>As I left my most recent permanent job for a private gig, I had to get myself my own new laptop. Of course the machine had to be a Mac, but which one? A laptop? Desktop? I decided on laptop since it’s so much more portable and I do contracting. But then – 17″ or 15″ and what specs, and should I shell out for a brand new model, or get the older one cheaper?
To cut the long story short I went for the top of the line, most recently upgraded model of 17″ MacBook Pro, with 2.4Ghz Intel Core Duo processor, 7200RPM 160Gb drive, 2Gb of RAM and a hi-resolution 1920×1200 screen. This machine on Apple store costs $3800 (with tax and apple care), but I managed to save more than a third by buying it from a dude on Craigslist.
My first impression – wow! The screen is so incredible, there are so many pixels that a window dragged when onto my older SyncMaster 23″ screen looks twice as large! That’s because 23″ screen has only 1600×1200 resolution, but the laptop packs 1920×1200 in a 17″ screen. Even upgrading to 1920 pixel wide screen would still not be adequate since each pixel would be larger than on a macbook. Gotta get used to this zooming effect 
That minor inconvenience aside, I decided to run some basic tests on my older PowerMac Dual 2Hgz G5, with 1.5Gb of RAM and thought it’d be fun to share it here:
Test #1: Compile ruby interpreter from scratch:
- 17″ MacBook Pro 2.4Ghz Intel Core Duo:
real 1m3.398s user 0m45.229s sys 0m15.373s
- PowerMac Dual 2Ghz G5:
real 2m0.422s user 1m28.266s sys 0m29.412s
I’ll add more tests as I run them, but to see an almost 2x difference between 2 year old PowerMac and a new MacBook is simply amazing. Can’t wait to start using the laptop for music!
Meanwhile, PowerMac is available for sale for $1000
Laterz!
