High End Mac Book Pro / Mid Range Mac Pro

[Sam Nichols]

Trying to weigh up the pros and cons a bit here - but struggling!

Basically I want a decent mac primarily for editing. I'll be using the family PC for web browsing, games, msn etc.

Now the most obvious choice to me is to get a mac pro and bobs your uncle.. however in around a years time im going on a long roadtrip around europe so I'll need a decent laptop for editing and for music and web etc

My predicament is that obviously the mac pro will be more powerful and more comfortable to use for the next year BUT i'll then need a laptop for europe OR i can sacrifice some performance over the next year.. perhaps spend a bit more money and get an apple monitior that'll plug into the mac book pro and even external mouse/keyboard and run it like that. This will cost mroe and wont be as efficient as having a dedicated desktop.. it'll cost more initially too.

As you can see i'm in a muddle!

Any experience with editing on a mac book pro would be great, any suggestions, ideas, pros, cons.. anything really!

Please help!

[JonMack]

Hmmm... I can understand the problem. I reckon you could work well on a 15/17" MBP, if you got a 7200RPM hard drive that would probs help things along nicely, I think when my warranty is up in July on mine I'm gonna upgrade the HDD in mine to something bigger. Not that that's relevant at all.

I've never edited on my MBP and because I've got access to a shit load of G5s and a few MP's I'll never really have the need to, but I reckon if you got yourself a decent MBP setup, say 15", 2 or 3GB of ram and a 7200RPM HDD, with the 256MB graphics card, you cant go wrong with that, will be powerful enough to run FCP without any problems at all, I used to edit on my 900Mhz G3 and not have any problems!!

Obviously rendering will be faster on the MP but thats to be expected. If you really need the portability (which it sounds like you will if youre gonna be working abroad) then I'd go for the MBP (obviously), you could get a decent size external monitor (doesnt have to be an Apple Cinema Display) for a pretty decent price, and just get a mouse to make things a bit easier and I reckon you'd be sorted. If you think you could go through the whole trip without needing to edit or anything, then get the MP :]

That's the way I see it.

[Spikenipple]

Make sure that whatever you do, you get the Mighty Mouse. It took me 3 months to work out that the grey bits on the sides are buttons and that if you press down on the scroll ball it's also a seperate button - turns out these functions are really, stupidly helpful!

[Tomm]

Make sure that whatever you do, you get the Mighty Mouse. It took me 3 months to work out that the grey bits on the sides are buttons and that if you press down on the scroll ball it's also a seperate button - turns out these functions are really, stupidly helpful!

I hate the mighty mouse. Really really uncomfortable for me to use. So try it out first.

[JonMack]

Yeah I swapped my normal Apple mouse for a Mighty Mouse from uni, I rarely use it though as I'm so used to control clicking it's just pointless, but still it's nice to have.

[Joel]

2 finger tap on the trackpad is automatic for me. I would say mac book pro but i advise getting an external harddrive for your raw footage or movies. When are you thinking of getting it? I would wait for leopard to come out. There is a new mac pro coming out with 2 3ghz quad core processors. or have a look at the imac 24inch, pretty good computers, perfect screen.

I say get second 17inch option with 3gbs of ram, 100 gb harddrive (7200 rpm), none glossy screen (better in sunlight (less reflection)).

[Tomm]

There is a new mac pro coming out with 2 3ghz quad core processors.

Yeah, 8 cores ***! 16Gb of ram too... Bet they're not cheap though.

[JonMack]

Yeah the 8-cores havnt actually been announced in the UK yet though, just the US.

I'm looking forward to a price drop on the cinema displays here too.

I'd agree with Joelio, get a decent size external for your raw footage on the MBP. I wouldnt advise a 24" iMac, cos of integrated graphics card.

If you get a MBP you could get an external display hooked up so easily.

[Sam Nichols]

Yeah i'm glad people went with what i was thinking of.

MBP it is then, and yeah as people said i was planning on budgetting for an external hd and a screen too. Basically i'll just run the laptop as a box until i go away.

One final question, does anybody know if the graphics card in the MBP will be able to support dual screen? Because it'd be pretty neet to run it like a proper editing suite.

Cheers guys

[Tomm]

Yeah i'm glad people went with what i was thinking of.

MBP it is then, and yeah as people said i was planning on budgetting for an external hd and a screen too. Basically i'll just run the laptop as a box until i go away.

One final question, does anybody know if the graphics card in the MBP will be able to support dual screen? Because it'd be pretty neet to run it like a proper editing suite.

Cheers guys

Yeah, you can do dual screen easy. Even on my old iBook which was very basic in comparison to a MBP.

[JonMack]

It's powerful enough to run a 30" Apple Screen. It's a 256MB ATI Mobility Radeon X1600.

In other news the 8-cores are on the UK store now. Peep this,

Two 3.0GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon

16GB (8 x 2GB) RAM

NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500 512MB, Stereo 3D (2 x dual-link DVI)

4x 750GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s

2x 16x SuperDrives

Bluetooth 2.0+EDR and AirPort Extreme

Apple Keyboard & Mighty Mouse - British

Mac OS X (English)

2x Apple Cinema HD Display (30" flat panel)

Five USB ports

Two FireWire 400 ports

Two FireWire 800 ports

£10,262.02

I think that's so f**king cheap! Only ten grand?! That's nuts. Thats regular pricing, £8,284.93 Educational discount!

Anyway!! Dreams will come true one day!! Haha.Glad you've sorted the problem out Sam, if you need any help choosing which model MBP then I'm sure we could help you out again.

[Tomm]

They shouldn't allow educational discount on ten grand computers!

[Sam Nichols]

Just to clarify, when i said dual screen i meant running the two screens as though they were one big screen so you can have the timeline and tools in one monitor and the preview in the second.. or however you prefer.

Is that still gonna be cool?

[JonMack]

Yeh, even my G3 iBook could do that (with a small applescript). Mac's have had screen spanning abiltiy for years and years. The MacBook Pro is powerful enough to run a 30" Apple Cinema Display as a secondary display.

Edited April 6, 2007 by MonsterJ

[Dai the Socket]

I hate the mighty mouse. Really really uncomfortable for me to use. So try it out first.

Haha I so agree with that! I'm back on the old school - one button mice!

I'm getting a MBP for Uni. I'm waiting for the 12" one to come out though, load it with 2gb of ram and bob's your uncle!

[Janson]

is my mighty mouse the only one that ghost scrolls? it scrolls a bit when i just click the button sometimes.. combined with mouse gestures, it goes back in the firefox history when i try to right click sometimes, it really pisses me off lots. cant be arsed to return it though!

[Danny]

I used a mighty mouse at work for a while and the fact that you have to actually lift your finger completely off the left button to do a right click drove me absolutely mental

[Tomm]

I used a mighty mouse at work for a while and the fact that you have to actually lift your finger completely off the left button to do a right click drove me absolutely mental

Yeah, that too! But for me it's the tiny movements needed to scroll. Such a fiddly little ball. It's a good idea though, I love the two finger scrolling on my Powerbook, couldn't live without that now.