NEED laptop advice

[thj17]

I'm currently using traktor with 4 deck and will be changing laptop pretty soon....

My budget leads me to go for the discontinued macbook 15 non retina wich I would upgrade for 16gb of ram but I could also have the new 15 retina 8gb with 256g ssd drive

so here's the choice 15 4gb (which will be upgraded to 16 with a 500g 5400rpm drive)
or 15 retina 8gb (non upgradable) with 256 ssd drive

don't know which one to choose

Plan on running traktor routed to ableton live with push (ala dubfire and richie hawtin)

is 8gb enough or should I go with the older model?

Thanks for your inputs!!!

[Cyphizer]

I really don't like the new retina mbp - the idea you can't change/replace/upgrade the HD, RAM or battery worries me, it's a shame Apple have gone this route. Unless you're a graphic designer or work with video, the new retina screen is just overkill!

I would get a 2nd hand Mid 2012 15" MBP, upgrade to 16GB, stick a SSD in there for your OS & programs and replace the DVD drive with 1TB Hard drive. Should be able to do all of that for a lot less than a new 15" retina and you'll have an uber powerful machine with loads of storage, all the same I/O's as the retina and the ability to fix things if they go wrong down the line!

My 2 cents

[michael133]

im with cyphizer on the advise the retina displays are lovely but far to overkill for audio use, i got given a new retina 13" and sold it to buy an older non retina 15" and at no point to do regret my choice i like the ability to replace parts myself and the retina models just arnt for me

[Ryan Ruel]

I kind of disagree.

I have a late-2011 MBP 15" with High Res display (1680x1050), which I spent a fortune on (512 GB SSD, i7).
I also have a late-2013 Retina MBP 15", with 1TB SSD, i7.

I use the 15" non-retina for DJ'ing, and the Retina as my main machine.

Comparing the two, the non-retina MBP feels bulky and heavy. The retina is a thing of beauty, it's light and thin. If you'll be carrying this around everywhere, it does matter some. You do lose the optical disc on the retina.

The new PCIe storage of the Retina MBP is VERY fast. I can get 950MB/s on that machine vs around 180MB/s with my other machine (which is also SSD)!

As for the screens... this is where things get interesting. For 4 decks in Traktor, the more screen real estate the better. The 1680x1050 resolution works out great, but that was a build-to-order option. For the regular 15"'s, you'll get a lower resolution, and probably have to resort to keyboard shortcuts to change deck views to fit everything on the screen.

The retina display can run in a few different resolutions. I find the one that emulates 1680x1050 to be the best, any higher and text gets too small to read. The retina really does make it much nicer to use your machine, less eye strain. Note that the "emulation" or "scaled" retina modes aren't actually running in lower resolution, they are running the full resolution, it's just how "big or small" things are scaled to look on the display.

8GB of RAM is fine for your purposes. 16GB is really only needed if you are going to be doing something that requires it, or running VM's.

Is those solely a DJ machine?

[makar1]

As for the screens... this is where things get interesting. For 4 decks in Traktor, the more screen real estate the better. The 1680x1050 resolution works out great, but that was a build-to-order option. For the regular 15"'s, you'll get a lower resolution, and probably have to resort to keyboard shortcuts to change deck views to fit everything on the screen.

The retina display can run in a few different resolutions. I find the one that emulates 1680x1050 to be the best, any higher and text gets too small to read. The retina really does make it much nicer to use your machine, less eye strain. Note that the "emulation" or "scaled" retina modes aren't actually running in lower resolution, they are running the full resolution, it's just how "big or small" things are scaled to look on the display.

Does 1680x1050 look equally good on the Retina as the non-Retina? You would typically expect it to look better on a display at native resolution.

[Ryan Ruel]

Does 1680x1050 look equally good on the Retina as the non-Retina? You would typically expect it to look better on a display at native resolution.

It looks much better on the retina. The retina has a resolution of 2880 by 1800 pixels. The "scaled" resolutions Apple provides look great, it's nothing like the scaled resolutions you have on other LCD's where anything non-native looks awful.

The reason is that the laptop is always running in 2880 by 1800, it's just the software that's scaling the fonts and graphics to be "equivalent" to 1680x1060.

[makar1]

The Apple scaled fonts and graphics are of course not running at 1680x1050 scaled. Other applications will get stretched though, since most do not scale for Hi-DPI screens yet.

How does Traktor look at 1680x1050 on the two laptops?

[Ryan Ruel]

Retina MBP's will have been out for 2 years in about 4 months. Most apps DO scale quite well, including Traktor.

[makar1]

Retina MBPs are still a very small fraction of Macs out there, and I haven't seen any news of Traktor being optimized for Retina nor is it on any Retina-compatible lists.

[Ryan Ruel]

Dunno, I use a retina MBP at home and another one all day at work, haven't really had any issues with crappy looking apps, yet.