General MacBook Pro Questions

[tomflynn]

Hi,

I'm in the market for a mac book pro and was wondering if i could ask a few questions -

Ram - I've read you can buy your own and install it yourself. However the mac book pros i'm looking at all come with minimum 4gb, i would assume 4gb is more than enough for just using this is a my gig computer?

I also noticed that some macbook pros processors say '2.53Ghz intel core i5 (or some say i7) - I run a Kontrol S4 and the spec requirement says 'intel Core 2 Duo processors'. Are these 'i5/i7' processors going to be ok for the S4?

I was also wondering if i could ask a couple of other questions -

-Solid state drive or regular drive? I only ask because i understand solid state drives are rock solid and don't spin to retrive data - and i thought that in a club maybe it would be a bad thing to have a regular drive incase the vibrations should cause it any problems?

Screen - Glossy or anti-glare?

Screen size - 13" or 15" - i was looking at a them in the store today and the 15" almost seemed a little too big dare i say it, the 13" looked great, but maybe that bit of extra screen size will be a big benefit when in a club on traktor.

Thanks for any help and advice,

Tom

[photojojo]

Ram - I've read you can buy your own and install it yourself. However the mac book pros i'm looking at all come with minimum 4gb, i would assume 4gb is more than enough for just using this is a my gig computer?

four gigs is plenty for DJ'ing. If you want to get into production where you may be running VST's and multilpe programs then bumping it might be worth consideration. Installing your own is easy.

I also noticed that some macbook pros processors say '2.53Ghz intel core i5 (or some say i7) - I run a Kontrol S4 and the spec requirement says 'intel Core 2 Duo processors'. Are these 'i5/i7' processors going to be ok for the S4?

Those will be fine

-Solid state drive or regular drive? I only ask because i understand solid state drives are rock solid and don't spin to retrive data - and i thought that in a club maybe it would be a bad thing to have a regular drive incase the vibrations should cause it any problems?

For the most part regular drives are fine, but solid state will be faster and generally more solid. You can install a drive in the spot the DVD drive is in and have the best of both worlds. There's some talk about longevity of the SSD drives, but I have no real experience with it so can't really comment on it.

Screen - Glossy or anti-glare?

Anti-glare

Screen size - 13" or 15" - i was looking at a them in the store today and the 15" almost seemed a little too big dare i say it, the 13" looked great, but maybe that bit of extra screen size will be a big benefit when in a club on traktor.

I struggled with this as well, but ended up with 15 in the end.

Thanks for any help and advice,

Your welcome

[fullenglishpint]

^^ what he said, except i went for the 13" and love it. I'm planning on swapping out my DVD drive for another 750GB of storage space very soon.

[smiTTTen]

Agreed. All good answers here. Given the choice I would go Solid State for the performance and (at least initial) durability. They do however come at a hefty premium and you might consider what else you could get for money (this is assuming that saving a few quid is out of the question). I would always drop the extra $$$ on a faster CPU as it's (generally) the least upgradable aspect of any system given potential motherboard changes and hardware conflicts should you want to change down the road.

[popoff44]

Just wanted to confirm that upgrading the RAM on a MacBook Pro does make a difference. Mine came with 4GB of DDR3 originally. After I upgraded the RAM to 8GB I did see a big performance increase. Although, as photojojo said, it's not going to be noticeable if Traktor is all you are using. Only makes sense for more system intensive applications like a DAW with a bunch of VST plugins.

Definitely anti-glare, if you have a choice. The glossy one is a pain.

[fullenglishpint]

Just wanted to confirm that upgrading the RAM on a MacBook Pro does make a difference. Mine came with 4GB of DDR3 originally. After I upgraded the RAM to 8GB I did see a big performance increase. Although, as photojojo said, it's not going to be noticeable if Traktor is all you are using. Only makes sense for more system intensive applications like a DAW with a bunch of VST plugins.

Definitely anti-glare, if you have a choice. The glossy one is a pain.

I have a mixed opinion of my glossy screen. I like the look of it from a pure vanity sense, and things do look great on it in the right light. But of course, that's just it. Bright sunlight and you're fucked.

[padi_04]

I have a mixed opinion of my glossy screen. I like the look of it from a pure vanity sense, and things do look great on it in the right light. But of course, that's just it. Bright sunlight and you're fucked.

Invert screen colours FTW

Get the mate one if you are planning to use it frequently with sunlight and save yourself some headaches.

[fullenglishpint]

Invert screen colours FTW

yeeeeep do that all the time

Traktor looks sick inverted.

(booyah, 1000th post )

[smiTTTen]

Bright sunlight and you're fucked.

- Seems the tagline for the next Twilight movie is taken are of

[fullenglishpint]

- Seems the tagline for the next Twilight movie is taken are of

i literally just laughed out loud in the middle of the office. Thank you for that!