Apple mac newbe

Everything you want to do can be accomplished perfectly on a MacBook. If you need extra screen real estate or you want to do anything involving gaming/3d then a MacBook Pro is for you.

Yes, MS Office is available for Macs.

Unless MS Word is demanded by your school, or you insist upon it for compatibility I would recommend getting iWork 08. Much cheaper, and for pretty much everything that most people do with a word processor, it is great.

I'm sorry, but I have no recourse but to correct the crap out of you You definitely want a MacBook Pro, but you also definitely want a 13.3" screen... well sorry, they don't make that. The MacBook (white or black plastic) is the 13.3" model. It has 667MHz FSb processors, and onboard graphics. The MacBook Pro (Silver Anodized Aluminum) comes in 15.4" and 17" models. it has 800MHz FSB and dedicated graphics in the form of the 8600M GT (128 or 256MB models) I would personally recommend something larger than an 8 gigabit Hard Drive, perhaps something in the 80GB range (this part is true and unadultered jack*$$ery, but sometimes I can't help myself). the 80GB+ drive is standard on the MacBook, the 120GB+ drive is standard on the MacBook Pro. MS Office for Mac is something on the order of $300, or is it $400? I don't remember specifically. However, iWork 08, which can save to .doc (the format that Word uses) is $79 and includes Numbers (think Excel), Keynote (PowerPoint) and Pages (Word). So a great price, for what is, in my opinion, a great suite of software. As far as which MacBook (or Pro) to buy, that depends on your budget really. The MacBook bases at $1099 ($1049 with education discount) and the MacBook Pro bases at $1999 ($1799 with education discount). From the base model MacBook to the base model MacBook Pro, I would say that you do get close to $700 worth of upgrades (Faster & better processor, larger Hard Drive, DVD Burner, higher res screen, thinner body, aluminum shell, backlit keys, actual graphics card, LED backlit screen, more expansion possibilities)

I figured as much, but sometimes you just can't resist being a d!ck you know? And here is what I have to say, in earnest, about the 80GB thing. If you honestly think that 80GB will be enough, then get the 100GB drive. If you think that the 80GB will be too small, get the 120GB drive. Although the MacBook's (not the Pro mind you) hard drive is pretty easy to replace, it is a full replacement in that you cannot add space to the system on top of what you already have. Limitation of most laptops I am afraid.

actually i would suggest openoffice/neoffice ... its free, plays nice with .doc and .ppt... so save your self $80 and dont get iwork.

The dedicated graphics.

Seablade

No really, that is the most of it.

Ok other things you lose...

FW800
Matte Screen(Might not be an issue for many folks)
ExpressCard Slot
Some HD Space
Some Processor power
Some Memory

Youll notice two of those things you can upgrade(Memory and HD Space) and you can even upgrade the processor if you go with the black MB so that the difference is even less(Though there isn't to much of one to start with). The matte screen might not even matter to you, it tends to be a personal thing. The FW800 can be troublesome, but since most video cameras do still use FW400 it isn't to big of a deal except in some cases. It does limit your choices for external HDs though.

Seablade

FW800 is short for FireWire 800, meaning a firewire connection that transmits at 800MB/s. It has advantages over USB in that USB only has a theoretical speed of 480MB/s, whereas Firewire operates at 400MB/s (for FW400, standard on all Macs) or 800MB/s (FW800, MacBook Pro, iMac, Mac Pro).

The MacBook Pro will game better than the MacBook, however it all depends on what games you play. if you play mostly older games, then the MacBook is your answer, but if you like to play the latest and greatest games, then you really should be buying a desktop since that is easier to keep up to date.

http://www.notebookforums.com/thread201242.html

You need to boot into windows to play windows games certainly, but that is quite possible using bootcamp(Just make SURE you get the 32-Bit windows)

Seablade

As much as you can't resist I would ask you to please try and refrain from doing so in the future; especially with newbies.

Fair enough, I'll keep that in mind

for the technical record, FW standards are in Mb (megabits) not MB (megabytes), as much as i wish it were otherwise.

1 megabit = 0.125 megabyte

I abso-fücking-lutely hate when companies/people use megabits—or anythingbit.

I'm used to thinking and working in bytes and with everyone using bits for everything now—a blatant attempt at making things look bigger or faster, of course; I liken it to giving people your dick size in centimetres instead of inches—it just drives me up a wall because I can't do conversions in my head like I can when dealing with bytes.

You're right, it is Mb, I think i just went shift happy when typing...

I hate the whole MB, MiB thing. Where MB is MegaByte, or 1,000,000 bytes, and MiB is MebiByte or 2^20 Bytes (I am pretty sure it is 2^20) so even though the HDD manufacturer's measure in MB, every gets their panties in a twist when they see that their 100GB drive only has 95GiB of free space. And since neither OS X or Windows makes that distinction... people get pissed. Though I have noticed that in OS X the progress bar doesnt read 1GB until 1024MB have transfered.