Dilemma! Early '08 MacBook Pro or Late '08 Model?

M

myurbanodyssey

New member
I bought a Macbook (the 13" new-gen kind) early January, knowing well that it didn't have a firewire port– thinking I wouldn't want to use it for recording anyway. Well, that's until I got to mess around with a mutual friend's Apogee Ensemble setup. I was very impressed. The possibility of streamlining my analog rig (TASCAM 238 mainly) with a mac was just too good to pass up. Time to upgrade already *smacks forehead*

Thankfully, the Macbook is nearly new, protection plan and all, so I won't have any problems selling it to upgrade to a firewire-capable Pro, but enter the dilemma:

-Someone in town with an early 2008 model MBP (17", 2.5GHZ) is actually looking to trade-down for a Macbook. He's asking for $300 to cover the difference. This is a great deal, but he never bought the damn protection plan in his first year, so this route means no warranty!

The lack of a warranty worries me. It's a great deal, and I wouldn't be forking over $1000 to upgrade to a new-gen MBP. But...warranty...

Both are about the same tech spec wise, or at least satisfactory for me. I'm just torn between saving money upfront by buying the used computer without the plan and buying a new one under warranty.

I need wisdom.

Thanks!

Steven
 
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I would personally be wary of a laptop without an extended warranty. One logic board failure for any reason and you're out about a grand. There's also the issue of the NVIDIA chip problems with the previous generation.

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2377

The warranty extension for that issue only covers you for two years after the original purchase.

I'd suggest spending the extra money for a new one. In the long run, you'll probably end up spending less that way. Just my $0.02.
 
=P

At least it's not a DELL...

Bwhahaha!

Thanks for the advice, all. I think rather than fall for the "want it right now" emotions and buy the used one, I will save a little more, a little longer, for the new one. At least then if Apple screws up and has to recall them becuase they're burning holes through people's desks, it's on their asses.

xoxoxo
 
ocnor said:
They do when it comes to Macbooks. Those things are junk.
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I guess your mileage must vary significantly from mine. I've had a lot less trouble with my MacBook than any previous laptop I've owned. Maybe I've just gotten lucky---hard to say. That said, laptops are a lot more likely to have problems than desktops because they take a lot more abuse.

Thus far, the only thing that I've had fail on my MacBook is the hard drive. With the transition to perpendicular storage, hard drive failure rates right now are absurdly high, so that's not at all surprising. :)

BTW, no matter what computer you buy, get a backup HD and run Time Machine religiously. I had four hard drives die last year (including the one in my MacBook), which is 100% of all the under-two-year-old drives I owned (except for the drives that replaced those dead drives).
 
ocnor said:
Like I said.. junk.
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The problem is, by your standards, ALL computers are junk---desktops, laptops, towers, servers.... The thing is, every hard drive manufacturer is having these problems right now---Toshiba, Samsung, WD, Maxtor.... Therefore, if you buy a computer with a hard drive, the only way to avoid a high risk of hard drive failure is to buy one that was built before 2005 when they started introducing perpendicular recording in hard drives. In a couple of years, this will all shake out (assuming they don't introduce any new disruptive technologies in that time), but it hasn't yet.

As an alternative, you could spend the extra few hundred bucks for a solid state drive. You can buy one in any of the MacBooks other than the white one, though it'll cost you a pretty penny.

IMHO, for now, keeping a backup or three seems like a better choice. For now. That said, many SSDs blow away hard drives for performance already, and industry analysts expect SSDs to surpass the capacity of 2.5" hard drives by mid-year this year, and I'd expect them to surpass hard drives in cost per gig within a couple of years. Then, we can rid ourselves of those obnoxious Winchester drive mechanisms for good, and none too soon.
 
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