Advice! Part One of DJ Setup: Buying the right laptop (pc or…mac?)
Hello Ean and DJs,
I am young newb from Burma and I’d like to get my hands wet. I seek advice on what laptop to purchase this Black Friday. I am keeping in mind that in the near future - say before the year ends, I am looking to purchase a VCI 100 and a soundcard. I haven’t decided which soundcard yet! But I hope to use Tracktor with the VCI and maybe Ableton in the fuuuuture. Sucks to talk about things that haven’t been accomplished yet, but I guess I have to keep these things in mind for the initial purchase.
laptop budget: 700-1000 obo
I might consider a mac pro too, but they are much more expensive and I’ve always been PC fan/Mac hater (so I’d like to know if its really worth it and if it’s time I get off the PC high horse). Especially after reading this:
Another thing - If I do get a macbook pro - is 13" sufficient for screen size? What do people use?
Thanks alot I would appreciate any and all comments, questions, suggestions.
Do not turn this thread into a “Macs rock PCs suck” or vice versa or I will lock it. Never productive, never helpful.
At that, lola, do a few searches on the forum. There are TONS of discussions on what you can do. In the end it all comes down to preference. A solid PC laptop will last you for years (as mine have) and a solid Mac laptop will last you for years (as others’ have). If you are getting a VCI-100 and a soundcard then you are pretty open to use, as Traktor and Ableton run on both platforms.
Once again, keep this advice and discussion, and lola, please search the forums to find more detailed answers.
Personal preference. If it has a core 2 duo or better processor and 3gb+ ram IT DOES NOT MATTER and will run anything you use for DJing flawlessly, nothing else matters.
I respect both, windows and OSX - But, I’m a mac. I love my mac, it’s easy, it’s fun to use, and it’s fast. The thing is, If you want a PC, just install windows :>
it’s a winwin sulution. anyways, it’s a hard question to answer. Go and feel the computer at the store, ask plenty of questions and so on. I would go for the mac, it’s the best thing i’ve bought in my 20 years alive.
If money is a problem go for a windows machine. Read reviews on the internet about some model, look for benchmarks, etc.
If you can, buy one of the new processors from intel called i7. Those are the next step up over core 2 duo and the most powerful laptop cpu in the world. There are rumors the macbooks will have that cpu soon… I can’t wait to upgrade my mbp.
If you had more money I’d recommend a mac. Hardware wise today it’s pretty much the same, both pcs and macs use the same components, but personally I prefer the mac os over windows xp/vista (haven’t tried 7).
I recently made the switch to mac and all i can say is its miles faster, more reliable, and nicer to look at and use, compared to my old dell inspiron anyway.
if you do a search there are already MANY threads containing the mac vs PC debate and the pros and cons of each, but to sum up…
PC’s because of their price, vast range of options and accessories, much greater range of software and greater customizeability, make great machines for everyday work and for doing a range of tasks.
Macs with their closed, very stable system and tight hardware and software integration make a very solid platform that, while somewhat restrictive sometimes, will almost never crash or give any major problems.
I use both and lean probably about 90% PC for surfing the internet, email, typing up stuff and other every day work but, in my opinion for a professional job like DJing where you need a machine you can rely on 100% and that wont have the possibility of failing to boot with 10 mins till the public start to arrive or crash half way through a set then its work the extra to go for a Mac Book or MBP.
And yes, I have a 13" MBP for use with Traktor and DJing and find it fine for everything I do.
I personally run a lenovo t60, got 2 years ago through school. It’s running win 7 (only installation disk I had when I bought a new hardrive for it, else it would still be xp). Considering dual booting a hackintosh, as one of my roomates has a spared leopard disk/key lying around.
I have an Asus G71G that I bought around a year ago now, running Vista 64, with 6gigs of RAM. Runs great. Having some monitor issues right now but my warantee should cover it once I have a week or two to go without it.
Hefty on the price tag, but for 4 USB ports it was totally worth it.
I have an Asus EEEPc that boots into Linux and Windows XP, and I’ve never had any problem with crashes. (Except for that one time I was messing around with the registries and trying to set Traktor as the shell windows boots into, but I was expecting that…)
The only real difference between Macs and PCs is the operating system. They use the same kind of hardware, apple just makes their computers look prettier and overcharge for them because they know they can get away with it.
Macs and PCs used to be different because they used processors with different architecture, which means the processor ‘talked’ to the rest of the computer in a different language (easiest way to explain it). Back before Macs used Intel processors, you couldn’t run windows on an apple computer, and there was no such thing as a ‘Hackintosh’ because the software and hardware simple wouldn’t work together. They used to be completely different machines.
However, now that Macs all have Intel processors, they really are just PCs with a lot of make up applied and an extravagantly higher price tag.
True story.
That being said, it’s all a matter of personal preference. If you’re already used to ‘PCs,’ and you don’t get any problems from them, Apple computer wont offer you anything better or worse, just different.
Thanks so much guys! I appreciate all your input. After researching and talking to friends (a few I discovered used to be pc then got a mac and then changed their minds), I think I’m set on a 13 inch macbook pro with 4 gig of ram.
I decided I can go hungry for a little while if my funds run low.
I laughed at Segfault’s comment about macs: “However, now that Macs all have Intel processors, they really are just PCs with a lot of make up applied and an extravagantly higher price tag.”
I am on my third PC laptop (the one I have now is msi u100, a tiny little thing) in five years and I guess they’ve either failed me or I’ve been too rough with them. Maybe the prettiness of a mac and the price will make me treat it better.
I’ve always been a PC fan and thought Macs were overpriced and with a bit of tweaking Windows XP/Vista/7 could be as good as Mac OSX, but after a long time strugling, this wasn’t the case. For my education I got a HP workstation (super high end a year back), but with my music editing/production/Traktor I was constantly getting dropouts and other bad habits. After a long past of other Dell laptop and then the super high end HP laptop, I was sick of it and sold the HP and got myself a MacBook Pro 15". I must say that this is the best choice I made in a long time. Mac OSX is far more streamlined. My experience with it is that you can expect things from Mac OSX to work, that you have to try to achieve on a Windows machine. After all the fuss I’ve been into I can strongly recommend you a Mac/Hackintosh, just to spare you a lot of tweaking without being certain that it will work for you in the end…
Iv always used pc’s my whole life and never really liked macs but once you actually give it a shot its really different and your whole pc only attitude fully changes haha, as others are saying its alot more streamlined and its very easy to use once you know how it all works if i had to choose between a mbp or laptop i would go for a mbp anyday, i have had a macbook pro 13" for a while now and its by far the best thing iv brought for doing music etc, iv only had it ever crash on me once and that was when i was beta testing traktor but if you just want to play games and bum around PC is the way to go
I have had both PC and MAC but i say stay with what you know.PC!! Macs are all running intel chips and come with less ram than most low end pc’s. If your worried about how it will run than go into your control panel and delete the lame programs you wont need or use taking up space.
any hoot you will want to get these specs for either machine you buy.
4gb ram (most PCs these days come with this)
either a INTEL x2 core duo or a AMD x4 quad core which is faster than a core duo
64 bit processor
300 or 500gb Hard drive
USB ports ( youll want to check out how many ports you have)
Vista or Windows 7 COMPATIBLE (meaning if your current programs will work on either of these OS’
as far as screen size it just matters what you comfortable carrying around.
but if you just want to play games and bum around PC is the way to go 