Thursday, January 12, 2006

The MacBook Pro

The Macbook Pro... endless wait and no clue as to when and how and whether it is going to happen at all, I postponed my laptop acquisition indefinitely. And it is here finally.

Now All that I have to check out is how good/bad this is.. also was surprised to know, ok I am no techie know all, that non-intel based Macs were also available.

Please do let me know if there is info about pluses and minuses, whether I shuold buy the intel-based Mac or not....

I must thank all the people who patiently responded to the same topic thrice, in three different posts. Thanks a lot people :)

15 comments:

My days(Gops) said...

hi i heard tht A.R.Rehman is going to make a live concert here in Kuwait on Feb 24th... will u be there in tht troop?

bharat said...

If u get the 1.83 gigs, 1GB memory, 100 GB hard drive config....

pros
-----
Intel dual core 1.83 gigs processor( most powerful and suited for ur audio/ video needs)

ATI's Mobility Radeon X1600 with 256MB of memory, along with x16 PCI Express architecture( amazing graphics)

667MHz frontside bus and main memory( Makes it phenominally faster)

2.54kg( call it lite)

One FireWire 400 port( good that its got one, twice as fast as USB 2)

built in ethernet/bluetooth and 802.11G( got all tht needs to be there to go wireless)

Apple promises a better battery life.

cons
-----
No modem( need an external adapter for dial-up)

No s-video port. ( Cannot connect it directly to a TV)

Not got a Firewire 800 port( Much faster than the current firewire 400 that it has)

Tends to get hotter than the previous versions of the ibook.

Compatibility issues with software packages.

--------------------------------------

My take- Go for it. Power packed and feature rich. Got sum practical problems like not having an inbuilt modem, but still worth buying. Get one with 2 GB memory if available in India. If i were you, i would love to own a Mac and this baby is worth all the money. Hope this helps

Chinmayi Sripada /Chinmayee said...

bharat: cool... one ques again, how do I connect it to the tv if I want to? and what if there is a powerbook version as well which has also been forecast?

Chinmayi Sripada /Chinmayee said...

to Myadysarecounted: I didnt know that he is performing there until you told me!

Chez said...

Well, Bharat has already listed it. I too think its a nice deal for the price.

But, isnt it true that Firewire technology is on the way out? We know Apple is phasing it out in iPods. The time will be soon may be for notebooks too....

Sriram said...

Hey Chinmayi
Here are my 2 cents regarding the new Intel based Macs..The chip they are putting in it called Intel Core Duo was originally developed for high end Servers in a joint venture between Intel and HP.. I personally knew a couple of friends who worked directly on the project..They chip is based on multi-processor parallel threading architecture and is super fast compared to the normal ones..These processors are ideal of hard core projects like multi media editing, gaming and so on. I also know that Intel for long has been working on harnessing that technology for Laptops... Taking your needs of multi media editing and audio mixing into consideration I would suggest you go for Mac with Intel as it would not only give the awesome softwares from Apple but also the core power from Intel..
Adios
Sriram

Rathi said...

Dear Chinmayi, this is totally unrelated to your entry. But was that you on the Pattikaada Pattanama program trailer that will be on Sun Tv for Ponggal? curious...cos I just caught a glimpse while chasing my puppy for her shower and before I got a good look, the trailer was gone!

Anonymous said...

Chinmayi,
If you are still thinking about buying the MacBook Pro, I would advice that you wait until the battery life issue is resolved...Jobs claims that this machine delivers roughly 4x as much performance per watt as the PowerBook G4, but no ones knows exactly what that means...:)..Intel does say that its dual-core processors consume less power than the prev gen processors, but no one knows that for a fact as far as the MacBook Pro goes...On the other hand, if battery life is not such a big deal for you (Not once have I used my lappy's battery in 2 years!), you can go right out and buy this. Its Loaded...:) Hope this helps

Anonymous said...

See a review of MacBook Pro here:
http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/index.asp

Anonymous said...

Dear Chinmayi
I would advice you NOT to buy a Mac, first of all if ur used to windows then its hard to think as a mac user also programs and stuff for more mac is much more expensive than other stuff.. mac machine is beautiful.. i mean the while colour box is good looking but thats the only plus.. all other things are minus...its a good computer but getting support / programs and ect is too hard..

Chinmayi Sripada /Chinmayee said...

@ anonymous: then please do me the favour of finding me a system that will be stable to take up video and audio editing or recording as the case maybe, in addition to the usual stuff that I do.. BTW Why cant you use your name?

Natrajan Thamizhmani said...

Mac notebooks are messy to work with for windows users. Are u still looking for a notebook??? I guess if u have the rite software u can always do the the video and audio editing stuff in any Pentium Mobile processor running notebook.

Anonymous said...

Go for the powerbook..awesome product, gr8 value for money, i am currently in the process of moving from my windows based music production to apple. of course moving from windows to apple will take some time..but hey...thats like anything..i wud wait till they switch to intels..not for any specfic reason. mpp chip works fine anyway. Apple and logic woud be kewl...i have worked on them, tested...and i am happy with it.. having said all that...if you are considering serious music production then lean towards the workstation models not laptops.. laptops are more for on the fly kinda stuff and for live performance..we have used it for some on-the-fly productions..hope it helps..

Natrajan Thamizhmani said...

Working with Mac machines have troubled users uses to using Windows, I dont think there is anything special about a Mac notebook which a Pentium Mobile Processor enabled notebook doesn't provide. Choosing an audio and video editing software with good features would be more important.

Anonymous said...

The people who post here are but a small sample. Many of them may not used Mac (but like their Intel laptops) and those who use may not have used it for your intended applications. So you have to take all opinions here with a grain of salt.

For best advice, you need to find out from Mac users who use their laptops for your applications. There are plenty of sites for that, just google with the right terms.

That said, I should say that I have a PC (home) and a Windows laptop (work). I bought a Mac Mini last year for home use, just to dabble with a Mac. Now I rarely use my home PC. (My kids use it, and so I log in and update the anti-virus and anti-spyware every week, religiously.) I use Mac for all work now (web publishing, book publishing, photo editing, and video editing). I haven't used the GarageBand application (music). As a switcher, I can tell you from first hand that moving from PC to Windows cannot be any easier. (Ok, there is an exception: I had some trouble with the Mac version of Quicken when I moved my financial data from MS Money to Mac.) If you use MS Office, there is a Mac version too.

So check out the right web sites. And esp. check out apple.com site discussion group on Mini. This group is where you'll find a lot of switchers.

In my opinion, you would love the Mac. Can't say much about the Intel Mac though. I work for IBM, and they ditched us. Grrrr...

But then Mac is known for sleek boxes and their software. So what is inside the box is immaterial.