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New Mac Book Pro – What to buy?
Hi, please forgive if this has been covered.
I’m looking at the options for buying a new Mac book Pro.
They come down to Processor, screen, and hard drive.
I’m thinking of the 15 inch (price, and portability)
Am I going to see that much of a difference between 2.0 GHz, and 2.2 GHz (let alone 2.3?) Or will the difference in the Radeon video cards be that pronounced? I will be mostly cutting on the laptop, but occasionally connecting to a 50″ dlp which takes in HDMI.
Screen – Going for the Hi-rez – I think it will make a differnce (although I won’t be able to play 1080P natively no mattter what if I get the 15 inch.) Anti Glare or no anti-glare? Worth the $50 difference? If I recall my current laptop (core 2 duo pre-unibody) is matte finish.
Hard drive – Can’t afford an SSD, is there much performance difference between a 5400 and a 7200 drive? I remember in the past (long past) you needed a 7200 rpm drive for standard def (this was for uncompressed standard def), but now with all the compression??? Bigger and 5400 RPM, or smaller and 7200 rpm (or Bigger and faster?)
I will probably start with editing using an external Firewire 800 drive for now, until the next final cut comes out, in other words instead of re-installing fcp onto the new computer, just boot up from the external firewire drive.
Any thoughts appreciated, thanks.
Steven Gladstone
https://www.gladstonefilms.com -
4 Replies
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It has been covered a few times, yeah. Basically, go for the best you can afford, every little bit helps especially for HD. As you say “I will be mostly cutting on the laptop” I’d strongly recommend the 17″ (biggest available) screen as anything smaller will do your eyes in eventually, and you get the Expresscard slot as well (which is still really useful). Fastest drive and connection you can lay your hands on (FW800 good, esata better).
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You should buy the 17. Not just because of the screen space, but because of the express card slot. It makes this laptop a LOT more expandable, and allows for your external video feed with the right box attached. The 15″ as of this writing, has no way to view externally on a relatively inexpensive setup. You could do it with a Firewire device such as an IoHD, but you’d not be able to also use a FW drive for the media…
You need the 17″…
Speed will incrementally improve with the 200 buck upgraded CPU too.
Jerry
Apple Certified Trainer, Producer, Writer, Director Editor, Gun for Hire and other things. I ski. My Blog: https://blogs.creativecow.net/Jerry-Hofmann
Current DVD:
https://store.creativecow.net/p/81/jerry_hofmanns_final_cut_system_setup8-Core 3.0 Intel Mac Pro, Dual 2 gig G5, AJA Kona SD, AJA Kona 2, Huge Systems Array UL3D, AJA Io HD, 17″ MBP, Matrox MXO2 with MAX – Cinema Displays I have a 22″ that I paid 4k for still working. G4 with Kona SD card, and SCSI card.
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How long before the Thunderbolt Port becomes really useful. It’s faster than the express card slot isn’t it?
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Time will tell. Reminds me when usb and firewire were first announced.
Tbolt is 10gbps.
Steve Eisen
Eisen Video Productions
Vice President
Chicago Final Cut Pro Users Group
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