Choosing a laptop: Macbook vs. Sony Vaio

[aqua_tek]

The vaio is roughly 2 years old. definitely not a core duo. simple centrino cpu.

that's why i wrote:

Although some of this can be attributed to the fact that the vaio is older and has inferior specs.

even so... its always showed a certain degree of instability issues even with the SIMPLEST files on less resource-intensive programs which I dont think should be attributed to age or specs.

So I think its all a combination of things. Age and specs are definitely a factor, but not THE one and only defining factor.

I think a lot of it has to do with Windows. Call me biased, but I think its a very unstable, weak, and overly vulnerable os and i hate it more each passing day.

It's good for other small tasks. But for music making I think windows sucks. Love the VAIO, hate the OS.

[gomi]

Not quite.


Show me a Dell laptop with dual hard drives, with hardware Raid.
In fact, show me a Dell laptop with dual hard drives.


That's right. I didn't think so.

you obviously missed the news about Dell buying Alienware..

[Digi V]

Wow, no offence but it seems you need some serious professional help
This is the weirdest thing I ever read on this forum.

i was making an analogy dipshit, i guess you never took an SAT.

why would you want to touch an ugly bitch that was always sick? kinda like how i feel about windows based computers, their nasty from inside to outside, always have a fucking problem with them.

going on my computer is a pleasure, yes, i surf with ease, i do music with ease.

on a fuckin windows there just always seems to be something extra i gotta fucking tinker with.

dont be lame.

If you wont change you may die very lonely.Your attitude on life is so damn shallow.
You lack any faith in your very self so have to reconfirm it in front of the society ( that really wont give a fuck about such selfish personality as yours)
It is very sad attitude buddy. When a girlfirend is sick, or her tits drop with the age you would just dump her, right ?. Well i doubt if any even "sick and ugly" would even consider to get laid by you.
I know not your fault , you are a victim of the marketing, creating illusion that the goods purchased will bring you real happiness. neither Mac neither fancy car will bring you people affection ( and if at all are those impressed by Apple logo or your Jag really worth it?), check it out giving a glass of water to a leper, work few hours serving food to homeless may give you more satisfaction then rushing to the Apple store to get the new 3D Ipod

boy you really showed me didn't you, pretentious ass.

[rikhyray]

The vaio is roughly 2 years old. definitely not a core duo. simple centrino cpu.

that's why i wrote:

Although some of this can be attributed to the fact that the vaio is older and has inferior specs.

even so... its always showed a certain degree of instability issues even with the SIMPLEST files on less resource-intensive programs which I dont think should be attributed to age or specs.

So I think its all a combination of things. Age and specs are definitely a factor, but not THE one and only defining factor.

I think a lot of it has to do with Windows. Call me biased, but I think its a very unstable, weak, and overly vulnerable os and i hate it more each passing day.

It's good for other small tasks. But for music making I think windows sucks. Love the VAIO, hate the OS.

Click on task manager on your Vaio........what you see How much MB, how many processes ? My performance partition will have less then 70 MB dozen processes, the Internet that meanwhile since over a year I am using for everything but concerts hundred+MB couple of processes more due to network. Sony`s default is around 300MB!!!!
I use Sonys only because it is only alternative to Mac-built quality and non disgusting appearance ( still for me these are just everyday objects not art, shouldnt be ugly but i woudnt call any pretty or elegant). Their default WinPack, all those fake Premiere, Photoshop etc worthless.. Since almost 2 years I use only my own OS, Nlite based on WinXP- quick to reinstall, main thing the useless shit never get installed so no need for any tweaks whatever ever.
I never bothered to use windows till I tried XP, honestly for me Mac or pc makes no difference, except that till now Live was better on pc so I am still using it, till mac gets the shit together.
I dont care too much mac or no Mac once I need more up to date computer I buy what works the best.
Though from what i found out ( outside the forum since it seems close guarded secret here) Macbook is shit for any pro use ( after all Apple is straight about this see the name) due to toy graphic parts.
So definitely Mac Pro is the way to go or vaio, prices seem to be similar, if I had to choose right now it would be Mac since i can get better deal.

[subterFUSE]

Not quite.


Show me a Dell laptop with dual hard drives, with hardware Raid.
In fact, show me a Dell laptop with dual hard drives.


That's right. I didn't think so.

you obviously missed the news about Dell buying Alienware..

That doesn't change the fact you can get higher-end computers from Alienware than you can from Dell.

They may have the same owner, but the products remain differentiated.

Mercedes and Chrysler have the same owner, but one would hardly compare the two.

[DJChrisPaul]

Got to be a mac...OSX vs windows? its a no brainer!

[Verne Andru]

I have a VAIO - it's an older one now, but I've used it quite successfully for both Live [I'm still on rev 2.1.2] and Cubase SX. I've been doing the computer thang since '82 and have worked on most of them. I've preferred the WinTel platform because it's tended to be more bang for the buck, and it hasn't suffered the Apple-religions-fanatic syndrome.

I'm not happy with the VAIO and will never buy another Sony computer. But it has nothing to do with Windows. Most of my apps are windows [I have a Mac with a Media100, but that's dedicated to video].

Jobs did a couple things right with the latest iteration of the Mac. He licensed a solid GUI from a group out of the UK. Then he put it on top of a UNIX core. Perhaps the next smartest thing he did was dumping the whole IBM/Motorola business and is now moving to the more open Intel boxes.

UNIX is the "holy grail" of multi-processing. It is the only truely scalable OS. What this means is that as you add more processors you tend to get a depreciation in overall output - it's not a 1 to 1; 2 processors are not twice as fast, etc. Windows has the problem whereby after 3 or 4 processors the performance actually goes into the negative - add another processor and you run slower than before. UNIX doesn't suffer this problem.

Not sure it will make a big differene with today's computers, but certainly I can see Apple's version of UNIX gaining tremendously and Apple becoming a software company [which they really are now but most don't realize it] in the same way Microsoft is and leaving the hardware to others.

[jamester]

I have a VAIO - it's an older one now, but I've used it quite successfully for both Live [I'm still on rev 2.1.2] and Cubase SX.

I'm not happy with the VAIO and will never buy another Sony computer.

These two statements seem pretty contradictory...why do you not like the Vaio (to the point of never buying another one) after using it succesfully for years? Regardless of what you said about the new Macs, you didn't explain your reasoning behind the Vaio.

Just curious is all...

I might not buy another Vaio simply because I will be looking for best specs for the money, but I have no complaints with the performance/reliability of mine. Maybe I got lucky, but like I said - my Dell was a lemon, the Mac I replaced it with had its DVD drive go up within two years, but my Sony's going on three years rock solid! =)

[Verne Andru]

I have a VAIO - it's an older one now, but I've used it quite successfully for both Live [I'm still on rev 2.1.2] and Cubase SX.

I'm not happy with the VAIO and will never buy another Sony computer.

These two statements seem pretty contradictory...why do you not like the Vaio (to the point of never buying another one) after using it succesfully for years? Regardless of what you said about the new Macs, you didn't explain your reasoning behind the Vaio.

Just curious is all...

I might not buy another Vaio simply because I will be looking for best specs for the money, but I have no complaints with the performance/reliability of mine. Maybe I got lucky, but like I said - my Dell was a lemon, the Mac I replaced it with had its DVD drive go up within two years, but my Sony's going on three years rock solid! =)

Fair question. When I got the VAIO it had Windows ME installed with a sticker saying it was designed for Windows ME and 2000. ME sucked major donkey balls and simply would not run any audio apps - period. When I tried to get a copy of Windows 2000 Sony said the computer only runs ME and they never made a 2000 install disc set. After I yelled at them about the sticker, they shuffled their feet and said I could try installing a regular copy of 2000 but I would get no support. This basically totally turned me off.

I did get 2000 to run and it's generally a pretty solid little box. Except they've got this wierd implentation of software-hardware devices. The modem, in particular, is a software modem that's prone to locking up the whole computer at the most inconvenient times. Since about all I use it for these days is as a web terminal - I'm typing this post on it - about every 2 weeks I get a friendly reminder of how much Sony pisses me off.

[Machinesworking]

I dont care too much mac or no Mac once I need more up to date computer I buy what works the best.
Though from what i found out ( outside the forum since it seems close guarded secret here) Macbook is shit for any pro use ( after all Apple is straight about this see the name) due to toy graphic parts.
So definitely Mac Pro is the way to go or vaio, prices seem to be similar, if I had to choose right now it would be Mac since i can get better deal.

Don't know why I'm bothering repeating this, since you're not paying attention. The macbook has scored better! on the Live 5 performance test out of the box than the macbook pros!
Something to do with the energy saver CPU functions, the slight hit that the integrated graphics does to the CPU keeps the machine running at higher performance levels.
I got a kliller deal on a one month old macbook pro, but if I hadn't I think I might have picked up the macbook. The graphics card isn't any real use in Live anyway.

[rikhyray]

I dont care too much mac or no Mac once I need more up to date computer I buy what works the best.
Though from what i found out ( outside the forum since it seems close guarded secret here) Macbook is shit for any pro use ( after all Apple is straight about this see the name) due to toy graphic parts.
So definitely Mac Pro is the way to go or vaio, prices seem to be similar, if I had to choose right now it would be Mac since i can get better deal.

Don't know why I'm bothering repeating this, since you're not paying attention. The macbook has scored better! on the Live 5 performance test out of the box than the macbook pros!
Something to do with the energy saver CPU functions, the slight hit that the integrated graphics does to the CPU keeps the machine running at higher performance levels.
I got a kliller deal on a one month old macbook pro, but if I hadn't I think I might have picked up the macbook. The graphics card isn't any real use in Live anyway.

Thanks, see I want to hear from Macbook user who uses it professionally for music, preferably with Live. till now I hear only from Mac pro users like you so it does not help. I dont need computer for tests (nothing against it it is usefull). Just interested to hear from someone who runs some 20-30 audio/midi tracks without any problems EVER! What i mean some noise once in a while do bother me and disqualifies a notebook for my use.

[rikhyray]

I have a VAIO - it's an older one now, but I've used it quite successfully for both Live [I'm still on rev 2.1.2] and Cubase SX.

I'm not happy with the VAIO and will never buy another Sony computer.

These two statements seem pretty contradictory...why do you not like the Vaio (to the point of never buying another one) after using it succesfully for years? Regardless of what you said about the new Macs, you didn't explain your reasoning behind the Vaio.

Just curious is all...

I might not buy another Vaio simply because I will be looking for best specs for the money, but I have no complaints with the performance/reliability of mine. Maybe I got lucky, but like I said - my Dell was a lemon, the Mac I replaced it with had its DVD drive go up within two years, but my Sony's going on three years rock solid! =)

Fair question. When I got the VAIO it had Windows ME installed with a sticker saying it was designed for Windows ME and 2000. ME sucked major donkey balls and simply would not run any audio apps - period. When I tried to get a copy of Windows 2000 Sony said the computer only runs ME and they never made a 2000 install disc set. After I yelled at them about the sticker, they shuffled their feet and said I could try installing a regular copy of 2000 but I would get no support. This basically totally turned me off.

I did get 2000 to run and it's generally a pretty solid little box. Except they've got this wierd implentation of software-hardware devices. The modem, in particular, is a software modem that's prone to locking up the whole computer at the most inconvenient times. Since about all I use it for these days is as a web terminal - I'm typing this post on it - about every 2 weeks I get a friendly reminder of how much Sony pisses me off.

of course they lie, told me also a lot of bullshit- I do thinkgs my way and never had any problems, help from Sony support ?, forget about it.

[hambone1]

Got to be a mac...OSX vs windows? its a no brainer!

'No brainer'... just what that Apple marketing team wants!

[subterFUSE]

Got to be a mac...OSX vs windows? its a no brainer!

'No brainer'... just what that Apple marketing team wants!

That's why they play that "Fisher-Price: My First Piano" music on the TV ads.

[dcs]

If you have time, wait until the model you want has the new generation of Intel chips - Core 2 Duo (aka Merom). Apparently they run cooler and draw less power.