Buying a Mac (aka eating my words)
MOD EDIT: Original post is below this one.
Buying a Mac (aka eating my words)
Yes, I know, I’ve always been one of those ‘you don’t need a macbook to DJ’ people, and have railed against people buying them when they only surfing the web, expecially when they use the ‘but Macs don’t get viruses’ bullshit line, but recently I’ve been considering getting one as a gig laptop.
Why? I still think they’re fucking expensive for what they are, but recently I’ve had some hiccups with my PC laptop during gigs.
To keep my DPC latency low, the ACPI Battery monitoring has to be turned off, as the driver causes some really bad popping issues - this has led to two occasions in the last year where I’ve been playing, and I’ve lost power and hence sound (largely caused by plugging my laptop into a non-working plug socket in a club - no indication that the socket doesn’t work, and Traktor is indicating full power as the system battery monitoring is off)
It’s either a mac or someone recommending a PC where the latency is low enough without having to turn off battery monitoring.
just get a 13" or 15" mbp and call it a day.
Oh, and at the moment it’d probably be a secondhand mac, as my first kid is incoming - what’s a reasonable minimum spec? A good mate of mine rocks Serato on a black macbook (so its virtually an antique in mac gearwhore terms …)
oh and steve told me no major updates for the macbook pro line up for the next 9 months
tbh - I’m more than happy with getting a slightly older one - the scottish heritage makes me loathe paying loads of money for something, so latest/greatest ain’t necessary really …
i would say get a re-rub from the apple 13" 2.4 ghz 4gb ram, they come with a 1 yr warranty
Decent and new:
completely threw me when i looked into this thread, i assumed i was on page 2 or something haha…
haha me too!
Sherlock, I’m sure you’ve read a few posts about it here and there but basically you don’t want less than a 2GHz Dual core intel processor and more RAM is always better. Also, keep an eye on what the hard drive capacity is. You want to have space for everything! That said, it’s pretty easy to swap in a new hard drive and they cost nothing these days.
Just like I’ve never bought a brand new car (or motorcycle) I’ve never bought a brand new Mac.
I bought mine new cos I got the 15% student discount with 3 years of applecare for £48 
Welcome to Mac! Mine is 5 yrs old (!!!) and still kicking. I will be getting a new one in September cos on the the graphics side for work, it’s reached its prime.
But basically macs are surprisingly good (this coming from a lifelong pc tinkerer) & a lot less problematic soundwise.
but a bit of a bitch to broadcast from (nicecast seems to have far more problems that shoutcast …)
I’m assuming that an 11" screen is far too small. 13" OK, or should I really aim for a 15"?
Oh and swapping out RAM/HDDs - I started out Uni as an electronic engineer, and finished up as a Computer Scientist, it shouldn’t be a problem.
If I can get Nicecast working your average computer scientist should be able to figure it out. After all, it’s not rocket science 
15" is the smallest I would want.
i’d prob go for a 15 personally. just a little easier to see.. i can imagine a 13 being perceived a little cramped even at the same resolution as its bigger brother.
i’d also spring for a refurb from apple rather than a second hand unit. just for piece of mind that everything will work as intended, and im sure the refurbs would have a new battery.
im not sure if the older apples have user replaceable batteries or not? i presume the older unibodys do.
Looks like I’d best start saving then …
Will ask my Father-in-Law as to specs, he’s a uber Mac geek and massive early adopter (first person I knew with an iPhone/iPad/Macbook Air etc)
See if he’s got an old one he can toss my way
once you go mac you never go back
yeah they cost a bit more but you cant but a price on not having to worry
there is nothing special about macs they just work and thats what i love
So true…