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Re: NEW MACBOOK PRO... What we've all been waiting for!

Posted: Tue Jun 09, 2009 2:06 pm
by beatpoet
Blu-ray is the biggest joke product since poo-in-a-can

Re: NEW MACBOOK PRO... What we've all been waiting for!

Posted: Tue Jun 09, 2009 2:12 pm
by ikeaboy
beatpoet wrote:Blu-ray is the biggest joke product since poo-in-a-can
Please elaborate or post a link.


On the Powerbook front - I take it theres very little chance these will have Cardbus slots eh?

Re: NEW MACBOOK PRO... What we've all been waiting for!

Posted: Tue Jun 09, 2009 2:29 pm
by beatpoet
ikeaboy wrote: Please elaborate or post a link.
Just a baseless opinion.


ikeaboy wrote: On the Powerbook front - I take it theres very little chance these will have Cardbus slots eh?
I'm sure you can get a expresscard to cardbus adapter. The 15" macbook pros in the refurb store will still have expresscard

Re: NEW MACBOOK PRO... What we've all been waiting for!

Posted: Tue Jun 09, 2009 3:05 pm
by aqua_tek
Sales Dude McBoob wrote:Not to say I approve of the ommision of the Express card, especially on the 15", but the SD slot is better than nothing. You can use it to make back ups of your most important files. It will be easier than using an optical disc or keychain flash drives. 8GB cards are really cheap:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/5 ... SDHC_.html

The price of these things has dropped so dramatically and quickly over the last 12 months, it's not hard to imagine buying a 32GB card for under $20 in the very near future. With a few of those cards you you have a pretty useful little slot on your hands.
Sure, the addition of the SD slot is nifty... but it is overshadowed by the removal of EC. Not a good enough feature to compensate IMO.

I'll wait a little while... see if apple (maybe) decides to bring it back, just as they did with FW (though I'm not keeping my hopes up)... if not, then I may just decide to get a previous-gen MBP at clearance pricing.

Yeah, EC is that important to some people, go figure. Modularity = pro.

Re: NEW MACBOOK PRO... What we've all been waiting for!

Posted: Tue Jun 09, 2009 3:12 pm
by logic_user99
I might just have to get one...! Need me an AudioMulch license first, though.

Re: NEW MACBOOK PRO... What we've all been waiting for!

Posted: Tue Jun 09, 2009 3:27 pm
by Sales Dude McBoob
aqua_tek wrote:
Sales Dude McBoob wrote:Not to say I approve of the ommision of the Express card, especially on the 15", but the SD slot is better than nothing. You can use it to make back ups of your most important files. It will be easier than using an optical disc or keychain flash drives. 8GB cards are really cheap:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/5 ... SDHC_.html

The price of these things has dropped so dramatically and quickly over the last 12 months, it's not hard to imagine buying a 32GB card for under $20 in the very near future. With a few of those cards you you have a pretty useful little slot on your hands.
Sure, the addition of the SD slot is nifty... but it is overshadowed by the removal of EC. Not a good enough feature to compensate IMO.

I'll wait a little while... see if apple (maybe) decides to bring it back, just as they did with FW (though I'm not keeping my hopes up)... if not, then I may just decide to get a previous-gen MBP at clearance pricing.

Yeah, EC is that important to some people, go figure. Modularity = pro.
There just comes a time when you must assess the situation for what it is. Apple has gotten vastly more popular in the past few years. Yesterday in the keynote they said there were 25 million OSX users in 2007, and over 75 million today (or something like that). You can bet they are busy as hell over there.

At a certain point you just have to accept what they're offering. For a pro studio situation with firewire dsp products, firewire interfaces, and firewire drives, Apple is offering the 17" MBP or the Mac Pro models. The same options exist for HD digital video people. If you're a graphic designer and you want an Anti-glare screen, you can get the 17". The bigger screen will be useful for those people.

I've complained about the GlassBook thing for almost a year now. It bugs me, but with the new pricing of the MBP I finally see it in a different light. If anti-glare is THAT important, I can spend $2500 on a 17" MBP. Now I have the option of getting a 13" MBP and a 24 inch LED Cinema display for $2100. It's changed my perspective. That seems like a decent deal to me. I don't like glossy displays, but damn, I think I'm going get them anyhow.

We have options, and the options are pretty sweet. It's not perfect, but we can certainly find the tools we need to do the jobs we need to do. Complain all you want. The PC manufactuers would love to have your cash. My money is going to Apple.

Re: NEW MACBOOK PRO... What we've all been waiting for!

Posted: Tue Jun 09, 2009 3:36 pm
by IP
ouf!
ill go for a dell studio!

Re: NEW MACBOOK PRO... What we've all been waiting for!

Posted: Tue Jun 09, 2009 5:49 pm
by bland_handl
My old white macbook (2Ghz processor / 2GB Ram) has done me proud for 3 years - gigs and dj'ing 20 hours a week, and another 8-16 in the studio

She's a bit beaten up now, so I was looking to upgrade:
Tower for the studio? Or maybe an imac plus a new whitebook for shows?

I'd been weighing it up these last few weeks deciding what to buy - and I couldn't have imagined a more perfect solution if I'd invented it myself

fw 800
8GB Ram
faster processor
backlit keyboard
no plastic case cracks
and... 13" for all those fucking promoters that book live acts, ignore tech-riders, and think that if you can fit a whole orchestra on a cd then what do you mean "space issue"?

anyway, I'm sold. Gonna test-drive some als's at the apple store first tho (!)
- any performance-testing threads lately?

Re: NEW MACBOOK PRO... What we've all been waiting for!

Posted: Tue Jun 09, 2009 6:30 pm
by aqua_tek
Sales Dude McBoob wrote:Complain all you want. The PC manufactuers would love to have your cash. My money is going to Apple.
Let's not get too carried away. I'm not going that far. Been using OSX for 3 years, and not about to go back. That wasn't my point. I'm just saying the 15" (which, lets face it, is the ideal MBP. Not too small, not too big), lost one of the main features that (IMO) made it "Pro". Anyways it was just a short rant, and the complaint was pretty much over. I just closed my previous argument by saying that I'm just hoping (futilely, I'm sure) that a future update brings back the EC (because I'm not planning to get a 17". Sure, it's the only truly "pro" model now, but not so portable. Sort of defeats the purpose of having a laptop)... OR... I might get a previous-generation one. Either way, my money's going the same place yours is. ;)

Re: NEW MACBOOK PRO... What we've all been waiting for!

Posted: Tue Jun 09, 2009 6:36 pm
by db2
jesso wrote:Seriously... I just bought a macbook... the one with no backlit keyboard, no firewire, and only 2ghz.....
WTF???? Can I bring it back????
That means that I have now bought the only apple laptop to be released in the last few years with no firewire! LAME. Its almost totally unused so far.
I think within 30 days you can. I hear about people doing this on macrumors.com.

Re: NEW MACBOOK PRO... What we've all been waiting for!

Posted: Tue Jun 09, 2009 6:48 pm
by condra
13" MBPs are utter winnage IMO.

Re: NEW MACBOOK PRO... What we've all been waiting for!

Posted: Tue Jun 09, 2009 7:28 pm
by Sales Dude McBoob
Agreed. It'd be disgustingly sick if it had an EC. But oh well. I can't stop picturing one on my desk beside the 24" LCD display. I'm going glass and not looking back.

Re: NEW MACBOOK PRO... What we've all been waiting for!

Posted: Tue Jun 09, 2009 7:29 pm
by Kodama
I really wonder when the next major Intel bump is. All of these C2D are based off the great Centrino chip that my old Toshiba has.

Seems like there is a ramp up within a current processor architecture (multiple cpus, increase of ghz, smaller die size) for a few years, then a new technology comes out and the lowest of its range totally exceeds the highest of the previous range...

Re: NEW MACBOOK PRO... What we've all been waiting for!

Posted: Tue Jun 09, 2009 9:32 pm
by rapidix
okay, i've been waiting patiently for the new macbook pro to come out and here it is. and it's cheaper! and i'm getting one. but i have a couple questions about audio recording that involves having live on the internal hdd and the project on an external hdd.

1. is it even recommended/necessary to record onto and run the project on an external hdd?

and 2. since the expresscard is out, can i chain a firewire external hdd through my audio interface then into the mbp? or will a usb hdd suffice?

Re: NEW MACBOOK PRO... What we've all been waiting for!

Posted: Tue Jun 09, 2009 11:19 pm
by scientist
rapidix wrote:1. is it even recommended/necessary to record onto and run the project on an external hdd?

and 2. since the expresscard is out, can i chain a firewire external hdd through my audio interface then into the mbp? or will a usb hdd suffice?
1. nope

2. yes, but you may have some bus/bottleneck issues. and the usb drive, not sure but i'm guessing you're better off on the internal drive.

not sure about upgrade-ability of the aluminum macbooks, but a 7200 internal should suffice for most normal use. i went for three years on a white macbook with a 7200 and never ran into problems. iirc when i first got it i pushed it up to something like 40 stereo tracks with no dropouts, but my "real" sessions rarely have that many tracks.

i lucked out and grabbed a black macbook refurb just last week, but the new 13" macbook is good news as it means fw audio/video people have a few more years before their gear is obsolete.