I am looking for a laptop for college next year. I have decided to go mac for the first time. I intend on majoring in music education. I'd be using this laptop for simply storing my music, typical internet things.. youtube, facebook, EC , etc. I'd also probably have minimal programs, one of which is Sibelius which is a music notation software. The new macbook pro with retina looks awesome but that also looks ridiculous as far as price goes! I also want this computer to last me the longest and I would like to do minimal work to use this computer as effectively as I can. Thanks for the advice in advance!
hey alexi, I went mac about 4 years ago, and there is no going back! I have used a Macbook (2008 white) for the things you've said, music, internet etc, as well as video editing (final cut) and dvd production, and it has never let me down, so any mac will last a long time (my granddad still uses a 2006 model!) For your needs, if you will be storing a lot of music, and the full Sibelius sound library, I would recommend a macbook pro, as the air has so little storage :/ As you aren't doing anything video or photo intensive, splashing out on the retina display would be a little pointless, as you don't need the extra pixels! The 13 inch 2.9 I7 model looks good for you, as the I7 will still keep pace in a few years, and It has plenty of ram, HDD space and decent graphics, so is an all round good buy The I5 model, which is cheaper, will still do all you need, but the I7 may have more shelf life Hope this helped XD
Yeah, I've got an older (2009) Macbook Pro and it's still doing quite well. That line of laptops has great life to it.
I have a Mac question too! (Sorry for using your thread to ask it :K) I plan on buying a Macbook Pro for college (which I'll probably buy in July so I can get used to it). I'm going to be buying the 13 inch one, but should I get the 2.5GHz or 2.7Ghz? What's the difference? I'll just be using it for school and personal use. No gaming or anything, just Youtube, Facebook, and the like. Thanks!! x
well it depends on your budget really and how much portability you want. the new macbook air line is a good deal with the 11 in starting $1000 and the 13 at $1200 but if you want more storage add another 200 to the 11 inch model and an extra 300 for the 13 inch model.
thank you all, yes the retina seems quite pointless.. and I cannot justify paying that much more to myself for retina display. With the new retina display, did they update the current line of macbook pros or did they lower the price, or did they do nothing?
I have a 2011 MacBook Pro, for the uses that the 2 (third including the person that seconded a question) of you will use it for, plus some gaming. You will be perfectly fine with 2.5ghz rather than the 2.7, it's just a quicker processor so it would perform heavy tasks quicker. If you were a media student who had to edit lots of films and wanted them to be done quicker, the higher one might be worth considering, or if you were a serious gamer, but for the usual social networking and iTunes usage a 2.5ghz is plenty. As for the original poster, i wouldn't recommend splashing out for the retina display model unless you can a) easily afford it - because then you might as well just to sit there and stare in awe at your pretty laptop b) really need it - e.g for photo editing, high resolution gaming. Of course there are other benefits to the retina display model, i think you can have up to 16gb of RAM on it compared to 8 on the standard MacBook Pro's - but again, for these uses, 8gb RAM is moreeee than enough - 4 would be fine, and you could always upgrade. Some other benefits, which if you need, may be worth getting the retina model : - SD card slot - HDMI out port (you can use hdmi out via a thunderbolt port cable that converts it to a hdmi end on the standard macbook pro's) - All flash storage (if you don't know, flash is much much quicker, so opening files e.g iTunes would become quicker, though it is pretty quick on it's native OS anyway if you're coming from a PC that opened it slowly. However, it's very expensive and you can only have a max of 512GB of storage on it. Wow i did not realise i'd wrote so much... feel free to ask any more questions on this though! ---------- Post added 15th Jun 2012 at 08:57 PM ---------- Oh and as for the non-retina MacBook pros', yes, they were also changed. They have quicker processor chips now (same as the retina models) I think they also got rid of the DVD/CD drive in it (you can use any other computer as a disc drive wirelessly, i think over WiFi or buy a USB one you can plug in when needed. I think they're the only changes...
I have had only macs my entire life. Right now I have a 2011 mac book pro which is amazing, and a 2009 mac mini. I would strongly advise you stay away from a mac mini like it is the plague. It has about the computing power of your average net book, but can run word, powerpoint, excel etc... Downloading anything on the mimi is painfully slow, but then again the entire system is just slow. I would highly advise getting a mac book or mac book pro. In my opinion though, the retina display thing dosnt really matter, unless you think your going to need it for hard core photo editing or extensive movies/TV. Hope this helps
Hey! My sister is a recent music-ed graduate, and I'm also going into music ed. I'm in quite the same boat! I've looked up prices, and yeah, the new retina is crazy expensive, but my sister got a macbook pro (13 inch) her freshman year and it has lasted up even after she graduated. It was actually really well-serving, and I'm probably going to just get a 13 inch Macbook Pro. It seems like it was able to do anything necessary, with her being a MUED major
The MacBook Air is also a possibility. It's much more affordable. The only thing is that you'd need to buy an external cd drive. But, it's an extremely fast and reliable computer.
Thanks again everyone! I ended up getting a 15 inch macbook pro. It was between 13 in or 15 in and I decided to go 15 inch... but I got a refurbished one because they come just like new but they are much cheeper. I went 15 because I just wanted the extra screen size for writing music on my computer. With the extra size, you can see more of the music at the same time, which is just something I want to be able to do if I'm going to have this computer for so long. If it wasn't for that, I would have gone 13 inch without a doubt. But so far I love it and I recommend it! ---------- Post added 2nd Aug 2012 at 06:41 PM ---------- ha! I should have gotten that one instead... jk :icon_bigg
