I’ve been running win7 at work for a couple of weeks… It’s solid so far. In general, people around teh interwebs seem to be cautiously optimistic. win7 is apparently what vista should have been..
m.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH LMAO, that’s a fanboy statement if ever I’ve heard one! 
lol its pretty different under the hood, but is on par now with OSX, unlike vista which was a hurried and stripped down release that OSX pee’d all over They both have their own way of doing things, and although I use both i much prefer the way windows and w7 specifically works.
I’ve been using windows 7 on all my PC’s (my main general PC, my pro-tools recording rig and my PC lappy) with no problems at all, and everything works awesome totally customisable.
But in saying all that, I still say a MBP for DJing and Traktor. You dont want a laptop that’ll do a million things and that you’ll use for every task. You want one that will run one single program for one single task, and that will do it EVERY time; no fuss, no hassle, no messing with settings and customising everything. Just a solid platform so you can concentrate on the important part, the DJing itself.
And thats what a MBP will do.
k
Im a Mac Fanboy… 100% Wouldnt have a PC laptop if was paid in fact id be pissed off if i found one [j/k]
I have just ordered a new Macbook Pro. Literally went to the store and ordered it half an hour ago.
Heres to having to do fuck all to make my laptop work other than turning it on just like the 3 years with my current Macbook Pro and the previous 2 years with my iBook.
No tweaks, no worrying , no pissing about with system resources, no money left but who cares id only spend it on Crack, Meth and Hookers anyway.
Nothing like trading one form of retail therapy for another.
At least ours doesn’t come with track marks and weird bumps on our naughty places.
And yes, I called them “naughty places”.
Sorry, but no, they have not and could not. OSx is a Unix complient OS based on work done by NeXT - using a hybrid kernel based on the Mach micro-kernel (which was developed at CMU). Windows 7 uses the next generation NT kernel (truly Kernel version 7, though internally its shows as 6.1).
One reason I am kind of keen on a MCP myself is I work with Unix based operating systems in my job all the time 
Okay: to the guy wondering about the similarily priced mac with a core 2 duo vs the windows i7:
the i7 is a quad core processor with hyper-treading. that means you get 8 processing threads. EIGHT. The core 2 gets TWO.
If you /really/ want the mac OS, just buy it separate and put it on the other machine.
EDIT: Also: windows 7 didn’t copy Mac OSX ‘under the hood’ because OSX is just a extra pretty unix distribution with a bunch of the options and user-configurability disabled so people are less likey to muck it up.
I knew the i7 would run circles around the mac… didn’t realize it was quad core, hyperthreading tho. Nice (:
m.
[quote=“Segfault, post:26, topic:6494, username:Segfault”]
Okay: to the guy wondering about the similarily priced mac with a core 2 duo vs the windows i7:
the i7 is a quad core processor with hyper-treading. that means you get 8 processing threads. EIGHT. The core 2 gets TWO.
If you /really/ want the mac OS, just buy it separate and put it on the other machine.
EDIT: Also: windows 7 didn’t copy Mac OSX ‘under the hood’ because OSX is just a extra pretty unix distribution with a bunch of the options and user-configurability disabled so people are less likey to muck it up.
[QUOTE=psylozen;74579]I knew the i7 would run circles around the mac… didn’t realize it was quad core, hyperthreading tho. Nice (:
m.
[/quote][/QUOTE]
LOL, yes the i7 is a hugely powerful processor, but this is irrelivent.
It goes back to if you were going to be using the lappy for an every day machine that you done loads with and wanted to use lots of different software on, then the i7 is a brilliant processor.
But thats not how your going to be using this laptop. You’re going to be using it to DJ, which a dual core processor is more than capable of handling. So instead of your dual core processor sitting at about 90% idle, you’re just be swapping it for an i7 sitting at 99% idle. 
And just putting Mac OS on a windows machine “if you really want to use OSX” as suggested isn’t gonna help any either. You’re not paying the extra for OSX itself, you’re paying the extra for the integration of OSX with the hardware, and the tightly controlled drivers and component selection that mac have made.
The stability mac’s have comes not from OSX itself cos it has just as many flaws and bugs as windows, it comes from Apple having a tightly controlled set of components in their equipment, and then spending a long time testing and testing and testing everything until they have a set of drivers, software and hardware that is all matched up together.
Just putting OSX on a platform that doesn’t have the same chipsets/components as the computer it was designed for puts you right back into the position of having to find drivers and get everything to work together and defeats the purpose.
I’m about an 80% windows user and a 20% mac user, but overall i’m a “right tool for the right job” user and a “what ever gives me the result i’m looking for” user and in this case IMHO, a mac is the right tool for the job.
k
It isn’t? Oh, good (: I coulda sworn I was planning to use this laptop to do more than just DJ. Like producing music, doing video work, maybe even branch off into mixing in surround sound…
But thank you for clearing up my needs for me, I’ve just saved two and a half grand (;
All the more power for it to do other stuff
Yeah, osx on non-mac hardware just seems silly to me… Nothing sez stable like running software on hardware it wasn’t designed for.
But overall I think I’m fairly settled on the i7 laptop… I do have a life outside of djing… unfortunately…
m.
Lmao
Good, i’m glad i could help you sort out your needs there
LOL i was assuming (obviously wrongly) that like most people who do this professionally you were gonna get a laptop specifically for DJing and in order to keep it nice and clean and not mess up settings or create conflicts or problems that may crop up and affect your income you wouldn’t be putting much if any other software or stuff on it.
lol and in any case my post was more directed at the original poster. I hadn’t taken the time to read over the thread all the way through and realise you had partially hijacked it with your own question on mac vs PC, which was obviously my bad! 
k
I use two methods for keeping my stuff clean… 1. Dual boot into either a dedicated Traktor partition or the Everything Else partition; 2. Don’t install anything not directly required by traktor and remove everything not required.
m.
ps. I’m not sure how much this is contributing to the original mac vs win discussion tho (:
I dont… 6 nites a week at the moment. Tired and confused !!!
My new Macbook Pro arrives on wednesday.
With an i7, you could probably get away with integrating Ableton and Traktor on the same laptop. Now /that/ would be cool.
sry, havent read all the preceding posts.
i went the windows laptop route myself having used a 15" pimped mbp a couple of times. i went with a lenovo business laptop, since they’re really sturdy! hell, you can even pour a drink on the keypad and it doesnt take any damage.
sure, it took a little more time to set up the system, but it was worth every second. running traktor as shell on a second partition (read all about it in the windows streamlining blog post on here) and my latency has dropped to an all time low! 1.5ms with my denon dn-hs5500 and its never failed me.
theres one thing i’m missing on my machine though. a backlit keyboard.
After nearly having my MBP die on me due to a logic board failure (which was under warranty due to a recall with graphics card) and looking to buy another Mac I’d suggest buy one, but not from apple. Hop onto ebay and you can get sick deals on them. Great computers but wouldn’t buy them new way too high. The great thing is that even models that are 2 years old run like a brand new machine.
I have an original PowerMac G4 from 1999 with 350 MHz of processor power and a minor RAM boost that can still run quite well. I recall doing live, 13-channel mashup mixing on it with no problems.
That’s the thing about Macs, they retain their value really well, whereas even some of the best PCs really don’t have very good value-retention.
coincidentally, I am in the market for a new laptop to beef up my VCI-100/Traktor, moving from my older Toshiba Satellite (using XP and Intel Centrino Duo)!
I have done much research considering budget, ports, processor speed, portability & durability comparing: Apple Macbook Pro, Dell 14z, (2) Toshiba Satellite models, HP dv3t, and the Lenovo Thinkpad T400.
I found spec wise, Lenovo Thinkpad would best suit my needs with the added benefit of rugged durability and its ability to remain relatively cool and quiet which is important for obvious reasons.
I think it is best for the OP to find their current and future needs before investing $$$ in a new laptop. In fact, I was going to wait until next year to purchase a new laptop due to the promise of USB 3.0, however, an article came out earlier this week stating that Intel would not implement this tech until 2011!
For myself I am interested in the speed of eSATA connections for external hard drives, and I also still need a Firewire connection because of my current soundcard (Echo Audiofire 4). I must admit that I enjoy the sleekness of Apple, but spec for spec, I am going to be purchasing the Lenovo.
I must add also, that the recent Windows 7 release and countless of computer geek friends (a couple who beta-tested it months ago) giving me their seal of approval regarding its stability and efficiency (as opposed to Vista’s) has also influenced my final decision to remain PC. I will give everyone a follow-up once I receive my new laptop. But, more than anything, do a cost/benefit program, read reviews, and try out the laptop before you buy making sure it is compatible with YOUR current and future uses. Good luck!