Thinking of getting an MBP..

Draeconis

Draeconis

Draeconis

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I've been thinking of getting a MacBook Pro for a while now, as I perform with Ableton Live sets and need a laptop that can handle my sets better than my Acer Travelmate 8202. MacBook Pros have somewhat become the industry standard for laptop-based live performance, so I thought, my laptop is getting pretty old, if I get a new one, why not make the switch?

The Acer has a 1.66Ghz Core Duo CPU with 2Gb RAM, an ATi Mobility Radeon x1600 and a seagate 100Gb 5,400rpm drive.

The basic MacBook Pro has a 2.4Ghz Core 2 Duo CPU, 2Gb RAM, an nVidia 8600m 256Mb and I'd upgrade it to the 200Gb 7,200rpm drive.

Will I notice much of an improvement over my old laptop? Spending about £1,200 on a laptop that isn't much better would set me back quite a bit.

In addition to this, though the entry level MacBook Pro seems reasonably priced having done a fair amount of research, I'm not so sure the better models are actually worth the amounts they have. An extra £300 for 256Mb Graphics Memory and 100Mhz CPU? A further £300 just for a bigger screen?

One thing that does annoy me about the MacBook Pro series is that only the top end 17" one actually does the resolution that my Acer already does, and when I bought it it was only £1,200. 1,440x900 is a fair large drop from the 1680x1050 that I'm used to, and I don't really want to have to spend an extra £600 just to get that back lol.
 
You will see a massive performance boost. OS X is quicker and more efficient.

The other models are not really what you need, I think the standard model is more than enough for what you want.

The screen's are immensely clear and I dont think you will notice much difference in a drop in resolution, apparently glossy screens are clearer.
 
I'm not so sure about the OSX benefits, as I've never used it, I was more on about the hardware change (considering this is the hardware section ;)) as that's something I can relate to properly. As for OSX, yes I've heard many good things about it, and if it handles RAM as well as everyone says it is, then I'm sure I'll look forward to moving to Mac. If there's not much difference, I might wait for a bit.
 
The MacBook Pro is a screamer.

It was hailed as the fastest laptop that runs Vista by PC Magazine too, so it's no slouch when it has to run either operating system.

The drop in resolution is a minor tradeoff considering the performance benefits of your current PC system; that I have no doubt about.
 
EVH said:
The MacBook Pro is a screamer.

It was hailed as the fastest laptop that runs Vista by PC Magazine too, so it's no slouch when it has to run either operating system.

The drop in resolution is a minor tradeoff considering the performance benefits of your current PC system; that I have no doubt about.
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While I love my macbook pro, the resolution is something which really annoys me, it's meant to be a high end laptop. The lack of a high res option on the 15" is ridiculous. While it might be a trade off worth it to you, to others it could be a big deal...
 
Draeconis said:
I'm not so sure about the OSX benefits, as I've never used it, I was more on about the hardware change (considering this is the hardware section ;)) as that's something I can relate to properly. As for OSX, yes I've heard many good things about it, and if it handles RAM as well as everyone says it is, then I'm sure I'll look forward to moving to Mac. If there's not much difference, I might wait for a bit.
Click to expand...

Well to be honest software is just as important.

Handles RAM? What's that meant to mean? There's more important things than 'RAM handling'!
 
Well I've had Vista on here but I can't run Ableton at all with it, it stutters really badly, and I need over 1.5Gb just to run a basic 50 minute set.

XP handles it pretty well, but I'd like the stability OS X is famed for having, which is pretty important when you're playing live audio to several hundred people at once!

Well I'm glad to hear from you EVH that the MacBook Pro outclasses my 8202, though Geekbench says by about a factor of 2 ;)

The resolution is annoying; I like desktop real-estate, and having to pay £1,600 (I'm a Student) for a laptop to get the same screen resolution that won't fit in my bag because it's too big is annoying (the 8202 is 15.4"). Why Apple can't make 1680x1050 the standard and have 1920x1200 as the upgrade option on the 17" is beyond me.

If the spec of the MBP is noticeably better than that of my current laptop, and of course OS X helps on top of that over Windows, I think that makes the choice about getting one much simpler.

Then it's just a matter of choosing which one lol.
 
To be honest, the resolution is not that important, you will get used to it. Getting a MBP will make a significant difference to your computer use especially in relation to your music.
 
If you're a student then why not claim the 14% discount ;)

Also, comparing Geekbench results is pointless because they're never true representations of performance.
 
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