Do I Really Need to Upgrade

[fouadbakht]

I know this might sound kinda silly but..........here it goes.........

I just paid a fortune and bought a 13" MacBook Pro (Core 2 Duo 2.53GHz) this November 2009. Its got 4GB DDR3, Nvidia 9400, 250GB HDD.

With the Core i7 and i5 round the corner, do I need to upgrade just to future proof? I use Aperture 2 and Final Cut apart from everyday computing. I got a 24" Dell 2409 LCD that I use for real estate.

Please put me wise. Thanks

[Fox]

The only thing I would consider upgrading is the drive, with a higher capacity 7200 rpm drive and there's no hurry to do this. There is some debate as to whether you get the biggest speed benefit from faster spindle rotation (7200 vs 5400rpm) or data density (higher capacity drives have higher data density), but you can get both pretty cheaply nowadays in a single 2.5" drive. Or you can wait for the price of SSD's to decline, which they are doing rapidly.
_________________
Mini 1: 2.3 ghz Core i5; 8 gb RAM, Corsair 240gb SSD, 500 gb Seagate XT
Mini 2: 2.26 ghz Core 2 duo, 8 gb RAM, 500 gb Seagate
Also a Cube, 13" MacBook Air, 20" 2.66 ghz iMac & 11.6" Acer 1810TZ running Ubuntu, Mint & openSuse

[Chris..S]

Future proof is a marketing gimick. Does the laptop do what you need it to do?

If the answer is yes, you're fine. If its no, you shouldn't have bought that laptop one month ago.

Laptops don't stop working when the manufacturer upgrades its product line. In the 2-3 year life of a laptop, they are bound to go through 2-3 sets of upgrades. Buy when you need, sure you can wait 6 months and get a better laptop for less, but can you do without a laptop for 6 months?

My personal opinion. If you can wait, you're particularly after bang for buck and feel your likely to be pushing existing hardware, then now is not the time to buy. In 6 months or so, high end laptops should have i5/i7, next gen nVidia or AMD graphics, usb 3.0 and sata 3.0 (important if you want an SSD). I'd reckon 15" MBP will be upgraded in that time period, probably longer for a 13". That was the situation one month ago too.

[fouadbakht]

Thanks Chris & Fox
I guess one cant outrun the tech race. And yes I think that my current purchase is good enough for maybe another two years.