Looking to purchase a new laptop! Need advice!

DJ Gear & Hardware Hardware: Controllers, Mods and Gear
1

Looking to purchase a new laptop! Need advice!

Hey guys!
I’m looking for a new laptop that will replace my old laptop of 5 years (3gb ram, 256 hard drive lol)
. I will predominately use my laptop to DJ, Video editing, schoolwork, and browse the web.
-Budget 1500.
So far, I’m looking at the old macbook pro 13 inch which I upgraded the processor, memory, hard drive.
-2.9GHz Dual-core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost up to 3.6GHz
8GB 1600MHz DDR3 SDRAM — 2x4GB
1TB Serial ATA Drive @ 5400 rpm
For $1296.

I could possibly leave the HDD hard drive at 500gb and purchase a 500gb SSD and install it myself.
2.5GHz Dual-core Intel Core i5, Turbo Boost up to 3.1GHz
8GB 1600MHz DDR3 SDRAM — 2x4GB
500GB Serial ATA Drive @ 5400 rpm
For 1089. Then buy a SSD 500gb for 259.

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Hi, welcome to the Hardware forum, where you can post all questions gear wise.

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You’ll want a lot more than a 1280x800 screen resolution for video editing.

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+1

A Refurbished i7 13’ Retina is $1269 currently with the Iris Graphics (the HD4000 card on the MBP non-retina sucks !) or

13.3-inch Retina display; 2560-by-1600
8GB RAM

256 SSD
Iris Graphics

However I’d highly recommend you think about the 15’ Retina, however is over your $1500 budget. It has a far superior Screen and Quad Core (which you will you want for video rendering) and vastly superior graphics card(s) - IMHO it would give you an extra 2 years serviceable use over the macbook pro 13 based on the graphics alone and you would definely make up the difference at resale.

You can always upgrade your SSD at a later date and you should be bouncing your video to External drives Anyhoo :wink:

Refurbished models come with exactly the same warranty as brand new and qualify for applecare (if you feel you need it).