Dupion Posted May 8, 2006 Share Posted May 8, 2006 hey i know this is an age old debate but i need a new laptop and was wondering what people recommend- a 15" macbook pro or a 15" PC i'd be running ableton live 5, d'cota, audacity and perhaps battery at a later stage plus i'd eventually like to get an external soundcard and midi footpedal and do the whole live looping thing. i've been eyeing up the evesham voyager c550 which comes with Intel® Core™ Duo processor T2400 1.83GHz,1024MB DDR-2 RAM, 80GB 5400rpm hard disk, 256MB ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 graphics etc. as i've heard good things about it...it's by no means a definite though i'm willing to pay for whatever's best but the fact that the evesham is approx £350 cheaper than the mac got me thinkin (i could upgrade it to 2ghz ram and a 2ghz core duo processor for £1301 total) both sales people in the apple shop recommended i upgrade the macbook to 1ghz ram - any idea if this is necessary? i guess i can try it first and upgrade later... any advice appreciated! ta. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gizmo Posted May 8, 2006 Share Posted May 8, 2006 More memory = faster computer. OS X is RAM hungry. I've got 1gig in mine and it works just fine. I don't want to get into a PC/Mac debate. The waters are muddied even more now with the ability to run Windows on an Intel Mac. For that reason alone, having the best of both worlds on one machine would make me buy a Mac even more these days. Although it's only a matter of time before PCs can OFFICIALLY run OS X. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djdiggla Posted May 8, 2006 Share Posted May 8, 2006 I hear that the duo-processors arn't as fast as you would expect. I have a 12" G4 Powerbook with a gig of ram... and to tell truth I'm kinda disapointed... (serato works, but final scratch would never inatilaze, also acts sluggish sometimes and I still occasionally get the "spinning beach-ball 'o death") If the G5 powerbooks are out that might be pretty tight (not sure if they are released yet)... I'd for sure get a 15" tho b/c you have two ram slots--I only have one on my 12" so I'm maxed out at 1 gig instead of being able to drop in two in that biiiich. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djdiggla Posted May 8, 2006 Share Posted May 8, 2006 yeah... Giz is right... it's so freaking weird that soon both systems will just be different flavors of linux. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
$a!n+ Posted May 8, 2006 Share Posted May 8, 2006 Can someone help me with how to use ableton. I have a copy but I cant seem to crack it or find a serial. I need help. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dupion Posted May 8, 2006 Author Share Posted May 8, 2006 i've heard that ableton is a bastard to crack even if you do get a keygen or whatever that works (and there are a couple of dif. kinds of passwords you have to enter) after a certain time the program just figures out that it's cracked and shuts down on you- all you ever get is a message summat like ' a copyright violation has been identified - please contact ableton technical support' every time you load it up and it will just shut itself down then. dunno how it does it - you could search for a solution online but i've never heard of one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dupion Posted May 8, 2006 Author Share Posted May 8, 2006 cheers for the laptop advice too people though i didn't think the core duo processors were meant to be outright faster but they are meant to be better at multi tasking etc. although apple claim the macbook pro is up to 4 times faster than a g4. i'm not convinced about the boot camp thing either - i've heard horror stories about people using it to have XP on their mac and then never being able to return to osx urrrghh - it all seems such a huge grey area guess i can't go too far wrong with either (hopefully) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liam Posted May 8, 2006 Share Posted May 8, 2006 Are you middle class? If so, buy a Mac from PC World then drive it home in your range rover. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djdiggla Posted May 8, 2006 Share Posted May 8, 2006 LOL.... if ur driving a range rover across the pond it means ur big-balling not middle class! Guess over there you'd be pimping if ya had a chrysler! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liam Posted May 8, 2006 Share Posted May 8, 2006 The Range Rover covers both angles in the UK. It does the school run, but still carries that 'oh look, a drug dealer has just arrived' status that used to be reserved solely for blacked out 5-series' Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djdiggla Posted May 8, 2006 Share Posted May 8, 2006 The models are sexy as fuck in the Mac range... I know theres sexy PCs but theres something about Macs..... Just using a PC it's a bit i dunno , disposable, i can't find the right word, but you press buttons on Mac n it's just real solid engineering (touch wood) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I agree with that--Mac (esp laptops) just have a great look and feel... All PC laptops just seem so cheap. I like to compare Macs to Jags and PCs to hondas... you can sup-up a PC for really cheap and make it fast as fuck, but it's always gonna be a rice-burner. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bubba Posted May 9, 2006 Share Posted May 9, 2006 (edited) I'm gonna underline that comment. I run an acer travelmate laptop. it's shitty middle class. I've extended the ram to one gig, so after I did that - it was fast as fuck...then like a week later...slow as fuck. Now - my mom's 256ram seems faster than mine, then again I drain my system with like ten programmes open at the same time howveer...............................it's worth paying more for a laptop if you wanna make music on it - for the simple reason: it's built better. Man my fucking graphic card makes fucking sounds!!!!! And you can pic up the static through my external soundcard. As soon as you hook up the powerstation you've got this wonderfull 50hz humming shit that gets recorded in the background. Then my harddrive died on me two weeks before my exams last summer - so that was that for my summaries, thank fucking god for the external HD. but still, what I'm saying is that I just somehow trust MAC more - they seem sterdier, built like a fucking tank - just like makkie mixers. However...I'm still not sure what I'd buy if I'd have the money... Edited May 9, 2006 by Bubba Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Posted May 9, 2006 Share Posted May 9, 2006 Only 1 company make Macs. Loads of companies make PCs. You can't bundle all PCs together and say Macs are better, cos they are better than some, but not all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blak Randy Posted May 10, 2006 Share Posted May 10, 2006 I got a G6 Powerbookshelf. It's pretty good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liam Posted May 10, 2006 Share Posted May 10, 2006 Bubba, I'm with you there: my opinion of Acer laptops is pretty low, I've seen one fail through overheating and I think they are very poorly put together. But I also think it's pretty unfair to compare a bog-standard laptop with a Mac that costs twice the price. Start comparing the Apple to other laptops in it's own price band and things start getting interesting... for what it's worth, the new high-end Vaio's are finished a LOT more nicely than the equivalent Macs, are a good deal faster and a fair bit smaller, too. Can't say on the long term build, obviously, but if I had the money, that's where it would go. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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