Macbook Pro buying strategy

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rimisrandma

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Is the best way to go about buying a Macbook Pro to buy the model with the processor that you want and/or can afford and then upgrade the hard drive and Ram? I am looking into getting a 15 or 17 inch Macbook Pro with a SSD (which is inquired about in a separate thread), upgraded to 8 GB ram, with an i7 Quad. If I went to apple and ordered what I want I would probably be 3300 to 3700 hundred dollars depending on the screen size. But, the Ram upgrade and SSD option alone I believe is about 1000 dollars, without looking.

If I bought these items (ram and SSD) separate I am guessing you could get them for half that amount

Who makes 250 or 500 GB (240, 260, 512 GB etc. similar sizes that are in the neighborhood) SSD's that you can put in a Macbook PRO? Who do you buy from?

I heard Crucial and Kingston for Ram?
 
Seems like you could get a Windows machine for 1/2 that price. Which would leave you $1500 for new gear.
 
arcadeko said:
Seems like you could get a Windows machine for 1/2 that price. Which would leave you $1500 for new gear.
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I am under the assumption that you would need a windows machine like an ADK which is in the same ball park price to get the unit "built" for audio. Does it make sense to just go buy a Toshiba, or Sony Vaio? What about the TI chipset firewire feature? What about other sh*t and this and that etc etc that basically leads you to ADK or a Macbook pro if you really want a "good" audio laptop?
 
rimisrandma said:
I am under the assumption that you would need a windows machine like an ADK which is in the same ball park price to get the unit "built" for audio. Does it make sense to just go buy a Toshiba, or Sony Vaio? What about the TI chipset firewire feature? What about other sh*t and this and that etc etc that basically leads you to ADK or a Macbook pro if you really want a "good" audio laptop?
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That's the thing about assumptions.

Is there any reason it has to be a laptop? And you do not need any special ADK or blah blah blah - a Toshiba or HP will be fine any multi-core (intel works better than AMD they tell me) with a 3+ gigs of ram should be plenty - and don't get all hung up on firewire - USB 2.0 is just as good and the differences are negligible.
 
rimisrandma said:
Is the best way to go about buying a Macbook Pro to buy the model with the processor that you want and/or can afford and then upgrade the hard drive and Ram? I am looking into getting a 15 or 17 inch Macbook Pro with a SSD (which is inquired about in a separate thread), upgraded to 8 GB ram, with an i7 Quad. If I went to apple and ordered what I want I would probably be 3300 to 3700 hundred dollars depending on the screen size. But, the Ram upgrade and SSD option alone I believe is about 1000 dollars, without looking.

If I bought these items (ram and SSD) separate I am guessing you could get them for half that amount

Who makes 250 or 500 GB (240, 260, 512 GB etc. similar sizes that are in the neighborhood) SSD's that you can put in a Macbook PRO? Who do you buy from?

I heard Crucial and Kingston for Ram?
Click to expand...

I just bought a 13" MacBook Pro i7 maxxed out to 8GB RAM and with the 500GB HDD.

I did get the Apple Store to up the RAM for me, but doing it yourself getting Crucial memory would have been cheaper and, I was told, would not have invalidated the guarantee.

As a life-long PC user, this is my first Mac.

Most PCs seem to be made down to a price, rather than to a quality spec.

I still have to use Windoze to run my editing software, so I am partitioning the Mac and have purchased a 750GB, 7200 speed Seagate GoFlex drive for audio. Seagate say they will be doing a Thunderbolt cable for GoFlex drives this autumn, so it will be blisteringly fast and still leave the Firewire800 and USB ports for other things.

Definitely go for the Mac and, yes, upgrade the memory yourself.

I'm not so sure about the hard drive, though - personally I would leave that to Apple.
 
upgrading the ram in a macbook pro is... slightly tricky as with, i have experience, the late 2009 model you have to open up the entire back with either the 15 or 13 inch. not sure with the 17 but its probably the same. but in the 15 inch macbook pros the hardrive is actually easier because its next to the battery and that is all you have to open up.

I'd recommend the mac if your going with a laptop, and I'd also recommend going through with upgrading yourself. there are plenty youtube tutorials on upgrading mac's yourself, and by year, model, etc.

If you do decide to go with the mac and upgrade yourself I wouldn't mind helping you pick out the solid state drive/ram I've done both upgrades before in a 15 inch macbook pro and 13 inch harddrive.

Best of luck!
 
John Willett said:
I just bought a 13" MacBook Pro i7 maxxed out to 8GB RAM and with the 500GB HDD.

I did get the Apple Store to up the RAM for me, but doing it yourself getting Crucial memory would have been cheaper and, I was told, would not have invalidated the guarantee.

As a life-long PC user, this is my first Mac.

Most PCs seem to be made down to a price, rather than to a quality spec.

I still have to use Windoze to run my editing software, so I am partitioning the Mac and have purchased a 750GB, 7200 speed Seagate GoFlex drive for audio. Seagate say they will be doing a Thunderbolt cable for GoFlex drives this autumn, so it will be blisteringly fast and still leave the Firewire800 and USB ports for other things.

Definitely go for the Mac and, yes, upgrade the memory yourself.

I'm not so sure about the hard drive, though - personally I would leave that to Apple.
Click to expand...

Thunderbolt SS drive---Summer '11 (supposedly)
LaCie - LaCie Little Big Disk featuring Thunderbolt Technology
 
Rockinoutt93 said:
upgrading the ram in a macbook pro is... slightly tricky as with, i have experience, the late 2009 model you have to open up the entire back with either the 15 or 13 inch. not sure with the 17 but its probably the same. but in the 15 inch macbook pros the hardrive is actually easier because its next to the battery and that is all you have to open up.

I'd recommend the mac if your going with a laptop, and I'd also recommend going through with upgrading yourself. there are plenty youtube tutorials on upgrading mac's yourself, and by year, model, etc.

If you do decide to go with the mac and upgrade yourself I wouldn't mind helping you pick out the solid state drive/ram I've done both upgrades before in a 15 inch macbook pro and 13 inch harddrive.

Best of luck!
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I am looking really hard at a 15". Also, maybe a 17"......Is there any reason to get the 17" MBpro?? The 15" has a SDXC card slot and the 17" replaces that with an express card slot...is this any value in terms of recording gear connections? From what I found there is really no benefit to get the 17" except I can think of the fact that maybe the 17" model isn't packed so sh*t tight that maybe the extra room adds to cooling or maybe electronically more durable???
 
rimisrandma said:
I am looking really hard at a 15". Also, maybe a 17"......Is there any reason to get the 17" MBpro?? The 15" has a SDXC card slot and the 17" replaces that with an express card slot...is this any value in terms of recording gear connections? From what I found there is really no benefit to get the 17" except I can think of the fact that maybe the 17" model isn't packed so sh*t tight that maybe the extra room adds to cooling or maybe electronically more durable???
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15" vs 17" bigger screen, ports, extra room in case, matter??
 
John Willett said:
But large and heavy - that's why I went with the maxed out 13" version.
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What sux about the 13"

The only i7 processor offered is a DUAL core (in the 13"), not the quad.

You can't get a 7200 rpm drive installed (from the Apple store), you have to go with a 5400rpm drive, otherwise you'd have to go with a solid state drive option.
 
Went Macbook Pro myself, picked up a standard 15" model, with the 2.2 GHZ processor and the 1 gig vid card. Everything else was standard, 750 gig 5400 SATA drive, 4 gigs of ram. So far, it runs GarageBand without a hiccup, running a pair of Sm57s through a Mackie Blackjack. My plan is to drop the 750 gig SATA drive and install a decent SSD drive, along with more RAM. You can get 8 gigs of MacBook compatible RAM from Newegg for about 70 bucks or so, and you can get a 256 gig SSD for around ~400-450. I think Apple wanted roughly a grand for the hard drive, and 90 bucks for the RAM. Run all my programs off the SSD, and try to pick up one of the Thunderbolt HDD units for storing projects and sound files, provided I can stand the sticker-shock. I'm positive this laptop would perform just fine for what I currently need it for, my upgrades are mostly aimed at the slightly distant future, when I'll add a more expansive interface that will require the processing power for multiple tracks. I'm sure I could have gotten a Windows machine cheaper, and I am VERY computer literate, so setup wouldn't be much of a factor, but I have to admit, I like the Apple aesthetic, and the UI is pretty nice, with the multi-touch/gesture trackpad. Unibody chassis is the best I've ever seen in a laptop so far, no squeaks or groans, even when I get to pounding away at the keyboard. iPhone inter-functionality is pretty neat too.
 
I personally recommend looking for used ones on craig's list. I bought my 15 inch macbook pro for 600 from this photo studio on there and the computer works perfectly for recording with logic.
 
rimisrandma said:
What sux about the 13"

The only i7 processor offered is a DUAL core (in the 13"), not the quad.

You can't get a 7200 rpm drive installed (from the Apple store), you have to go with a 5400rpm drive, otherwise you'd have to go with a solid state drive option.
Click to expand...

But the 15" and 17" get to be large and heavy when you have to carry them around all day.

I don't use the HDD in the laptop for audio - I use a 750GB Seagate GoFlex Pro drive with a 7200 speed via Firewire800 (will be upgraded to a Thunderbolt cable in the Autumn).

Yes, it's a compromise whatever way you look at it - what I weally wannt is a laptop the size and weight of the 13" MacBook Air with the power of the MacBook Pro 17" - can't be done. :(
 
I have no choice but to buy a macbook pro this summer. The university im going to requires it for all music production and technology majors. That, along with a small audio interface and pro tools 9.
 
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