apple laptops

[plaster]

APPLE MACBOOK. i'm curious if they can support multiple operational systems. i heard some can run next to OSX, WIN system aswell. now, i would love to hear from someone who owns an apple laptop! do i need an special program to install windows platform on OSX or is that solved already?

[brianc]

They can run OS X, Windows, or Linux well. If you want to install Windows to run separately from OS X, use Apple's Bootcamp (http://www.apple.com/macosx/bootcamp/). If you want to run Windows from within OS X, people seem to like Parallels (http://www.parallels.com/).

The macbooks are very nice.

[plaster]

They can run OS X, Windows, or Linux well. If you want to install Windows to run separately from OS X, use Apple's Bootcamp (http://www.apple.com/macosx/bootcamp/). If you want to run Windows from within OS X, people seem to like Parallels (http://www.parallels.com/).

The macbooks are very nice.

are they? i thought to use it for live play. the specs seems good for a reasonable price. thanks brian.

[Measax]

Believe the hype. I have a macbook pro, and it runs very smooth. There are some programs still not up to date for running on osx with intel chip sets but most of the better programs are good and yes you can run windows several different ways. I hear the os leopard (coming out in the next 6 months) may be able to run windows apps native. However sleeping on a laptop or computer in general is not a bad idea considering the other technology that is coming out in the near future. Blu-ray looks great. PS3 will be the first thing using it for operation and I hear the smaller layer discs hold at the lower end 200 gbs and upper specs in the terabytes of information. This technology on hard drives and computers will put what once took tons of physical space to hold all down to computers the size of, oh cd walkmens. However this could be years off or just a few months. They like to milk technology but lately the trend has been the faster they get it ou the better. Either way, as soon as you buy something, somehting better will be out next month, sometimes the next day. I would be looking for updated macbooks in six months and the intel xeon has been around for a long time, so a new more efficient chips is on the way within the year. Good luck shopping.

P.S. I openned 16 space designers (4 of those long reverb) on 6 different instances of sculpture, had 3 ultarbeats playing while playing sound off of 12 audio tracks...the macbook pro didn't even stutter once! Logic on a macbook is so nice. If you use abelton live, I doubt there is much you could do to slow it up!

[adam]

APPLE MACBOOK. i'm curious if they can support multiple operational systems. i heard some can run next to OSX, WIN system aswell. now, i would love to hear from someone who owns an apple laptop! do i need an special program to install windows platform on OSX or is that solved already?

Plaster - I own a Macbook Pro 17.

To be honest, I was a PC user once transitioning to mac and would have loved to have the ability to run both. However, I'll tell you right now - it's not worth bothering with Windows at all. It might suck at first, but you just need to make the plunge. It might sting a bit at first but if you learn to love OS X exclusively, I think it'll pay off.

I could tell many stories of how working exclusively in OS X has saved me time AND money but instead i'll tell you a bit about the machine itself.

I've run a lot of operations on it of various types and I must say - it kicks ass. I use a lot of Reason and Ableton now for performing. I really can't believe how well these applications operate now (they are both Universal Intel compatible applications now with the most recent updates). Things that would tie up about 90% of my CPU power on my regular workstation maybe push about 10% of my processing power on this macbook 17. You can see why I might get excited about this as I was starting to feel limited creatively and now I have about 90% more power to play with without resorting to blind track bouncing and goofy round-about tactics to dodging my CPU limitations.

My reccomendation though - save your pennies and go big. You get a lot of bang for your buck when you go from 15 inch to 17.. it's not just screen size you are getting. If you prefer small though, get the best one you can get. Also, if you plan on using it on stage, it'll definitely help to custom order and swap the 120gb (or whatever it is) 5400rpm drive for the smaller drive with the faster 7200rpm speed. That's what I did and I tell you - the performance is worth much more than that extra bit of storage.

Hope that helps.

[Robot Criminal]

http://www.masternewmedia.org/news/2006 ... il_drm.htm

[ri]

Yeah - used dozens of laptops, and mac do come through. Most laptop companies scrimp on a couple of key areas knowing that most users won't know that they're getting shafted, and will rely on putting in a fairly good looking CPU to make it look flash, then scrimp on other areas... but speed and power come from the entire package of a computer, this is especially true for laptops.

I'd always recomend a Mac if you can - you might find better PC laptops, but you'll be paying the same or more, studies prove that power for money laptops Mac are just really solid performers.
And you get about a 10,000th of the amount of viruses than Windows, so if you surf in OSX with good protection you'll be way safer.

With the hard drive, I HIGHLY recomend going for a smaller 'core' (internal) drive that is 7200rpm to use for your operating system, and programs, then get a nice powerfull external drive for your projects, samples, audio. Music runs faster with the music/samples/projectson a different HD to your OS/program disc. Even tho it's a little bit (read: LITTLE) more 'clumsy' than just a laptop, you won't regret it, way more space, and more speed, it's always prefered!!

Good luck. Worth reading mac pre-release forums for information and ask when the next range of laptops are tipped to be released, you might be surprised. I bet there'll be a quad Powerbook pretty soon, so that'll put the Macbooks within really powerfull position, and once you get a dual core 2.6/2.8 or/3.0 or more you'll never have to worry about running almost all a projet live and having to bounce/render parts for live PAs...

Also if you're working with a LOT of samples, memory/RAM is a must, but I'd recomnd a gig, that's all you'll need unless you're usinig HEAPS of samples. Any more and you'll not be using it.

[adam]

http://www.masternewmedia.org/news/2006 ... il_drm.htm

I'm fundamentally opposed to DRM, but if this is a music production or performance machine, it shouldn't affect anything. I'd boycott if there was anything better, but there isn't... the performance and perks far outweigh this.