SweetMacTips

Could, but your performance bottlenecks are going to be your limited amount of RAM (especially) and your CPU. You’re not going to see good “bang for buck” on getting an SSD. 

Rumor has it that Apple will release new i-series based MacBook Airs when Lion drops. That is going to be your bang for buck.

The only harm will be that it won’t address the additional 1GB of RAM. It should work ok, outside of it only using half of one of the pieces of RAM. I’ll tell you right now though, don’t hold your breath for spectacular performance from Lion on that machine. You’re at the bottom of the barrel for system requirements.

Yeah I’d get some airflow underneath it. You don’t need anything special, you can probably find some little rubber feet at your local hardware store for a few dollars.

I would think shutting it down completely would be best so the battery doesn’t drain completely would be best.

Unless you’ve been tearing apart MacBooks for years, it’s not a repair you want to attempt yourself. You want someone who can strip a MacBook to the frame with their eyes closed.

If you take it to the Apple Store, they’ll likely do it in-house. This used to be something that we sent out however most repairs these days occur at the store itself. I don’t know about turn around, but if I had to guess, I’d say they’d quote you a week.

Make sure you make a reservation before you go as the Bar can get hopping.

If you take it to an authorized repair center, they’ll likely also do it at the store. If you’re out of warranty, you may get a better price from the non-Apple repair shop as all of Apple’s out of warranty repairs are flat-rate.

It’s likely your MacBook’s display data cable. This is a common problem with the MacBooks. iFixIt has them ($39.95). Search around iFixIt to find the appropriate tear-down guide for your particular MacBook.

If you’re doing graphic design, do NOT buy a MacBook. You’re going to outgrow it fairly quickly and wish you’d bought more Mac. To get that more Mac, you’ll shell out more money than you’d have shelled out had you just bought the MacBook Pro to begin with. 

Trust me on this.

I’d also consider an external display, keyboard and mouse. The small display and trackpad aren’t terribly conducive to GD. Saving a few bucks and going for the i5 in order to spend the difference on a display is likely a good compromise.

Oh, and buy AppleCare. Period.

Good luck!

There’s no doubt that the 13” is a great size for portability. For some folks it’s just too small though. For instance, for my work machine, I replaced my desktop with a 17” MacBook Pro. Yeah, it’s the size of a lunch tray, but I do like having all my stuff with me all the time instead of fumbling with file transfers or USB sticks. Also, have you seen the size of a Dell or HP 17” portable? It’s like twice the thickness.

I will say though that the one thing that dragged the 13” MacBook Pro down was that there wasn’t a whole lot of differentiation from the MacBook. Yeah, it’s aluminum, but the graphics chipsets were the same, processor was the same. The big parts of the machine were identical. And even, for less money, you’d get a bigger hard drive with the MacBook.

Moving the 13” to the i-series processors really goes a long way to earn the “Pro” part of its name. (The Thunderbolt port doesn’t hurt either.)

Anyway, carry on…

Speakers are one of those super simple things and problems with them usually indicate hardware issue. I’d take the little sucker in.

Now, aren’t you folks happy that this is post 1000 instead of me answering a question about beer? (Though, when given the option, I’ll take beer over rattly speakers, love.)

Congrats flowersandmachineguns (love the name, btw) you’re post 1000. I’d give you some kind of prize or drop some balloons or something, but this is a fly by night enterprise and I have no schwag to give away. 

Maybe by post 2000 I’ll be able to mail a balloon out. Celebratory assembly required.