What is the difference between between a macbook and mac pro?

Q. macbook vs macbook pro?

A. macbook pro has everything that a macbook has and more

What extras should I consider getting on my Macbook for College?

Q. I will be purchasing a macbook for college in a few months. Do you suggest a macbook, or a macbook pro? What about the amount of memory I need? Extra programs? Basically, if you were to buy a new macbook, and could customize it to be the perfect college tool, what would you suggest getting? Thanks for your help in advance!

A. Let's do a comparison of the Macbook versus the Macbook Pro.

CPU
Core 2 Duo 2.26 Mhz (Macbook)
Core 2 Duo 2.53 Mhz (Macbook Pro)
The Pro edition has a CPU that is a little bit faster but the 2.26 Mhz CPU should be sufficient for running the most demanding software unless it you are working with a large amount of data like in video editing applications.

SCREEN
13.3 inch, 1280 X 800 (Macbook)
13.3 inch, 1280 X 800 (Macbook Pro)
Large enough to work comfortably but not so heavy so that it is a pain to lug it around campus.

HARD DRIVE
250 GB (Macbook)
250 GB (Macbook Pro)
Plenty of storage for all your software. It can store a lot of data too. Unless you have a massive collection of MP3 music, high resolution pictures or video files, this is more then sufficient. If you need more storage, you can always use an external hard drive or USB flash drive.

MEMORY
2 GB (Macbook)
2 GB or 4 GB (Macbook Pro)
The base 2 gigabytes is sufficient to run all Mac OS 10.6 applications I can think of unless once again you are working with very large files or doing a lot of multi tasking. Then you can go with the Pro and opt for the extra memory.

GRAPHICS
nVidia GeForce 9400 (Macbook)
nVidia GeForce 9400 (Macbook Pro)
Good mobile GPU for most games at a 13" monitor resolution. Capable with video & graphics editing. Insufficient for some games which demand a powerful GPU. Games like Crysis for example.

PORTS
2 - USB 2.0 (Macbook)
2 - USB 2.0, 1 - Firewire 800, 1 - SD card slot (Macbook Pro)
The SD card slot comes in handy when you want to take your memory card out of your digital camera and view it right away with the Macbook Pro. If you do not work a lot with digital photos, the Macbook is fine. You can also purchase external memory card readers.


The two systems are very similar as you can see. If you are on a budget, go with the Macbook as the drawbacks are very few. If you want to splurge on a faster system to last longer, go with the Macbook Pro. Both are great choices.


ACCESSORIES
Wireless mouse (does not have to be a Mac mouse)
Laptop bag (get padding + handles + shoulder strap)

SOFTWARE

Microsoft Office (pay)
- includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Entourage
- has a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation & organizer/e-mail software
- very powerful
- very popular with Mac & PC users

Apple iWork (pay)
- includes Pages, Numbers, Keynote
- has a word processor, spreadsheet & presentation software
- fairly powerful
- compatible with MS Office formats

OpenOffice (free)
- includes Writer, Calc, Impress, Draw, Base
- has a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation, illustration & database software
- http://www.openoffice.org

Miro (free)
- it can play almost any video format
- very popular video player
- http://www.getmiro.com/

iTunes (free)
- listening to music
- syncing with your iPod/iTouch/iPhone

Burn (free)
- write movies to VCD or DVD
- copy data to CD or DVD
- http://burn-osx.sourceforge.net/Pages/English/home.html

Seashore (free)
- user friendly graphics software
- ability to edit, fix, manipulate photos or graphics
- http://seashore.sourceforge.net/

Pencil (free)
- draw on your computer like you draw on paper
- animate your own cartoons
- http://www.pencil-animation.org/

Drawberry (free)
- powerful vector graphics drawing software
- very popular, has lots of downloadable clipart
- http://raphaelbost.free.fr/DrawBerry.html

Xee (free)
- picture viewer & organizer
- http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/19978

Skype (free)
- instant message
- free voice chat for computer to computer talk

Adobe Photoshop (pay)
- powerful graphics editor
- many filters and effects

Xtorrent (free)
- bit torrent client for you to share and download files

Dreamweaver (pay)
- powerful web design & creation software
- supports HTML, CSS, javascript, php, flash

Flash (pay)
- create multimedia content for the web
- animation, steaming audio, video
- supports actionscript

Games
- The Sims 3
- Spore
- Civilizations IV
- SimCity 4
- Second Life
- Age of Empires III
- Guitar Hero World Tour

What is the difference between a macbook pro and macbook?

Q. Wanted to get information on whats the difference between the macbook pro and macbook in 2009. I am looking for information on my decision to purchase one and was wondering the difference is because some list macbook pro and some macbook.

A. Macbook Pro's use the unibody all aluminum body while the regular macbook was the while plastic unibody design (external differences)

Internally the Macbook Pro (with default options) should have a similar if not the same CPU, but more ram (4gb instead of 2gb) and a better GPU.

Macbook is now a generic term for both the Pro and Air as the original macbook line has since been discontinued.