[Phil T]

I am not a power computer user and have never had a notebook before. This summer I bought my daughter a MacBook for college. I knew nothing about Apples but she did using them at school. She loves her MacBook .

I decided I would like a notebook so I can sit in a chair and surf instead of being tied to a desk.

Yesterday I went to the Apple store and found a refurbished 15"MacBook Pro, 2.16GHz Core Duo/1GH/256MBvram/ 100GB Harddrive for $1499.00.

This unit is in perfect shape with only two small scratches on the bottom.

I know Apple is out with a newer processor, but they were all over $2000.00.

I have played around with it for a day and really like it. The speed and ease of use are really nice and the Apple Store is around the corner and it seems like I will not be talking to India if I have problems.

Like going form Dish to DirecTV, I wondered if there are other Apple/Mac converts around here and their thoughts if this was a good deal?

 

[ibglowin]

The Apple refurbed units are well known to be great deals. You can find them as well at Apple.com. They have been checked over much more so than an new unit. The MacBook Pro's are the best laptops out there hands down. Take a look at the recent Consumer Reports on laptops and see where they rated them (at the top). I just picked up one of the new C2D models a few weeks ago. It's the best laptop I have ever owned by far. You won't be disapointed. You get a full warranty to boot. I have owned 4 Apple laptops over the years and never had to return one or send it in for repairs either.

Since you have a daughter in college you could get the educational discount on a new one. That comes out to $1799 + tax. When you factor in the speed bump, the 120gb hard drive, a DL Superdrive, more memory its almost a wash between the refurbed unit and a new C2D.

 

[Phil T]

The Apple refurbed units are well known to be great deals. You can find them as well at Apple.com. They have been checked over much more so than an new unit. The MacBook Pro's are the best laptops out there hands down. Take a look at the recent Consumer Reports on laptops and see where they rated them (at the top). I just picked up one of the new C2D models a few weeks ago. It's the best laptop I have ever owned by far. You won't be disapointed. You get a full warranty to boot. I have owned 4 Apple laptops over the years and never had to return one or send it in for repairs either.

Since you have a daughter in college you could get the educational discount on a new one. That comes out to $1799 + tax. When you factor in the speed bump, the 120gb hard drive, a DL Superdrive, more memory its almost a wash between the refurbed unit and a new C2D.

Thanks for the reply. This one does have the Superdrive.

I noticed today I was missing the iLife applications. I called support and I had a live support rep on the second ring!!!

He walked me through installing them from the included disks. It took a little while but all is good now. They told me it was refurbed at the store, so I guess they missed part of the reinstall process.

Tonight I installed my Slingplayer Mac software and am watching the news while typing this.

I still feel this was a great deal for a machine that still smells and feels new. The phone support is super compared to the last time I called HP, or Dish or DirecTV.

 

[ibglowin]

Apple support is the best in the industry. (again Consumer Reports) The downside is the phone support is free for only 90 days. After that it cost $$. The computer is 1 year. I have never had to call myself. If something funny is going on you can usually find out whats going on by searching the discussion fourms on Apple.com or elsewhere.

Enjoy!

 

[harsh]

Yesterday I went to the Apple store and found a refurbished 15"MacBook Pro, 2.16GHz Core Duo/1GH/256MBvram/ 100GB Harddrive for $1499.00.

The only reminder that I would offer is that you can buy two (or maybe three) similarly functional Windows based notebooks for the same money.

If you can do what you need to do with the bundled software, then the Mac should be fine as it is the latest incarnation. The Intel brand CPU gives it a good future, but compatibility with older Macintosh software may be problematic.

Don't forget antivirus protection!

 

[Phil T]

I know I could have purchased a really nice windows machine, but I guess I really wanted to try somethng different. My less then 5 year old Emachine blew it's power supply last week. It already had its CD drive go out. The HP AMD 64 3800+ I bought in January dosen't load its applications on boot up. It is kind of an adventure to see what it will and will not load. I think the Windows updates are really screwing it up, Spending hours waiting for tech support from India can get old really quick.....

 

[redfiver]

Stability is my favorite feature of the MacBook Pro. I've been a mac devotee for many years. I've also had my fair share of PCs but always choose a mac when I can choose.

The move to intel shouldn't limit old mac applications as Apple built in the ability to run old programs on the new intel machines. Granted, they should be programs designed to run on OS X, but OS 9 is so old now, do people still use those programs? There are probably better alternatives out there.

I've started to reduce any use of PCs with the virtulization software from parallels. For work, I can only VPN from a PC if I want to remote into other computers on the network (which is what I usually do), so I couldn't do that on my Mac.. that is until I loaded up parallels and a copy of windows XP onto the mac. It's nice, as it's not a dual boot situation, XP runs as a window on your desktop at native speeds.

For all the other apps, I prefer mac, but I can't dictate what my company requires me to do.

 

[Phil T]

Last night I watched the Bengals - Ravens on my MacBook Pro with the beta version of Slingplayer for Mac, while staying in a hotel in Colorado Springs.

The only Issue I have is I sometimes get a headache if I am on it too long. I have really bad eyes and wear bifocals. I sometimes increase font size to help but looking down while it sits on my lap seems to bother me more than if it is setting on a desk.