Having been a PC user for years, I know very little about Macs. But I would now like an entry-mid level (Intel) MacBook because a couple of bits of s/w I want (not power intensive) are Mac only. So, my questions are:

1. For entry-mid level use, surely a 2-3 yr old MacBook would suffice? No need to go for a Pro?
2. Wi-fi enabled does mean it'll connect straight to a normal router? I read earlier that someone selling a wi-fi enabled MacBook said you need a dongle as well – surely not?
3. Is it easy/cheap to upgrade from Tiger to Snow Leopard? Is it worth doing?
4. What sort of prices would I expect to pay? Is a budget of £200-400 going to be enough?

Any other pointers?

Cheers to all
SM

Personally I wouldn't touch a second hand Macbook, mine (MBP) tend to seem to last about 3 years then they just seem to become sluggish, the fan makes a racket and it gets hot enough to cook on. Thankfully my last one committed suicide but I fear this one is going to be replaced by some kind of cheap netbook!

1, yes, they changed the name of the all the alloy ones to pro. Our one is still a macbook
2, No
3, cheap & easy. Worth it as well.
4, can't really help, but you'd probably get an alloy 13 inch.

I have a colleague selling a 3+ year old one I can put you in touch with. I was going to buy it but, frankly, I've realised I don't really have any use for a Mac and my laptop is okay-ish for the moment.

The OS upgrade from tiger is only cheap and easy if your idea of 'cheap and easy' is £130, which I imagine it isn't with a budget of £400 in total.

I would beware of buying a mac second hand (or probably most laptops to be honest). If something goes wrong, it will be a throw away job the cost of fixing most things on fancy laptops (Apple/Sony in particular) is so high.

Also, probably it's not what you're looking at, but some people still try and palm off the old non-intel macbooks. They are basically worthless, so whatever you do don't get one of those, or the famously unreliable original intel ones (they had a tendency to overheat and destroy the main board).

Joe

i bought this macbook in 2007, it had the inverter cable changed under warranty because the screen was flickering.

I use it at the moment for everything, CAD, general design work the lot, and it's never let me down yet (touch wood). its not an alloy cased one (black acrylic), it's an original Intel and funnily enough mine hasn't melted the main board :S

1. Yes depending on spec. Mines a 2.2ghz with 4gb ram. the only thing that slightly lets the older mac books down is the graphics chip set, which isn't openGL compatible and has a fit at some CAD pacages.

2.No

3.£25 to buy the new OS. Can't be bad?

4. around £400 should see you get a similar machine to the one i've got maybe even a slightly newer one. Remember the alloy mac books only came out last january.

As for expensive breakages, it depends what breaks but i actually found my local apple store was very reasonable. I was even encouraged to repair a friends who had hard drive failure myself and given instruction how to do it in the store.

A copy of snowleopard is only £30, and will work to fresh install from tiger, or upgrade from leopard.

£400 would get you something decent I think, they're not that much new. If you can get one that had 3 years applecare and has balance left to run, then it runs with the machine, not the owner. So it'll still have warranty. Any bought on the HE contract education deal will have 3 years warranty too.

I've a nearly 3yo MBP, and it's still going great. Talk of laptops going sluggish after 3 years is rubbish. There's no reason that could happen hardware wise. The software might need a re-install, but that's it. In the past 3 years there've not been much advances at the middle end – hence why I've not replaced mine. 2.16gig core 2 duo, 3gig ram, 500gig hd is still a decent spec today. I know if I was selling mine (which was high spec 3 years ago) i'd only expect to get 500ish for it. So 400 should certainly get a lesser one.

http://store.apple.com/uk/product/MC223Z/A?fnode=MTY1NDAzOA&mco=MTA4MjgwNDE

Snow leopard upgrade for tiger, £25

Hmm, interesting.

or the famously unreliable original intel ones (they had a tendency to overheat and destroy the main board).

I guess you're referring to the 2006-07 models? They also seem to have other faults (allegedly) inc random shutdowns, etc.

Having had a look at the OS side of things, I think I'll make do with Tiger unless it has something else installed.

Atlaz – I'll PM you – cheers.

SM

Snow leopard upgrade for tiger, £25

What the thing that says 'Snow leopard upgrade for Leopard' and also says 'Mac OS X v10.4 (Tiger): Upgrade by purchasing the (£130) Mac Box Set, which includes Snow Leopard, iLife ’09, and iWork ’09.'? Does it work anyway, despite Apple saying it won't?

Joe

The old pre intel powerbooks & ibooks aren't exactly worthless either.
Sure the os can't be upgraded beyond leopard, but for web surfing (if you disable flash & ahem, use adblocker) they're still more than adequate. I'm using an early g4 ibook now because the wife is hogging the new macbook. The alloy ones came out in late 08 by the way pinches.

Aye upgrade from tiger is not £30 you need to buy leopard then snow leopard, but tiger is a nice OS. You won't get a alu macbook for £400 which is a shame as the build quality is excellent compared to the original polycarbonate, as is the battery life.

£400 on ebay will easily get you a macbook.

What the thing that says 'Snow leopard upgrade for Leopard' and also says 'Mac OS X v10.4 (Tiger): Upgrade by purchasing the (£130) Mac Box Set, which includes Snow Leopard, iLife ’09, and iWork ’09.'? Does it work anyway, despite Apple saying it won't?

I went from Tiger to Snow Leopard. You don't need to update iWork but I think you have to update iLife when you go to Snow Leopard. I think the cost is about £70 for Snow Leopard and iLife.

Aye upgrade from tiger is not £30 you need to buy leopard then snow leopard,

Not true. You can go straight from Tiger to Snow Leopard.

I was thinking about selling my 18 month old snow leopard running macbook pro. 2.2ghz dual core/320gb hd/2gb mem, thing is the battery is shot but works fine off the mains and the DVD drive is very picky about what media it will burn on 😉

Not true. You can go straight from Tiger to Snow Leopard.

Is it not, thats what i was led to believe on an apple forum, when asking about something else. You can pick up a MBP alu for £749 on apple refurb then maybe you could scrap the PC.

Is it not, thats what i was led to believe on an apple forum

I went from Tiger to SL. It was only £25. Perhaps they've changed it recently. As I said I also upgraded iLife at the same time.

You can go from Tiger to SL.

You can use a SL upgrade disk (£25) to install SL on a blank hard drive. So you could always format the tiger machine and install.

This has been the case since SL's release. I have done this myself, several times, as well as upgraded from Leopard, several times.

I *know* I'm correct.

From the looks of the apple site you can use the £25 Snow Leopard, provided the hardware is up to spec. The £130 includes iLife and iWork which is a shed load more software but nothing to do with the operating system. Kind of like buying Windows 7 and getting MS Office as well.

Cheers all.

I've got my eye on a few now and have a better idea what to look for.

SM