anyone for war? pc notebook or c2d macbook/macbookpro? GO!

Pasha · Post by **Pasha** » Thu Jan 04, 2007 12:45 pm

rikhyray wrote:I am musician so there is always musthave or like2have to buy but if I am to throw a grand I rather buy something I could live without but can have good use and fun with like say Little Phatty (I hate that name) compact mixer with motorised faders like Yamaha etc, etc then stupid bunch of wires that notebook is. Regatding taxes it is a bit of a problem with computer, according to German laws i can do it only once in 3 years. Germany is crazy this way, there is thick book specifying every item trumpet or piano, even depending if you teach, perform etc. This time I will say that the new one is for the video otherwise I cant get tax relief for a computer till 2008.
Good synth, mic, headphone will serve for years if not decades, any notebook after 4 years is just junk that probably soon we will have to pay to dispose.
So since it seems I can get somthing that can work for me exactly same way for 1000 Euro less I will go for it, and maybe even get that bloody Phatty.
Honestly I am not interested in females who would feel uncontrioable attraction to me if I sit in Starbucks with most expensive Mac ever. I get better coffee by Italians and if I work , I work, in a park ,coffee shop or studio I dont want no bitches to bother me anyway.
I looked at the Dell site but do not find any 12,13 or 14 notebook with real graphic card.

Thank you to love my country's coffee.

My MacBook is to be used in house only....

Back on topic I didn't know Germans had those restrictions on taxes.
At this point you are perfectly right. Go for whatever is about 1000 Euros (you can even find good C2D 1.66 Ghz there) expand memory and get XP until Vista software will be ready. Sound like a good strategy.
Apple brings in a problem we EU citizen often forget to mention.
They apply 1 Year warranty instead of two. If you want more you have to buy Apple Care, this means more money.
Conversely brands such Toshiba, Packard Bell, Lg, Sony, Acer and Fujizu Siemens, offer 24 Months warranty, like the EU law provides.
I did not buy AppleCare. I'll think it over. I have got 1 year time.
Get me updated if you like

- Best
- Pasha

s1n6ul4r1ty · Post by **s1n6ul4r1ty** » Thu Jan 04, 2007 12:57 pm

Hey Live Peeps...

Thanks for the educated opinions and comparisons, I too am about to upgrade, though I have a budget of 1700 EUR. From My research, I have decided to go with a Dell 6400. I was considering a mac for the same price range but the Dell gave me more performance for the money. Please correct me if you find a mac with same price and comparable feautres.

I'm going to buy:

Dell Inspiron 6400 customized:

Intel Core 2 Duo T7400 2.16GHZ processor
Win Xp Pro
2048MB 667MHZ DDR2 RAM
160GB 5400rpm sata HD
8xDVD-RW +/- drive
Intel Pro Wireless 3945 802.11a/b/g Mini PCI Wireless LAN Card for Core 2 Duo Processors
256MB ATI RADEON X1400 graphics card
blue tooth
free case

total: 1577.65 EURO including tax.

I would prefer a mac aesthetically, and I love OSX but I've also been pretty happy with windows for the past year and I need whatever is going to run Live with lots of softsynth instances and voices at highest CPU performance.

i'm going to buy this within the next 2 or 3 days so your input will deifintely help since you are LIVE users.

thanks!

rikhyray · Post by **rikhyray** » Thu Jan 04, 2007 3:00 pm

I am having my Mauro right now! In german shops you get only Illy, Lavazzas but a Cuban musician tipped me about Mauro and it became my fav. We have strong Italian community here lots of shops, not only Italian but for Italians so you can get real things.
Anyway dont BS me that the style factor wasnt there deciding for Mac, and why not ? Why to be expose to ugliness por gusto?
I advice anyone with >1500 budget to streach and get MBP.
Vaio or any other higher end PC only if you expert in tweaking, since out of the box they are all full of shit.

huffcw · Post by **huffcw** » Thu Jan 04, 2007 3:10 pm

s1n6ul4r1ty wrote:Hey Live Peeps...

Thanks for the educated opinions and comparisons, I too am about to upgrade, though I have a budget of 1700 EUR. From My research, I have decided to go with a Dell 6400. I was considering a mac for the same price range but the Dell gave me more performance for the money. Please correct me if you find a mac with same price and comparable feautres.

I'm going to buy:

Dell Inspiron 6400 customized:

Intel Core 2 Duo T7400 2.16GHZ processor
Win Xp Pro
2048MB 667MHZ DDR2 RAM
160GB 5400rpm sata HD
8xDVD-RW +/- drive
Intel Pro Wireless 3945 802.11a/b/g Mini PCI Wireless LAN Card for Core 2 Duo Processors
256MB ATI RADEON X1400 graphics card
blue tooth
free case

total: 1577.65 EURO including tax.

I would prefer a mac aesthetically, and I love OSX but I've also been pretty happy with windows for the past year and I need whatever is going to run Live with lots of softsynth instances and voices at highest CPU performance.

i'm going to buy this within the next 2 or 3 days so your input will deifintely help since you are LIVE users.

thanks!

If I were you I would consider the D820 available through the Dell small business section if you want to easily add a second internal drive and if you want to use a D-Dock docking station (for PCI, additional hard drive, additional port expansion). These features are not available on the Inspiron models. The D820 will cost you a bit more for those specs, but it may be worth it if you think you may need the expansion option at some point. Also, I would get the high resolution screen and a 7200rpm drive (even if it means sacraficing some size).

http://www.dell.com/content/products/ca ... sort=price

rikhyray · Post by **rikhyray** » Thu Jan 04, 2007 4:21 pm

Just checked that Dell link.That would suit me perfectly, great price but European Dell wont have it- no real graphic card option and for 800$ more!!!!

Pasha · Post by **Pasha** » Thu Jan 04, 2007 5:53 pm

rikhyray wrote:I am having my Mauro right now! In german shops you get only Illy, Lavazzas but a Cuban musician tipped me about Mauro and it became my fav. We have strong Italian community here lots of shops, not only Italian but for Italians so you can get real things.
Anyway dont BS me that the style factor wasnt there deciding for Mac, and why not ? Why to be expose to ugliness por gusto?
I advice anyone with >1500 budget to streach and get MBP.
Vaio or any other higher end PC only if you expert in tweaking, since out of the box they are all full of shit.

I didn't try to BS you, sorry if I gave that impression!
I'm a very direct person.....
Yes style factor counted a bit, but believe me it wasn't the main reason.
A friend of mine gave the occasion to test a Mac Mini (see the link in this thread somewhere) and the results with an 1.66 Ghz Mac Mini Core Duo were so good compared to my PC that I almost decided to go buy one. What stopped me was the unavailability of a compatible KVM switch (it would have taken 20 days to have one). Then I saw on the Ableton Forum that rumors told MacBook Pro and maybe MacBooks would have received the iMac C2D treatment... so the waiting began..and in the meantime I had a very good experience with an Hackintosh....
I was lucky Macbook C2D were really released. I was tired to nanny my PC, treat it live a Level 4 Bio room and I wanted a Mac....believe me, mostly for OS X ease of use and stability. Sure style counts, I think that Fedora 6 is more stylish than Mac OS X..but Live has no Linux version and probably never will. I'm trying to spare money maybe in a year I can get me a Mac Pro....when my PC definitively dies, at the moment is running Fedora 6 and I can cross access both with VNC or Xserver tricks.
I've been in Frankfurt once 5 years ago, nice city! I hope I can be there again!

- Best
- Pasha

Pasha · Post by **Pasha** » Thu Jan 04, 2007 6:42 pm

s1n6ul4r1ty wrote:Hey Live Peeps...

Thanks for the educated opinions and comparisons, I too am about to upgrade, though I have a budget of 1700 EUR. From My research, I have decided to go with a Dell 6400. I was considering a mac for the same price range but the Dell gave me more performance for the money. Please correct me if you find a mac with same price and comparable feautres.

I'm going to buy:

Dell Inspiron 6400 customized:

Intel Core 2 Duo T7400 2.16GHZ processor
Win Xp Pro
2048MB 667MHZ DDR2 RAM
160GB 5400rpm sata HD
8xDVD-RW +/- drive
Intel Pro Wireless 3945 802.11a/b/g Mini PCI Wireless LAN Card for Core 2 Duo Processors
256MB ATI RADEON X1400 graphics card
blue tooth
free case

total: 1577.65 EURO including tax.

I would prefer a mac aesthetically, and I love OSX but I've also been pretty happy with windows for the past year and I need whatever is going to run Live with lots of softsynth instances and voices at highest CPU performance.

i'm going to buy this within the next 2 or 3 days so your input will deifintely help since you are LIVE users.

thanks!

Hi,

A very good machine!
In the same budget you can only go for the MacBook White C2D 2.0Ghz expanded to 2GB RAM and 80GB 5400 RPM Disk + Superdrive for 1499 Euros. With the spared 177 Euros you can buy for 139 Euros a FW drive from Lacie 250GB 7200 RPM. If you add the option for a 120GB drive you will reach 1659 Euros.
Simply put Apple has nothing comparable in that price range. Probably Dell's do not have a 6 pin FW port because like many others implement 4 pin FW ports. The Inspirons build quality seems lesser than the Business models, but they gave you more for the price.
I have done your same consideration 2 months ago and I decided to go for Apple, because I wanted a change.
With that money you can even have a 7200 RPM internal drive.
My take after 5 weeks is that I had only one big glitch but I was playing with kernel modules so I know who's to blame

.
Live is running smooth, the VST plugin that was givin me nightmares in windows now works fine as an AU. I really appreciated OS X easy approach to things and peripherals. Coreaudio is very good, even if probably VISTA will catch up sooner or later. My FW Behringer Interface now does not stop in the middle of song hanging Live..

- Hope it helps
- Best
- Pasha

rikhyray · Post by **rikhyray** » Thu Jan 04, 2007 8:46 pm

Was just kidding about BS, and you prove my point, that sense of style is subconscious formed from childhood, and in longer run through generations. Germans are masters of efficiency, precision etc, that is why I drive German car, use German software, they just work right.
what do you think about this one from Schwaben land ( definitely the best people in the world to buy something used from them), amazing he provides even photo of the scratch what would be max sensible price?
http://cgi.ebay.de/MacBook-Pro-1-83-GHZ ... dZViewItem

Pasha · Post by **Pasha** » Fri Jan 05, 2007 7:43 am

rikhyray wrote:Was just kidding about BS, and you prove my point, that sense of style is subconscious formed from childhood, and in longer run through generations. Germans are masters of efficiency, precision etc, that is why I drive German car, use German software, they just work right.
what do you think about this one from Schwaben land ( definitely the best people in the world to buy something used from them), amazing he provides even photo of the scratch what would be max sensible price?
http://cgi.ebay.de/MacBook-Pro-1-83-GHZ ... dZViewItem

I know no German....

That model is the 1st generation MBP. The RAM expansion is odd for it does not use equal sticks thus (maybe) loosing dual channel performance, as recommended by Apple. However you can add 1 single GB RAM stick at a later time. Compared to C2D you'll probably take a performance hit, but for the price...You can still find this model on some store (not Apple) at 1800 Euros (1GB Ram, 100 GB HDD). Let's imagine the worst scenario. Hdd has to be changed, you'll add 1GB Ram. Hdd is about 99 Euros Ram should be about 134 Euros (corsair) so add about 250 and you are still under 1000 Euros.
Some 1st generation MB/MBP had some problems, find your way through http://www.appledefects.com/wiki/index. ... acBook_Pro to get an idea.
Personally I never bought on eBay and I never bought used hardware. I prefer to spare some money (this takes time) and get it new, especially to get advantage of the warranty, even if in Apple's case is reduced to 1 year. Keep in mind that someone on this forum, from Denmark was able to obtain warranty after 1 year with a smooth legal action. EU laws should be taken care of. Performance it's wise is a good machine. You won't take advantage of Leopard, but just like XP/VISTA you might not want to upgrade OS soon.
It sounds strange that the price is so low,should be higher. For my German is zero, did the guy explained why he sells it? It would be good to know.

- Best
- Pasha

rikhyray · Post by **rikhyray** » Fri Jan 05, 2007 9:24 am

It is long till the end of the auction , any serious buyers wait till last minuters, seconds. I would never advice anyone to buy anything from Ebay, unless you know the game. I pay only after seeing and trying out, so I would pick it up myself. I guess it would end up around 1000-1300, since for 1500 you can get refubs from dealers.
Today will check in shops what is really available and maybe finish that matter

Pasha · Post by **Pasha** » Fri Jan 05, 2007 11:37 am

rikhyray wrote:It is long till the end of the auction , any serious buyers wait till last minuters, seconds. I would never advice anyone to buy anything from Ebay, unless you know the game. I pay only after seeing and trying out, so I would pick it up myself. I guess it would end up around 1000-1300, since for 1500 you can get refubs from dealers.
Today will check in shops what is really available and maybe finish that matter

As you see I'm not eBay expert....

Good Luck, hope you'll find something either way!

- Best
- Pasha

Lamont · Post by **Lamont** » Fri Jan 05, 2007 1:33 pm

This is a very nice and civil mac vs. pc / pc vs. mac discussion.
Great info guys!

nihad · Post by **nihad** » Fri Jan 05, 2007 1:57 pm

the asus v1j with c2d is what you need .. asus as far as i know is the company that builds apple notebooks, so you basically get a macbookpro for like 3-400 euros less with the possibility to have two HD's internally and a spill safe keyboard

except if you need OS X, then Apfel is the way to go ..

Pasha · Post by **Pasha** » Fri Jan 05, 2007 2:56 pm

nihad wrote:the asus v1j with c2d is what you need .. asus as far as i know is the company that builds apple notebooks, so you basically get a macbookpro for like 3-400 euros less with the possibility to have two HD's internally and a spill safe keyboard
except if you need OS X, then Apfel is the way to go ..

Hi, I've been on the ASUS site and it reports this family models have Core Duo instead C2D, probably they are still not available in my country...
I never had the occasion to test one, but my Desktop PC here has an ASUS inside and it's the third in a row with ASUS mainboard... they are rock solid (If you are savy with overclocking and cooling

)
It would be nice to check how this is rated on http://www.insanelymac.com because if only FW
worked....then you can really have a Mac for less. It might be interesting 'freezing' one on 10.4.8 and then in two/three years time take a look. If you do not need Leopard why update?
Nice suggestion. Please let me know if the specs were wrong on the web site.

- Best
- Pasha

rikhyray · Post by **rikhyray** » Fri Jan 05, 2007 3:56 pm

The Vaio was too good a deal, I missed it and didnt find anything worth buying today. I heard the gossips that Asus builds Sony and Apple but didnt like the model I saw, poor, look like Dell not Vaio or Mac, I may have to go to the shop linked here and see what the better models are like, they are Asus official dealer but for 200 more can get real thing with better processor
http://www.notebook.de/index.php?section=shop&group=456 which anyway looks like the best choice. I think Mac was never so competitive before, 80% pc I saw were outdated, badly build looking like shit.