I've been saving up for an Apple Macbook Pro for a while, but since I'm just a student without a steady job it has been very tough (I currently have about $450 saved up, which is very far from the $1700 price of a refurbished low-end Macbook Pro). Anyway, my question is this: should I buy a Macbook instead when I have the money (which will be pretty soon because I have a full-time job now) or should I keep saving for a Macbook Pro? the main reason I'd want a Macbook Pro is because of the extra graphics power and bigger screen (not to mention it looks a lot nicer)—I find my 1280x1024 and 1440x900 monitors somewhat cramped (it feels like I'm working inside a small box) and so 1280x800 has got to be a b*tch. Also, I do graphic design in Photoshop etc. (and CS4 is going to be GPU-accelerated) and I do recording etc from my 16 channel firewire mixer. Would you people say that the Macbook would suit me anyway despite its lower performance and smaller screen? Or would I best wait for a Macbook Pro? (The Macbook that I'd buy is $1099 refurbished, because I need a Superdrive)

I'd say, go MBP. If you can wait that long, that is .

If you need something now get the MacBook, I recently purchased a black 2.2GHz MacBook from the Australian refurb store for $1370.00 (they are $2100 retail here new). I already had 4GB of RAM in my existing MacBook so I transfered that before selling, and I have just purchased a 320GB 7200rpm Seagate drive for it, and the shop only charged me for a 5400rpm drive ($160.00!).

I currently have Logic Studio and BFD installed on it and works great.

Honestly I was faced with the same decision and am happy to say that I'm getting my MBP at the end of this month after the wait. It is worth it, trust me.

wait for the new designs to come out in the upcoming months, then when u saved a little bit more you can get a macbook that will look less tacky like the current one.

mbp

Get the MacBook Pro, the design is better and it's worth the wait. MacBooks are nice and all, but as soon as I got my first PowerBook, I ranted about every plastic computer I ever touched

Are you planning to use this Mac as a main system? I would say if you're not using it as a main, get the MacBook, if you are I'd go with the MacBook pro. However, I want to highlight something you may not know which you may want to consider as you do graphic design, the MacBook series only really show thousands of colours rather than millions and use dithering to create the illusion that it is a true colour display, although this doesn't make a huge difference to the visible colour change in graphic design where colours are quite important it may be something you want to consider.

Further information on the colours/lawsuit against it