fucking PC laptops...macbooks, here I come

[jeffrey collins]

Re: fucking PC laptops...macbooks, here I come

get a mac dude. made the switch to macbookpro in october 07...i'm never going back. i look back now and wonder why i used a pc for all those years. i still have my pc laptop, and every time i use it it just feels so obtrusive. fking hate it.

i've had pretty much the same experience with my Mac. Although I just use it for music and a bit of internet. I use my toshiba for all my internet needs and almost nothing else.

i do think the only thing I had to learn over was the key commands for a mac. But there are so many sites that will teach you those.

[algy]

Re: fucking PC laptops...macbooks, here I come

Your solution:

[toasty]

Re: fucking PC laptops...macbooks, here I come

dude, get a mac. I picked up a MacBook in November, and I rarely, rarely use either of the other PCs anymore -- and when I do, I'm bummed out about it.

It's not a fair comparison. Mac is to PC what Mercedes is to Kia. Not a close call.

[ddr]

Re: fucking PC laptops...macbooks, here I come

Mac is to PC what Mercedes is to Kia. Not a close call.

haha, agree 100%

[Miroslav]

Re: fucking PC laptops...macbooks, here I come

I'm now debating a refurbished Macbook Pro from Apple. It has pretty good specs, just a slightly worse hard drive than I might consider on my own - 160gb at 5400 rpm vs. like a 200gb at 7200 rpm.

Question to music makers out there: would you consider a 5400 rpm to be a serious impediment to working effectively with programs like Ableton on a laptop?

I know already that I'm generally behind desktops straight off the bat in terms of latency anyways, and so I'm concerned about the effect when you start talking about programs that rely on a lot of access to samples on your hard drive, etc. On the other hand, I have heard Macbooks tend to run hot and I expect this will exacerbate that as well as decrease the battery life...

[Miroslav]

Re: fucking PC laptops...macbooks, here I come

[quote=Miroslav;598442]I'm now debating a refurbished Macbook Pro from Apple. It has pretty good specs, just a slightly worse hard drive than I might consider on my own - 160gb at 5400 rpm vs. like a 200gb at 7200 rpm.

Question to music makers out there: would you consider a 5400 rpm to be a serious impediment to working effectively with programs like Ableton on a laptop?

I know already that I'm generally behind desktops straight off the bat in terms of latency anyways, and so I'm concerned about the effect when you start talking about programs that rely on a lot of access to samples on your hard drive, etc. On the other hand, I expect it will contribute a little bit to the heat issue and eat into the battery life... But I expect that I would really end up linking in an external hard drive into the setup if I got serious with the samples and tracks.

[Jenks]

Re: fucking PC laptops...macbooks, here I come

Question to music makers out there: would you consider a 5400 rpm to be a serious impediment to working effectively with programs like Ableton on a laptop? ..

i have a 5400 rpm drive in my macbookpro, and run ableton, traktor scratch live - no problem.

[toasty]

Re: fucking PC laptops...macbooks, here I come

I'm now debating a refurbished Macbook Pro from Apple. It has pretty good specs, just a slightly worse hard drive than I might consider on my own - 160gb at 5400 rpm vs. like a 200gb at 7200 rpm.

Another thing to keep in mind is this -- hard drives are cheap, cheap, cheap right now. I use my internal drive for things that have to be on the drive, use a bus-powered WD Passport that's about the size of an iPod & travels well for my music and movies, and use a regular big-ass hard drive for stuff I'd like to keep but that I'm unlikely to need away from my desk. Works like a champ, and I've never noticed any sort of lag for items coming off the drive at all. Of course, I'm not using programs like Ableton, so I can't speak to that, but that's how I addressed the less-than-ideal HD issue.

[Jenks]

Re: fucking PC laptops...macbooks, here I come

pocket sized firewire 800 HD for traktor scratch....

do you traktor scratch/serato?

[miketpoto]

Re: fucking PC laptops...macbooks, here I come

No probs with ableton at all on a 5400.

[|Thrax|]

Re: fucking PC laptops...macbooks, here I come

I switched in 2005.

I work for Sony, and the laptops we buy are SHIT!

[feather]

Re: fucking PC laptops...macbooks, here I come

Not a music maker, but I don't see why you can't play with music on a 5400 or even an external hdd. For external, USB 2.0 transfer rate is up to 480mbps, Scsi A is 400mbps, Scsi B (on the latest macbook pro) is 800 mbps ... that's more than enough bandwidth for some music samples and mp3s.

I am assuming Ableton or the software will have some sort of cache for them to have music/samples ready to fuck around with them on the fly ... So all the stuff you're doing live like applying efx or anything over the tracks and samples, are more cpu intensive than I/O.

[Miroslav]

Re: fucking PC laptops...macbooks, here I come

Thanks guys for the comments on the hard drives - very helpful

pocket sized firewire 800 HD for traktor scratch....

do you traktor scratch/serato?

Not right now, but I plan to get into it in the not to distant future...



So the like the 4 good mac refurbs. I was eyeing were all taken within the last 10 minutes - not surprising, I guess. I'm still sitting around convincing myself that the insane price premium is really a good idea for me. I guess PC-wise the only thing I'd really consider would be a Lenovo T61, but I've read about the wireless issues they're having with those (although I would never run it on Vista).

One more question: the legendary heat issue...what has been your experience with your macsbooks? Has it been bad enough to inconvenience you, or is this something they fixed after the first generation?

[Troklo]

Re: fucking PC laptops...macbooks, here I come

^^^i have several friends with old and newer Macbook- Macbookpros
And it looks that they got that problem solved some generations ago.

[Jenks]

Re: fucking PC laptops...macbooks, here I come

if you want a new one, macmall.com isn't as cheap as refurbs, but they're cheaper than the apple website.