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MacBook or MacBook Pro?… That is the question

So I am about ready to replace my Dell D400 laptop. I love this laptop but it is 4 years old and needs to be replaced ASAP before it dies a death and leaves me without a work machine.

I told myself that my next laptop would be a Mac and I don’t know if I should go with a MacBook or a MacBook Pro. I have a nice 20 inch widescreen monitor that I hook my current laptop up to so I would rather have the smaller screen size on the laptop since I don’t want to lug around a beast. My only fear is that I won’t have a robust enough of a machine to run my development environment and such.

The other thing is cost. I own my own business so the difference between $1000 laptop and a $2500 laptop is a huge hit. I have the cash to get the MB now but would have to wait a few more months to get the MBP which I could do but would rather get something now :-)

So my question for my readers is… do you have a MB? is it ok? Do you regret not going with a MBP?

Comment away!

J.J. Merrick on January 1, 2008 | Filed Under ColdFusion

5 Comments

Paul  on January 2nd, 2008

Just got the MacBook as a present this Christmas. It’s nice, but it’s only has 1 gig of RAM (which I will be upgrading to 3 gigs shortly).

It’s more powerful than my old Dell (Inspiron 8100 5 years old) and half the weight. As soon as I got it, I installed a Parallels and put XP on it to run a few of the must have Window’s software.

The lack of RAM is really hitting me with the VM, but the CPU is handling the load without any problems.

Would I have preferred the MacBook Pro – absolutely! But the 13.3 inch size of the MacBook makes it easy to carry and so far it’s run without a problem. The MacBook Pro has additional expansions ports, but nothing I can’t live without.

This is the first Mac I’ve ever owned, so like any self-respecting developer, I’m putting it through it paces and trying to setup up everything I need to do my job (Development suite, VPN, reference library, imaging software, etc.)

I’ve got cfEclipse installed and I will be setting up my local dev environment with a copy of CF8 and mySQL.

I have run into a few problem with mapping to NFS. The Leopard OS has issues with using SMB and FTP drives. Once I mount them, their still not usable and then it won’t unmount them. The Mac forums are filled with this complaint. I’m waiting for Apple to release a fix. I even tried mounting and unmount using the underlying unix commands (mount_smb, umount), no luck.

I’ll let you know what happens, but so far, I’m liking the MacBook.

J.J. Merrick  on January 2nd, 2008

@paul Thanks! As I was looking it appears that it has the same processor as the MBP’s and I would always get 2 gigs of ram :-)

I love the smaller footprint so I am leaning more towards the MB.

Scott  on January 2nd, 2008

Damn you both – I’ve been putting off having this conversation with myself for a few months but now you’ve got me thinking about it again.

Let me know what you decide – as long as you pick the MB as there is no way I can justify the MBP, I’ll just be jealous.

SB

Lola LB  on January 3rd, 2008

I would go with MBP. MacBooks seem to get sent back to Apple more often for repairs. Also, some of the parts used in these are cheaper (thus, the lower costs) and also seem to be the reason why there’s a higher rate of failures. One blogger that I follow regularly has had her MacBook repaired at least 3 times since purchase. My friend has also had problems.

Michael  on January 7th, 2008

I have had both. If you carry it a lot and do not mind the small screen got with the MB, prefer to code on the MBP (15.4) over the MB (which is why I sold it). I also agree get 2GB+ ram if you can. If you are not needing to travel, the iMac beats both for speed.

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