Scratch

They're both great! I have one. 

What are the top three things you will do with it?

stevetheipad wrote:

They're both great! I have one. 

What are the top three things you will do with it?

Program (both Scratch and Javascript)
Video Game
Watch TV

I'd say go with the cheaper one unless you really need one of the features like more RAM, hard disk space, etc.

Go with the cheaper one, and if you like saving money, buy something like this refurbished one. I bought refurbished, saved a ton of money and have been really happy with it. 

stevetheipad wrote:

Go with the cheaper one, and if you like saving money, buy something like this refurbished one. I bought refurbished, saved a ton of money and have been really happy with it. 

That sounds really awesome! Thanks! My only concern is that my monitor is DVI or VGA (I'm not really sure) and that Mac doesn't have either one.

EDIT: NVM, just saw that the Thunderbolt port had support for DVI/VGA.

Last edited by TorbyFork234 (2012-07-03 16:58:21)

soupoftomato wrote:

TorbyFork234 wrote:

soupoftomato wrote:

Sounds like you should be able to configure the cheaper one to run as well as the more expensive one, so I would go with the cheaper.

You can upgrade the I5 to I7?

I was saying you can get more hard drive space and ram so that it's performance is the same as the more expensive one.

Oh.

on one right now 

I'm just going to say that with the SSD speeds, a now customizable to 8GB RAM (mote that I said customizable, not upgradable. It is soldered onto the motherboard, so if you want it you have to order it that way) and Intel Graphics 4000 at the same price, the MacBook Air is still a decent idea if you want to be portable and don't need the extra ports. Unfortunately the Pro 13 is still stuck with integrated graphics, so don't expect a serious bump in gaming unless you were to go 15 inch over the air. The only problem is SSD limitations on the Air (and expensive upgrades). If you have lots of money in an upgrade budget, you can get two SSDs and an enclosure that lets you put a hard drive in the optical drive bay to put a dual-SSD RAID setup in the Pro, which results in pretty beastly preformance.

Edit: what kind of gaming and what games are you planning on? I will be honest and say that if you are okay with scaling down the graphics quality you can play on integrated graphics. I play Minecraft, TF2 and Portal on Intel 3000 with good enough FPS. It has issues with overheating (just a badly designed laptop) but it is still okay.
Now, if you are wanting to play on really good graphics settings, forget about them both. You want a dedicated graphics card for any really demanding titles. (BF3, CoD, or high graphics settings) One thing showing promise is that it is possible in Windows (with BootCamp) there are some setups for an external video card through the 10MB/s Thunderbolt port.

Last edited by 16Skittles (2012-07-03 19:12:02)

Unless portability is really an issue I'd recommend the 21" iMac, considering the superior screen resolution and specs. You can upgrade the RAM after buying to 16GB for well under $100 if you buy online.

If you do go with the Macbook Pro, I'd go with the base model and upgrade from there. Don't upgrade on the Apple store, unless you're planning to upgrade the processor, which isn't really important as there's not much of a difference between the i5 and i7 processors. After you buy the base model, you can upgrade the RAM very cheaply, upgrade the HDD not as cheaply, install a second SSD by removing the optical drive and turning into a external optical drive.

Some great guides on ifixit.com

16Skittles wrote:

what kind of gaming and what games are you planning on? I will be honest and say that if you are okay with scaling down the graphics quality you can play on integrated graphics. I play Minecraft, TF2 and Portal on Intel 3000 with good enough FPS. It has issues with overheating (just a badly designed laptop) but it is still okay.
Now, if you are wanting to play on really good graphics settings, forget about them both. You want a dedicated graphics card for any really demanding titles. (BF3, CoD, or high graphics settings) One thing showing promise is that it is possible in Windows (with BootCamp) there are some setups for an external video card through the 10MB/s Thunderbolt port.

I'm not going to be playing CoD or BF3. Minecraft, TF2, and Portal are about the game range I want to have. The mac I have now, it has GMA 950 video card, which is hated by most of the games on the Mac App Store. I'm going to use the Thunderbolt port for my monitor.

TorbyFork234 wrote:

jji7skyline wrote:

Unless portability is really an issue I'd recommend the 21" iMac, considering the superior screen resolution and specs. You can upgrade the RAM after buying to 16GB for well under $100 if you buy online.

If you do go with the Macbook Pro, I'd go with the base model and upgrade from there. Don't upgrade on the Apple store, unless you're planning to upgrade the processor, which isn't really important as there's not much of a difference between the i5 and i7 processors. After you buy the base model, you can upgrade the RAM very cheaply, upgrade the HDD not as cheaply, install a second SSD by removing the optical drive and turning into a external optical drive.

Some great guides on ifixit.com

I didn't get any of that. I don't want to go through insanely long processes of building a computer from the ground up. Nor do I want to trust my money with a website I know nothing about. And no way am I going to get another desktop computer.

Ok, so you don't want a desktop, you don't want to upgrade it yourself and you don't trust ifixit.com?

Okay then, I guess the base model with 8GB RAM upgrade would be the best way to go. With Macs, the most important spec to look for it the RAM, the more you have, the faster  your Mac is going to be. All of the processors used for Macs are capable.

@16Skittles: The RAM on the Macbook pro non-retina is not soldered to the logic-board.

Closed by request.