Macbook Pro-Any advice on whether I should buy?

Hi!

Just to introduce myself- I'm from Ireland, current PC user, hopefully starting a course in multimedia next october and I want to get mac I can use for all the multimedia apps (final cut,flash,photoshop,after effects). The only thing is I'm finding it hard to decipher exactly what I need!

I was looking at buying a macbook pro, but I have a few..actually no, a lot of questions if anyone could possibly answer them:

1.how much space should I be aiming to get especially if I want to use editing software like final cut. I plan to edit a good few projects on the mac. Do I need to get external hard drive for all the captured video files? Is it possible to get good external storage for the macbook pro and what would be reccommended?

2.what's the DVD burner like on a macbook?

3.what graphics card do I need?Is the NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT graphics 512MB SDRAM offered with macbook enough?Does the macbook pro support effects heavy editing, changing colour saturation etc?

4.Is it worth getting a faster proccessor (2.6GHz over a 2.4GHz). I'm completely clueless as to whether it'll shorten rendering times by much or a lot. I know I should go for a new Mac Pro altogether if I want faster rendering but I'm trying to weigh up price and compactness.

5. Finally, if anyone has a macbook, do you find the touchpad annoying? This might seem like a stupid question but I was just wondering would it eventually get frustrating while editing? Is there any option to use a mouse with the macbook? (possibly another daft enquiry)

Apologies about all the questions - If anyone could offer me any suggestions or advice on this I'd very much appreciate it. I suppose basically I'm just wondering would I be severely limiting myself by choosing a macbook pro over a mac pro?

thanks!

Fiona

hey!
i have macbook pro fore 2 weeks! its an older version of 17" 2.4C2D , 2GB DDR2 , 256MB 8600m GT!
im woking on it with final cut pro ,color and motion! its woking fine fore me! i'v got it fore 1799$ its woth avery penny!

RedShiftBlue said:

Hi!

Just to introduce myself- I'm from Ireland, current PC user, hopefully starting a course in multimedia next october and I want to get mac I can use for all the multimedia apps (final cut,flash,photoshop,after effects). The only thing is I'm finding it hard to decipher exactly what I need!

I was looking at buying a macbook pro, but I have a few..actually no, a lot of questions if anyone could possibly answer them:

Click to expand...

Welcome to the forums, RedShiftBlue! I'll do my best to answer your questions...

1.how much space should I be aiming to get especially if I want to use editing software like final cut. I plan to edit a good few projects on the mac. Do I need to get external hard drive for all the captured video files? Is it possible to get good external storage for the macbook pro and what would be reccommended?

Click to expand...

It's going to depend on the size of your projects and how much space you're using for other programs. Generally speaking, video editing entails extremely large files, so it might not be a bad idea to look into an external drive that can take advantage of the MacBook Pro's FireWire 800 port for optimal performance.

2.what's the DVD burner like on a macbook?

Click to expand...

It's pretty typical of DVD burners that you would find on equivalent Windows notebooks, although it is slot-loading as opposed to tray-loading. Although aesthetically pleasing, it can be noisy at load and eject and of course can't handle non-standard size and shape media.

3.what graphics card do I need?Is the NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT graphics 512MB SDRAM offered with macbook enough?Does the macbook pro support effects heavy editing, changing colour saturation etc?

Click to expand...

Editing doesn't require a heavy-duty GPU, so the 8600GT is overkill for those purposes. Now, if you were doing 3D modeling, that would be a different story.

4.Is it worth getting a faster proccessor (2.6GHz over a 2.4GHz). I'm completely clueless as to whether it'll shorten rendering times by much or a lot. I know I should go for a new Mac Pro altogether if I want faster rendering but I'm trying to weigh up price and compactness.

Click to expand...

In my opinion, no. Others will argue with me, but 200mhz is a drop in the bucket and a relatively insignificant difference. In terms of rendering, you're talking just a few extra minutes of time.

5. Finally, if anyone has a macbook, do you find the touchpad annoying? This might seem like a stupid question but I was just wondering would it eventually get frustrating while editing? Is there any option to use a mouse with the macbook? (possibly another daft enquiry)

Click to expand...

No, there's no reason you can't use the mouse of your choosing. I've yet to run into a USB or Bluetooth mouse that didn't like my Mac.

Apologies about all the questions - If anyone could offer me any suggestions or advice on this I'd very much appreciate it. I suppose basically I'm just wondering would I be severely limiting myself by choosing a macbook pro over a mac pro?

thanks!

Fiona

Click to expand...

The Mac Pro is a beast of a machine. Obviously, you will trade-off a bit of performance for the convenience of portability. You need to decide which is more important. Personally, I can't imagine being tied to my desk with a desktop and rarely use mine anymore.

thanks!

Hey,
thanks a million for the reply!-its a big help. I'm going to see what external storage I can get (and for how much) since space is definitely my main worry.

RedShiftBlue said:

Hey,
thanks a million for the reply!-its a big help. I'm going to see what external storage I can get (and for how much) since space is definitely my main worry.

Click to expand...

RedShiftBlue,

There are a lot of external hard drives out there, but I particularly like the Western Digital passports. Here is a list of them, all sizes and colors. The 320GB is probably the size you'd need, and the prices are pretty decent: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=50001306%2040000414&bop=And&SrchInDesc=passport&Page=1

Good luck with your new Macbook Pro - it's an awesome machine.

Noel

EDIT: You could also buy buy a bare 2.5" SATA hard drive and put it in an enclosure. A decent USB enclosure can be had for about $25. This my be more effort than it's worth, but if you exchange your Macbook Pro hard drive for a larger one, the old drive would make a good second external drive.

It seems like everyone is helping you pretty well in here. I would add, that if you want to do video and photo editing, it would be in your best interest to max out the MacBook Pro with 4 gigs of ram total. This would be a far better investment than bumping up the processor clock speed, and it would be directly correlated to your video and photo editing performance. Also, you can build to order any MacBookPro with a larger HD, up to 250gig on the 15.4". You can also acquire an external HD that will work very easily with your computer quite cheaply. I regularly see 320gig HD's for under $100 U.S.

I don't think the 512mb video is necessary over the 256mb, which is already sufficient.

I run Final Cut and Photoshop pretty well with my current setup, but I just recently ordered a new MacBook Pro after using this MacBook for almost 2 years.

Thanks! Those prices for western digital look really good and I'll definitely be going for the 4gb of ram. I just have one other question..on drive speed;250gb at 5400rpm or 200gb at 7200rpm? I guess it really depends on how much I'm accessing the drive for the programs I'll be using but just wondering how much of a speed difference are we talking?

320Gb is now available in both 5400 rpm and 7200 rpm versions - I have just installed the former as it is half the price (at the moment) of the 7200 rpm one.

If you want to go down the 4 Gb RAM route, buy the extra RAM yourself and upgrade the machine. If you spec the machine that way from Apple, you'll pay a fortune for it. The link below shows you step-by-step how to upgrade the memory (the site does all sorts with the MBP).

To upgrade to 4 Gb, cost me about £50, or €65 to €70.

http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Mac/MacBook-Pro-15-Inch-Core-2-Duo/RAM/115/3/