Macgasm

You’ve just had the most amazing summer of your life, again. Same every year when you get a break from school right?
To top off that break, what would be better than to go back to school with a brand new Mac. These things can help you get better grades after all *lies*

In this article, I’m going to go over the basics all the way up to the top spec Mac fanboys dream machine, and as I’m based in the UK, you’re going to have to make do with the links going through to the UK store, but I’ll convert the prices into dollars too. And if you’re not in the UK or America, it’s up to you to convert.

Quick links
Jump to ‘Budget Mac’s’ – Low Price
Jump to ‘Dont wanna look cheap’ – Mid Price
Jump to ‘I’m blowing my loan’ – High Price

Budget Mac’s – Low Price
Now I know there isn’t really a budget priced Mac, as they’re all more expensive than that fugly grey box you could buy from ‘Bob’s Used Computers’. But bear with me here, you do still have a few options if you’ve saved hard all summer and can maybe scrape together a bit more cash.

The trusty Macbook. This is the least expensive of Apple’s notebooks coming in at a respectable £714/$999. It’s still a pretty powerful machine, featuring a 2.13GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB DDR2 Memory and a 160GB hard drive. If this is still a little too expensive for you, there are always deals on at the Apple Refurb Store, which can save you quite a bit sometimes. I’ve had stuff from the refurb store myself, so don’t feel dirty about using it, you’re actually getting a 1 up on everyone else.

Next up comes the Mac Mini. These are actually a little cheaper than the Macbooks at £499/$599, but you’re only getting half a machine here remember. You need to find yourself a keyboard, mouse, monitor etc to go with them, so you could end up spending more taking this route, not to mention its not portable. Still, the lowest end of these little beauty’s has a slightly slower processor at 2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 1GB memory, and a 120GB hard drive. Don’t forget to check the Refurb Store for these as well, my dad got one of his from there and has been a small powerhouse ever since.

Don’t wanna look cheap – Mid Price
You had a pretty good job all summer, lived off noodles at school all last year and now you’re ready to make the move and buy that new Mac.
In this section I’m again covering one portable and one desktop, and both ends of the mid range price scales.

The Macbook Pro. In Apple’s last product refresh, when they got rid of the black Macbook completely, they also gave the rest of the Macbook line a boost up to Macbook Pro status, giving them all the same features as you used to only get on the higher end machines. The lowest end of this line is now the 13″ 2.26GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GB Memory and a 160GB hard drive. This has all the same features as its bigger brothers, and comes it at £899/$1,199. You can step those specs up and get yourself the 13″ with a 2.53GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 4GB Memory and a 160GB hard drive and that will set up back £1,149/$1,499.

Still got some more cash? Why not get a few more inches and get the 15″, or maybe even a 17″ model. That’s going to set you back £1,849/2,499 for a 2.8GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 4GB Memory, a 500GB hard drive but unlike it’s smaller brothers this one has an ExpressCard/34 slot instead of the SD Card slot.

Up next we have the iMac, what i’d call Apple’s family desktop computer. Like the Macbook Pro, this comes in a variety of sizes, from a £949/$1,199 20-inch with a 2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GB memory, and a 320GB hard drive, up to a £1,799/$2,199 24-inch, 3.06GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 4GB memory and a 1TB hard drive.

Last on the mid priced list we have the Macbook Air. This things so thin and sharp it can cut a cake. But don’t let that put you off, maybe the price or its lack of features can instead? The lowest of the two models on offer comes in at £1,149/$1,499, and crammed into that 0.16-0.76 inch body fits a 1.86GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GB Memory and a 120GB SATA hard drive. Now, we say it’s a SATA drive because on the 2.13GHz model you get a 128GB solid-state drive instead, £200/$300 more that one costs you though. You’re also going to need to buy the Superdrive for another £64/$99 if you want to install any other software that you don’t opt to have pre-installed on the computer like, iWork and Aperture and heaven forbid you actually want Microsoft Office, you’re definitely going to need this as Apple to offer that as an extra.

Of course, you can opt to upgrade some of the feature of your Mac when you buy direct from Apple, opting to have a bigger hard drive, or more memory are just a couple of things, so it’s best to really check them all out and go for one that fits your budget and your needs.

I’m blowing my loan – High Price
Now comes the fun part, the bit every apple fan boy dreams of. Money is no option, be it because you’ve decided to live on someone else’s floor for the term to save money on accommodation, been given hand me down books to save buying expensive new ones, and your ready meal and noodle supply has never looked better. Maybe a lottery win, or just parents that really don’t mind spending loads of money on you.

You want to be the best, everyone that visits you at home or in your college dorm room will look on in awe at the beast of a machine you have opted to get for this year. It’s not going to be portable, not by a long shot, so you better have a big supply of pens and paper and really like typing if you’re taking this route.

All you have to do if you wanna be the best there is, is visit the Apple Store, and select the 8-core Mac Pro and never look back, select everything they have in the ‘Configure your Mac Pro’ section. Of course you need Two 2.93GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon processors, who doesn’t? You’re going to need 32GB ram to go with that, a Raid card because you can, nothing wrong with having 4TB of HDD space either, i have more than that in external drives, so you might as well get it built in, 4x NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 512MB graphics cards to power the 2 x Apple Cinema HD Display (30″ flat panels) you’re getting, and maybe the 6 more you might want later on, Two 18x SuperDrives, a wireless keyboard and mouse, airport, a Quad-channel 4Gb Fibre Channel PCI Express card, along with all the software, cables, Mobile Me and Apple care. Then grab that credit card, and start filling in the details for your brand spanking new £16,289.98/$22,036.85 machine. There are a few different options between the UK and USA ones, i just maxed them all.

I don’t really think it’s wise anyone just does that though to be honest, but we can all dream right?

Whatever you do choose to buy as your back to school computer, make sure you check out all your options and the refurb store, and as much as it pains me to say, check out the PC’s as well if you’re on even more of a budget, no one will hate you for it when you’re graduated and not still paying it off, just until then you’ll be frowned at :)

Article inspired by one in September’s T3 magazine in the UK. I also used their images for the header and big budget section. Great gadget mag, check it out sometime.

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