Mac vs. Pc laptops

[by-pass]

Hi,
I am old computer geeks (network and audio). after few year with windows(2000 , xp or wathever) .... I have buy one ibook g3 (2 years ago)....From this moment I never have more probs with my audio, or with stability, never remade the os , and no viruse...and work every day without pro...With my pc every few month...problem with stability, the new viruse or wathever... It's difficult to made one good audio work if you have some new pros.

For me the cpu speed or the price is not the most important; the most important is the OS stability....and the facility to made one good work.

OSX is the best one.... XP is just made for office and have the new week trojan........
Now I have resales my Pc....and i refuse to touch(helpdesk) one pc with windows (not linux pc)
The power is one thing but if you dont have the stability, thats sucks!

[AdamJay]

as many folks here whose PCs are dedicated DAWS will tell you, dont connect to the internet. its quite simple.

and if you must connect that machine to the internet, use a good antivirus application that has its definitions updated frequently, and use Mozilla Firefox as your browser rather than Internet Explorer - that will prevent spyware.

or hell.. for the $1100 you save by getting the PC, buy yourself the iBook and use that for Internet. At the end of the day you'll still have twice as much power for Ableton Live.

[by-pass]

Pc is change this (ex: restriction about mp3 encoding for xp), use this, put this(ex: firefox,asio for all, antivirus), never go here(ex: internet), dont made this, upgrade carrefully (sp2) , and after al this shit .... is the time to work with your laptop for fews month and hope (maybe pray) for dont have any new problem ........

Is one way....

I prefer push the start button...and play ....My times is too expansive for windows ..

[ms]

whatever you'll decide . . .

apple will release new g4 powerbooks around october (rumors say up to 1,8 ghz) -

working on apple desktops & powerbooks for about 15years I've decided to buy a ibm thinkpad for live and my native stuff. I've also got a desktop pc in my studio know. up to now I can't complain. sold my powerbooks . . .

aswell as others I'm waiting for the g5 powerbooks and quite surely get one. I realized, that if you can afford it, it's been a pleasure to work on both platforms mac & pc.

so:
if you need a lot of performance go for a pc - stability is not a mac only.
if you like osx and apple, go for a powerbook - but don't expect to much.

advice:
get a pc laptop around 1500-2000 $/€ (thinkpads are ok)
make some music
make some money
buy a g5 powerbook, when it'll be released
then use your pc for live visuals etc.


ms

[FaX-01]

Hey don't what drugs your PC is on mate .......
Mine works like clockwork 24/7 is all I can say .
No SP2 I don't need it it isn't net connected and doesn't need to be.
Haven't had a crash yet either.
Maybe my PC thinks it's a Mac .

[AdamJay]

Pc is change this (ex: restriction about mp3 encoding for xp), use this, put this(ex: firefox,asio for all, antivirus), never go here(ex: internet), dont made this, upgrade carrefully (sp2) , and after al this shit .... is the time to work with your laptop for fews month and hope (maybe pray) for dont have any new problem ........

Is one way....

I prefer push the start button...and play ....My times is too expansive for windows ..

time is money mate. $1100 is alot of time.
it takes 20 minutes to install and configure firefox, asio4all, antivirus, etc.
itunes is free for windows, just as it is for mac. Use it for your encoding.

i'd rather invest the 20 minutes, keep my $1100, and retain my 2x performance ratio.

as far as stability goes. NOTHING is less stable than having to run Ableton at 90% CPU with no headroom when the PC a thousand dollars less can do the same thing at 50% CPU.

[by-pass]

I just speak about 10 years experience with pc and mac(Professionnal It )..... and I am really happy for you ....
But look or ask electronic artists like: plastikman, dimbiman, luciano, villalobos, akufen, hawtin, cabanne, sieg uber die sonne, Max(from sun electric)and many others,
all this people use mac....

[FaX-01]

Yeah I know they do but so what ......... lol
Kraftwerk use Sony Vaio's
Seriously anyone who used a PC Based laptop 4 years ago would have been weeping non-stop.
They have improved considerably since then thank God .....
This was one of the reasons why I'd been hardware only until this year myself.
I can in all honesty say my DAW has rock solid and stable performance.
At the end of the day you pick the platform you like best.
I don't think one is better than the other myself (having used Mac's for sequencing back in the early 90's / Atari's in the late 80's).
I wouldn't put mine one the NET - call me paranoid but I wouldn't test fate.
I just think the G4 P/B is a bit behind the 8 ball at the moment (power wise).
It does not however inhibit you from doing great music.
LIVE 4 is pretty much Live 4 regardless of the platform it's on.
I would not have troubles freakin' stuff out on a PB either.
I'm just waiting for Metasynth for OSX so i have an excuse to get an ibook for the studio .

[SinisterDexter]

Nice to see an absence of trolls in this thread

I run a fast Athlon desktop (cheap) and a TiBook (mobile). However the old 667 TiBook is showing its age and I need a replacement soon. I vastly prefer OSX to Windows but Apple REALLY need to get their collective fingers out and unleash a G5 mobile otherwise it's looking like a Centrino machine for me... The Sony Vaio A with its 1920x1200 17" screen looks fantastic (let's face it you need as much screen space as possible with Live).

Finally, anyone using a G5 iMac yet?

[robin]

i used a dell inspiron 8200 with xp pro for a while with live. worked quite well though XP is not really my cup of tea (it's a pretty stable OS though despite what some may say)

i have just recently replaced it with a 12" powerbook (1.33GHz, 5400 disk opton) and i couldn't be happier. it could stand to be maybe 50% faster but the memory is only 256 and that isn't enough for real work. i love osx, it just suits the way i work. part of this is that most of my computing has ben done on unix OS's (SGI's Irix, Linux etc )

one thing that i do notice though is that the occasional thing that goes wrong with all OS s is a bit easier to fix in OSX vs. XP.

[shaneblyth]

some folks simply demand more power for Ableton Live 4 than a 1.5ghz G4 or even a dual G5 can give for the amount of money you spend.

you say "I dont really see that you would save alot if anything on a PC/MAC price setup"

Well, i am here to show you

On the Apple side you get:
Apple Powerbook G4
• 1.5GHz PowerPC G4 with 64MB Graphics Memory
• 512MB DDR333 SDRAM - 2x256 SO-DIMMs
• 80GB Ultra ATA drive @ 5400 rpm
• SuperDrive (4x DVD-R/CD-RW)
• AirPort Extreme Card
• OSX Panther & iLife '04
• 15.2-inch Wide TFT (1280x800) Display
• Gigabit Ethernet, FW400, FW800, USB2
Subtotal $2,549.00 Plus tax and shipping. 1 Year Warranty Included. Yes Apple.com does charge sales tax if there is an Apple store anywhere in your state. At an average state sales tax of 6%, thats an additional $153 in tax.


On the PC Side (HP) you get:
HP Pavilion zv5000z series notebook (hpshopping.com)
• AMD Athlon(TM) 64 3000+ 1.80 GHz with 64MB Graphics Memory
• 512MB DDR333 SDRAM - 2x256 SO-DIMMs
• 80GB Ultra ATA drive @ 5400 rpm
• SuperDrive (4x DVD-R/CD-RW)
• 802.11b/g WLAN
• Microsoft XP Home & MS Works/Money
• 15.4" WXGA (1280x800) Display
• 12 Cell Lithium Ion Battery
• 10/100 Ethernet, FW400, USB2, 5-in-1 Card Reader
$1,449.00 Total. No Tax. Free Shipping. 1 Year Warranty Included. Plus a $50 mail-in rebate if you so choose to use it.

The Live 4 Performance Test ( http://www.ableton.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12375 )which has benchmarked Ableton Live 4's performance on more than 100 machines has shown us the Apple G4 1.5ghz Powerbook runs Ableton Live 4 at only 55% the effeciency of the HP with Athlon 64 3000+.

The machines are quite comparable specification wise. Same HD / Ram / Super Drive / WiFi / Screen / Video Ram ... even Battery Life. The HP gains a card reader at the expense of FW800 and Gigabit Ethernet and vice versa.

So, it really comes down to Operating System preference. If you prefer to use The FASTEST available Macintosh Laptop, you are essentially paying $1100 (plus tax and shipping) MORE for a machine that performs in Ableton Live 4 just over half as well as the PC equivalent.

I love MacOS, beleive me. the improvements from Jaguar to Panther were just amazing! but is the OS worth $1100 ? Or would you rather buy the HP, save $1100 to gain performance by nearly 2x, and pay $39 for Norton Antivirus (hell you could use the rebate for that!)?

(just for arguments sake, add $100 on the HP to get an Athlon 64 3400, this will perform equivalent to a $3,000 Dual 2.5ghz G5. Thats 1/2 the price for a PC with equivalent performance to Apple's best offering. AND its a laptop rather than a desktop. Or, add $200 to get an Athlon 64 3700, this will perform BETTER than a $3,000 Dual 2.5ghz G5. )

I've owned both Macs and PCs for years and the whole "stability" issue died after the Win98, 98SE, ME b.s. They are both equally stable platforms. Anyone buying a computer and using ableton live is going to soon find out that there are no differences between the Mac and Windows versions of Ableton Live.

you can always seemingly get a cheaper pc... but does it have firewire and hi speed wifi and dvi and svideo and ilife apps and the fact that it doesnt loose it's value as quickly and alls those other comments i made.
less tech support .. and simply put the duel 2.5 G5 is alot quicker than a duel 3.2 Xenon if you want a speed somaprison...
too many people get emotional over this sort of stuff...
yes u can build buy a cheaper pc and be very happy... and if thats what works for a person then there is no argument from me..
Until I bought a Mac and started using it a month ago I would never consider it but now i would hate to go back..
Has anyone here driven a BMW or a Mercedes and spent a fortune more than a Ford or Chevy..
They still do the same thing buty funny enough people buy them and love them and dont wanna go back..
I assume this is a sinilar reson why MACs exist and some people love em...I personally dont care what people use to make music.. my friend has Sonar on a pc and loves and good on em... I just like my Mac now
Money is not everything....and like I said it is a stated fact that in the long term the gap in price is non existant... hey sell your BMW when it is 5 years old and see what you get for it.. you loose alot more on your chevy i can tell you....

[AdamJay]

Yes it has firewire, yes it has hi speed wifi. i mentioned both in the specs.
and yes it has DVI via the same style break out connector the 12" PB uses. Yes it also has onboard svideo. Tech support - I've had far better experiences with HP phone support than Apple's phone support.

yea the dual 2.5ghz beats the dual 3.2 Xeon (that is how its spelled by the way) in OFFICE APPLICATIONS. We are talking about Ableton Live 4.
Please look at the Live 4 Performance Test. I don't do Slideshow presentations on stage, i perform music on stage, i'm gonna look at the Live 4 benchmarks before the Winstone benchmarks.

the reason PC's depreciate in value faster is because they get faster sooner. Apple announces a PowerMac G5 and its not until 5 months later do they actually SHIP it. If you don't think that is fucked up, then i've got some prime swampland realestate to sell you. In that same 5 months AMD gains 500mhz. A PC that cost $1400 in May is now $1050. But the Dual 2.5ghz G5 that people ordered in May for $3,000 doesn't ship to most of them till October and Apple still takes $3,000 off their VISA in October. In the words of Chris Rock - "That Ain't Right!"

The BMW vs. Ford analogy is flawed, especially since we are talking about Ableton Live Performance. Unless a BMW's top speed is truley only 55% the top speed of a Ford.

you can always seemingly get a cheaper pc... but does it have firewire and hi speed wifi and dvi and svideo and ilife apps and the fact that it doesnt loose it's value as quickly and alls those other comments i made.
less tech support .. and simply put the duel 2.5 G5 is alot quicker than a duel 3.2 Xenon if you want a speed somaprison...
too many people get emotional over this sort of stuff...
yes u can build buy a cheaper pc and be very happy... and if thats what works for a person then there is no argument from me..
Until I bought a Mac and started using it a month ago I would never consider it but now i would hate to go back..
Has anyone here driven a BMW or a Mercedes and spent a fortune more than a Ford or Chevy..
They still do the same thing buty funny enough people buy them and love them and dont wanna go back..
I assume this is a sinilar reson why MACs exist and some people love em...I personally dont care what people use to make music.. my friend has Sonar on a pc and loves and good on em... I just like my Mac now
Money is not everything....and like I said it is a stated fact that in the long term the gap in price is non existant... hey sell your BMW when it is 5 years old and see what you get for it.. you loose alot more on your chevy i can tell you....

[SinisterDexter]

Apple announces a PowerMac G5 and its not until 5 months later do they actually SHIP it. If you don't think that is fucked up, then i've got some prime swampland realestate to sell you. In that same 5 months AMD gains 500mhz. A PC that cost $1400 in May is now $1050. But the Dual 2.5ghz G5 that people ordered in May for $3,000 doesn't ship to most of them till October and Apple still takes $3,000 off their VISA in October. In the words of Chris Rock - "That Ain't Right!"

Slightly off-topic, but it has to be said that the case for Apple to switch to an x86 architecture has never been stronger. Apple may shift a whole lotta iPods but their sideline in computers needs a major rethink. Yes, OSX is a beaut and yes, they give us great industrial design - but the hardware is slow, outdated and expensive. The G5 may look good today but it will look as dated as the G4 pretty soon, unless IBM start making some real progress with G5 development. Apple knows this too hence their internal x86 port of OSX - "Marklar". When they will sort their shit out remains to be seen, but it can't be soon enough for me...

[shaneblyth]

what a shame that we get into the same .. my dad can beat your dad stuff up
didnt the guy who asked a few basic questions deseve a level headed reply we are getting into throwing mud as usal and i think we should stop how is this sort of comment suppose to be helping someone to make music on a computer... i would say it doesnt do anything to help him at all...

if you want to use unix on a pc system them grab a version of linux..
i have used it and apart from a lack of software it is ok.
but apple has polished the heck out of it...
comparing mhz on a pc and on a mac is just crazy cause it doesnt work that way on a mac.... unfortunately unless you have used a mac and pc for a long time it is hard to explain.. I think it is kinda like say my car has 300hp and it is a 4 cyclinder.. and a v8 has the same but the torque figue is what you are missing and in real life the v8 300hp will beat a 300hp 4 cyclinder because of the huge difference in torque...
like comparing apples and oranges and yesthat was a joke.
please people can we not live together and feel threatened because one of us loves his pc and another his mac... I like to give credit to pc's and macs where it is due... neither are perfect and both can do the job all be it in another way.... this seems to get into what I call predudice... white people are better than black or black better than yellows (chinese)
what aload of rubbish they maybe different but have something different to offer and quite franky if it wasnt for MACs there would not be a pc system like there is today.. most decent pc things jhave been taken fom macs originally... not all but most....

Apple announces a PowerMac G5 and its not until 5 months later do they actually SHIP it. If you don't think that is fucked up, then i've got some prime swampland realestate to sell you. In that same 5 months AMD gains 500mhz. A PC that cost $1400 in May is now $1050. But the Dual 2.5ghz G5 that people ordered in May for $3,000 doesn't ship to most of them till October and Apple still takes $3,000 off their VISA in October. In the words of Chris Rock - "That Ain't Right!"

Slightly off-topic, but it has to be said that the case for Apple to switch to an x86 architecture has never been stronger. Apple may shift a whole lotta iPods but their sideline in computers needs a major rethink. Yes, OSX is a beaut and yes, they give us great industrial design - but the hardware is slow, outdated and expensive. The G5 may look good today but it will look as dated as the G4 pretty soon, unless IBM start making some real progress with G5 development. Apple knows this too hence their internal x86 port of OSX - "Marklar". When they will sort their shit out remains to be seen, but it can't be soon enough for me...

[rikhyray]

I do not love my pc, never loved my Mac. I loved couple of women in my life ( I still love most of them), I am in love again , love my friends, humanity in general and in particular, ocean, mountains... damn pc ? mac ?
Come one is there nobody, nothing around you to love just the poor bunch of wires? Someone may say Bill Gates is a prick, someone Macoid are idiots, so what ? If I use one or the other should I feel better or worse then a rest. For heaven and your sake open your eyes , mind and perhaps ............heart?