Macbook purchasing question

[Stromkraft]

Aren't the HDs built into the motherboards of the apple laptops?

why they go and do that for? this changes everything

I know of no valid reasons…

[Tarekith]

Smaller form factors maybe?

[Stromkraft]

Smaller form factors maybe?

It could be about vibrations or efficiency or something, but to make it impossible to upgrade is still just plain stupid. It will devalue many Apple machines in the second hand market. 3 years from now 1TB SSD will be absolute minimum as 128GB is now. What if the SSD wears out? Macs have great second hand value because they keep working and the fact you can replace parts in the Apple machines up to recently. Forcing most people to get new gear because one part breaks is very stupid. I don't think it enhances sales either and I don't think that's why Apple is doing this. Mac sales are better than ever. Why mess with that?

So will I get a Windows on my main machine now? Forget about it. I will however, rebuild my old Toshiba to a drum machine.

[Hypomixolydian]

My personal preference is the 13" Retina, 2.8 GHz with 512 Gb flashdrive, 8Gb Ram i5 processor., dual core
Within my budget is 15" 2.2 GHz but that has a 256 Gb drive, 16 Gb Ram and i7 processor quad core.

5 years? Just max out EVERYTHING on i7, also the CPU speed IMHO. Most important is the SSD though. To not get a 1TB SSD is just false economy. Just do what you have to to be able to afford it. Sell records you love, work extra. Don't skimp!

Thank you so much for your input. I really appreciate it.


I realise that 5 years is a long time within the technology timescale and that a consumer products are designed to be replaced within a relatively short time, but I don’t play along with that philosophy. My main music machine is a desktop that is more than ten years old. The most valuable thing about it are my three Creamware soundcards, which I love and are the hub of my studio. I haven’t updated my motherboard because it is not easy finding one with at least 3 PCI slots (the old kind) and I am nervous about building my own machine. I can still get the job done and the results are fantastic. Admittedly, it does get frustrating with the under powered CPU by todays standards and not being able to run as many VST tracks as I would like, nevertheless, it will still stay the hub of my studio because I love my Creamware cards so much.

I kind of have to stick within my budget and take advantage of prices while I am in Australia. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t be buying a Mac, but seeing prices are far lower here than in Holland, I figure now is a good time. I don’t have time to save extra or work more etc....

It seems the i7 15" gets the vote, so now I am thinking that perhaps I could buy an older model without a flash drive. They are substantially cheaper. The sales person tells me that they are much slower machines and are obsolete. Do you agree?

[TomViolenz]

My personal preference is the 13" Retina, 2.8 GHz with 512 Gb flashdrive, 8Gb Ram i5 processor., dual core
Within my budget is 15" 2.2 GHz but that has a 256 Gb drive, 16 Gb Ram and i7 processor quad core.

5 years? Just max out EVERYTHING on i7, also the CPU speed IMHO. Most important is the SSD though. To not get a 1TB SSD is just false economy. Just do what you have to to be able to afford it. Sell records you love, work extra. Don't skimp!

Thank you so much for your input. I really appreciate it.


I realise that 5 years is a long time within the technology timescale and that a consumer products are designed to be replaced within a relatively short time, but I don’t play along with that philosophy. My main music machine is a desktop that is more than ten years old. The most valuable thing about it are my three Creamware soundcards, which I love and are the hub of my studio. I haven’t updated my motherboard because it is not easy finding one with at least 3 PCI slots (the old kind) and I am nervous about building my own machine. I can still get the job done and the results are fantastic. Admittedly, it does get frustrating with the under powered CPU by todays standards and not being able to run as many VST tracks as I would like, nevertheless, it will still stay the hub of my studio because I love my Creamware cards so much.

I kind of have to stick within my budget and take advantage of prices while I am in Australia. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t be buying a Mac, but seeing prices are far lower here than in Holland, I figure now is a good time. I don’t have time to save extra or work more etc....

It seems the i7 15" gets the vote, so now I am thinking that perhaps I could buy an older model without a flash drive. They are substantially cheaper. The sales person tells me that they are much slower machines and are obsolete. Do you agree?

If you can still find them in the refurbished section of the Apple store, the 2012 MBP 15" i7 nonRetina is still fully upgradable. This saves tones of money on RAM and SSDs. Also the battery can still be exchanged later. The last real pro laptop Apple built IMO because of these factors.

[Stromkraft]

It seems the i7 15" gets the vote, so now I am thinking that perhaps I could buy an older model without a flash drive. They are substantially cheaper. The sales person tells me that they are much slower machines and are obsolete. Do you agree?

No, any Quadcore i7 (4 cores!) machine is fine. but again it would be false economy to not get a third party SSD like OWC Mercury from Macsales (which might not be compatible yet). I still maintain you need 1tb minimum. It's your money though and maybe you can find a tradeoff that works for you. I see none even as money is tight. Just have to sell off gear I don't need.

[Hypomixolydian]

Hello

I ended up buying the 15" i7 Quad Core 2.5GHz model with a 512 Gb flash drive. In essence the top of the range Macbook Pro. I took advantage of the Boxing Day sales. They were going 10% cheaper than usual. Plus when I return to Holland I get a 10% GST tax refund at the airport. If I had bought the same in Holland it would have cost 911 euros more, so a substantial saving!! I'll also get an iPad Air 2 while I am here, again much cheaper.

It is my birthday tomorrow, so I have treated myself to a nice present. I didn't want to spend so much. My original intention was to go for the top of the range 13 inch model, so I have spent much more than I intended. Oh well. I took advantage of the pricing while I could. Plus I took onboard the responses I got here which unanimously said go for the i7.

By the way, the sales person did say there is only a marginal difference in power between the two models, but he didn't know much about running music production tools.

My next question is, do I buy Apple care or not?

Thank you all for your input.

[M-bition]

Very good choice.
I think marginal difference is more in real-life. When it comes to music production and stressing out the cpu, you want every power you can get and then you will notice the difference.

[Tarekith]

Congrats, that's an excellent laptop, typing on the exact same thing myself right now I personally don't have any issues with only 512GB of onboard storage, though certainly a nice 3TB USB3 external HD helps too.

Happy birthday too!

[Stromkraft]

Hello

I ended up buying the 15" i7 Quad Core 2.5GHz model with a 512 Gb flash drive.

My next question is, do I buy Apple care or not?

That's a good purchase. I recommend Applecare, but you actually don't have to purchase that before just under a year has passed. Don't forget though. You can register your machine with your Apple ID now if you want.

[Tarekith]

Yeah, if you're going to have it for awhile, probably best to get Applecare just in case, parts are expensive on these laptops

[Machinesworking]

The hard drives aren't built in, but the RAM and CPU are.

IMO go with the i7 and 16GB of RAM.

I've downloaded Live and installed the demo at Apple stores! Ran hardware tests etc.

[Machinesworking]

You have one year after purchasing to get Apple care, the basic warranty covers 90 days of phone service as well.
I generally wait until the last moment to get Apple Care to stretch out costs, but this year I messed up and waited too long. So I guess I would advise not waiting until the last month you can get it before purchasing.

[Stromkraft]

The hard drives aren't built in

That's not the issue. The issue is there are so far no fully compatible alternative SSDs for these 2014 models. Apple closed the door with Yosemite, so no "hacked" third party driver or trim solutions work, unless Apple OK them. Also Macsales said recently that they have no SSD models for these new Macbook Pros. Hopefully they will build them soon, but there's no guarantee.

[Machinesworking]

The hard drives aren't built in

That's not the issue. The issue is there are so far no fully compatible alternative SSDs for these 2014 models. Apple closed the door with Yosemite, so no "hacked" third party driver or trim solutions work, unless Apple OK them. Also Macsales said recently that they have no SSD models for these new Macbook Pros. Hopefully they will build them soon, but there's no guarantee.

https://gist.github.com/return1/4058659

Wills and ways, where there is a will, and all that. IMO Trim is an overtly mocked up concern, but people are getting Trim to work on Yosemite without a dedicated program like Trim Enabler so there ya go.