempted to get a new MBP. I've been seeing them all over campus. My last Mac was the original Macbook, and since then haven't had any interest in owning a Mac again. Im not sure how it happened haha. Wife wouldn't go for it though...

Does Office for Mac have OneNote?
 
Question about my old macbook... Mine no longer charges batteries; has anyone encountered this? I assumed something is up with the PRAM so I did the ctrlPR reboot but nothing happened... Any other ideas? I don't really care about it too much since I've upgraded but if I can revive it for a lowish cost I would like to give it to the parents.
 
So my friend just bought a brand new macbook and had his old one for sale. I decided to purchase it because I've never had a laptop and am pretty excited about it. I'm not too sure about the specs of it but it was from 2006. It is a Mac Book Pro, 80 Gig HD came originally with 1GB Ram, but he's upgraded it to 2GB. New power cables and battery straight from Apple. $250 is his price for me and I am using it now, loving it. It has the intel core 2 duo processor. I'm not a fan of macs and I plan on dual booting Windows as well but what do you guys think of the price and is it worth it? Or should I save a few extra hundred and buy a more up to date windows laptop?

thanks,
Chris.

edit,

I think the model # is similar to this : (MA609LL)

http://support.apple.com/kb/sp24
 
macuser1of5 said:
Question about my old macbook... Mine no longer charges batteries; has anyone encountered this? I assumed something is up with the PRAM so I did the ctrlPR reboot but nothing happened... Any other ideas? I don't really care about it too much since I've upgraded but if I can revive it for a lowish cost I would like to give it to the parents.
Click to expand...

if anyone can help this guy let me know.
:(
 
MThanded said:
Any truth in this : Apple to surprise with late-2011 MacBook Pro refresh this month


My advisor is about to get me a new macbook pro to replace my current 5 year old model. If this refresh is going to happen I might hold out a week. Was going to get an air, but I changed my mind.
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I was thinking this myself. I really want am Air, but if a new Pro with a new design and smaller build came out that was light but powerful like a Pro, I'd switch. but I can't see it being more powerful than the 13" Air while being as thin but still keeping the normal Pro price range.
 
Jasoco said:
I was thinking this myself. I really want am Air, but if a new Pro with a new design and smaller build came out that was light but powerful like a Pro, I'd switch. but I can't see it being more powerful than the 13" Air while being as thin but still keeping the normal Pro price range.
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I am of course biased because I just purchased an MBA (which I'm loving), but I also can't see this being the case.
 
Jimmy Stav said:
I am of course biased because I just purchased an MBA (which I'm loving), but I also can't see this being the case.
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Which is why I'm confident that I'll be getting an Air. It'll be a while before we have Pro speeds in the Air form factor for the Pro price.
 
For the most part, isn't the pro only as thick as it is because of the disc drive inside? Those require a decent amount of space.
 
I hope Apple kills the MBP and just keeps the Air line as the only MacBook line. They can simply call it the MacBook. Make it 11, 13, 15 and call it a day.
 
omgkitty said:
For the most part, isn't the pro only as thick as it is because of the disc drive inside? Those require a decent amount of space.
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Optical drive gone next major refresh I'm betting.


Bboy AJ said:
I hope Apple kills the MBP and just keeps the Air line as the only MacBook line. They can simply call it the MacBook. Make it 11, 13, 15 and call it a day.
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What a terrible idea.
 
Bboy AJ said:
Why
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Some people enjoy the power provided by the Pro line (dedicated GPU, powerful CPU, expandable ram, ect). I know if money wasn't an object I'd buy a pimped out 15" Pro, but those are like 2.5k :(
 
I would buy an Air, but I use my cd drive all the time to rip cd's. I also want the added power of the graphics card in the pro so I can play a decent amount of the mac games out there.
 
Jasoco said:
Which is why I'm confident that I'll be getting an Air. It'll be a while before we have Pro speeds in the Air form factor for the Pro price.
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Buy it! I tend to get buyer's remorse over every purchase over $200 (this was, with Apple Care and tax, quite expensive), but not here. It's fast as hell, and the form factor allows me to position it in some bizarre ways. Aside from the battery life, I can't conceive of anything I'd change about it.
 
rhfb said:
Some people enjoy the power provided by the Pro line (dedicated GPU, powerful CPU, expandable ram, ect). I know if money wasn't an object I'd buy a pimped out 15" Pro, but those are like 2.5k :(
Click to expand...
What powerful CPU?

The graphics card is an issue. Expandable RAM isn't a big deal.
 
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