OMG. I don’t believe it. I can actually download the manual, magic word list, all that I would need to play the game again. What a riot! I have a BT client called ‘BitTorrent’! Is there a reason to not just use this over Transmission?
(best not to give my real name here, just in case… 8) )
Not really. I find Transmission easy to use, but you can use what you’ve got. Have fun.
Transmission is just better. The end result with BT will be the same, but Transmission was built for the Mac, has a very small memory footprint, and looks much nicer than any other BT client out there 
Then I guess I’ll just download Transmission then! Thanks.
But Chéri,
We already know your [i]nom propre[/i], tis
[i]Chuckle Bunny[/i]
Le D 
Chuckle Bunny?? That, from a rangy mutt with a peg leg, eye patch, and goofy pirate’s hat! I have to look back over the threads to remind myself who to thank for that one. You know who–the funny fellow who posted that pix of you in the first place. 8)
Alexandria
Chuckle Bunny wrote:
Oui Chéri, le perroquet fou
Le D 
I don’t want to start a slanging match but I beg to differ, at least for audio work. Off the shelf the macbook is fairly ordinary but if you add a 250gb HD and max out the ram you’re in better shape than most desktops were two years ago. These upgrades are less than the price difference between the MB and the MBP too.
I’m running Logic Express on my Santa Rosa macbook, and it’s wiping the floor with my PC desktop (Abelton Live, AMD 4400+, 2GB ram, 10,000rpm sata drive), which is 18 months old. Apples to oranges, I know, but it’s an interesting comparison nevertheless.
My MB is used to record and mix my brother’s band (using a firewire i/o connected to an analogue mixer) and it hasn’t missed a beat.
I’m no expert on video so I can’t really comment but if video editors utilize the GPU then I’d be inclined to agree that editing with the X3100 would mean a lot of tea breaks while you’re waiting for the mongrel to render 
If it’s just down to CPU then surely the MB would be a suitable candidate for home movie stuff?
Truth be told it’s very easy to talk about benchmarks and GPUs and CPUs etc but the most important measure - user experience - is much more difficult to quantify. The current MB is more powerful than the original MBP (and the G5 towers) yet no-one thought twice about using them for professional applications. 
My wife has been doing basic video editing on a 1.6 GHz MacBook and is Ok with it, though she’s only doing pretty short things and not major editing.
While it may be true in terms of CPU that current MBs are more powerful than the original MBP – of which I have one – the MBP still has separate graphics memory and associated advantages over the MB.
My 1 jiao …
Mark
I’m not denying the MBP is better at these tasks; I just don’t think that the extra £650 (ie the difference between the Blackbook and the high-end 15.4 inch MBP) is going to yield an earth-shattering difference in performance. I’ve used both the MB and the MBP (both Santa Rosa) and the only discernible difference is in graphics performance.
That £650 would go a long way towards a hard drive, RAM upgrade, careplan and an external monitor. Or if gaming is your passion that £650 would get you the top-of-line console of your choice and several games.
Perhaps the difference in price isn’t as bad in Asia and the States but here in the UK it’s joke, especially considering we’re 2 $ to the £ at the moment.
As I said, I’m not looking to start any slanging matches but one thing I’ve been aware of lately is a lot of noobs and converts getting burned on forums (not this one thankfully) because they get bullied by tech-heads or gamers into to thinking the only decent mac portable for every situation is the pro line.
Interestingly when I got chatting to a guy in Apple retail, he insisted that the Macbook is Apple’s most successful laptop ever. That particular shop sold 10 macbooks for every 1 MBP. I’d be interested to hear if this was across the board.
I think your arguments are right on. The difference in how you do the audio editing. I like to see wave forms moving along in realtime, all my tracks, and I like them synced to the clock. That requires some graphic horsepower. If you are doing realtime analysis that will require PCU so offloading to the GPU is critical.
Video is a different story for MOST editors. Folks doing home video are not editors for the sake of this argument (for those folks the MB is more than sufficient). HD, 3d manipulation, etc all need GPU.
My MBP serves more of a workstation than a portable. I think that is the main thing to keep in mind. The P series is there for those of us who really need to lug around a desktop. In my case it is running multiple VM in Parallels.
I’d personally love to buy a MacBook. They are more my size and certainly more in my price range. But I tried both the MB and MBP with hi-def video and there was a HUGE difference. So the MBP it is. Definitely, though, if you can get by with an MB, I’d go for it. They are lovely machines.
Alexandria
It’s a knotty one, I agree; portability vs power. The size won me over, but then my first Mac was a 12inch powerbook; I wanted a laptop not a coffee table.
I don’t watch much HD content on my laptop but if I did then I’m sure my eyes would appreciate the bigger screen and the better GPU. What I have watched on my MB though (DVDs, 720p and 1080p trailers and DV files), has looked good enough for my viewing pleasure - I’m no video connoisseur. In fact my powerbook with it’s discreet video card often chocked when I played high-def H264 and WMV files, where as the Macbook cruises along nicely.
According to Intel the X3100 is optimised for video playback rather than 3d rendering. Apple’s graphic drivers for the X3100 and GMA were quite poor compared to XP but they have just updated and it does appear to be for the better.
I’m not looking to make any converts; in it’s context the SR Macbook is an awesome computer and in some respects (video isn’t one of them) it’s a worthy competitor to the pro line.
The only big difference is the FW800 port
The book does not have it the MBP pro does.
That falls to output speed where the MB is limited to FW400 (around 50Mb per sec). This is the standard connector for most entry level and mid level Input devices (usually maxing out at 8 simultaneous inputs).
But the hard part is not the data path between the input device and the computer it is the data rate between the CPU and the storage device.
If you have a large project ( 64+ tracks) the datapath becomes bottleneck and you end up fighting latency.
There is a big difference between a max input/output of 50mb transfer rate and the internal rate of the motherboard and internal drive.
SATA I was around 150MB transfer rate and the SATA II is around 300MB transfer rate.
Ultra ATA 66 was 66MB data transfer rate so to put it in perspective.
The Firewire 400 is SLOWER than an Ultra ATA 66 connection.
The FIrewire 800 is the same as an Ultra ATA100 connection.
The 400 is one third as robust in max data bandwidth than the internal HARD in BOTH the MB and MBP.
The 800 is two thirds as robust.
Now some would say replace the internal Drive on the laptop with a 7200rpm drive and just use it.
Well you run into a performance hit doing that becuase the HD is being used to read/write everything for the OS, the application you are using and the audio data being recorded. Compound that by track amounts and plug in usage and you get latency.
In truth the Pro Towers are geard more for the “industrial” usage when doing audio and video because of three main options.
You can use 4 Internal drives (300mb/7200 RPM) 3 that are easily replaceable for each client.
You can use 4 internal drives (300mb/7200 RPM) in a hardware configuration (2 for OS/APPs) and (2 for Main recording)
Or Fibre Channel to a Raid system.
The only difference between the MB and MBP for audio recording is
the FW 800 port allows data bandwidth up to 100MB to external drives where the Macbook can only achieve 50MB peak.
That is why many choose the MBP over the MB for recording.
That and the screen size. in recording projects big screens = more productivity. Usually the standard for recording ro is a Pro Tower running raid with dual 30".
Also the big problem with “PC’s” in recording is that their Fire Wire would peak at S100 and not S400. Their software is not the greatest and they tend to “choke” on big projects.
SO anyone using an INpute device that was firewire 400 on a PC was running at 1/4th the total output speed.
Or in simple terms, at the speed of USB 1.0 unless they downloaded the special drivers from MS.
This would cause great latency issues.
Anyone serious in recording is using a MAC and Pro Tools or Logic now a days.
Full support for IEEE 1394a and 1394b is available for FreeBSD, Linux, Apple Mac OS 8.6 through to Mac OS 9[5], and Mac OS X as well as NetBSD and Haiku. Microsoft Windows XP supports both, but as of Service Pack 2, each FireWire device will run at S100 (100 Mbit/second) speed. A download is available from Microsoft which enables devices rated at S400 or S800 speeds to operate at their rated speedHence
Everyday use MB
Specialty MBP
And only in recording audio because of the FW 800 port.
Wock, mate, I fully hear you. In my last job I worked as a technical writer for an audio engineering firm in Australia, so I know the spec backwards.
If you noticed on my post however, I’m using an analogue mixing desk with a separate Firewire I/O. Most of the mix (<24 channels) is done on the desk; most of the post work is done on outboard hardware before it even gets to the computer. The macbook is serving as a 4 channel, 24bit, 192khz recorder and waveform editor. In that context the Macbook works. I wouldn’t dream of simultaneously recording and playing 64 tracks on a 400mbps pipe!
Perhaps I should have clarified that because I’m cheating in some respects by doing most of my audio grunt work in dedicated hardware.
Recording and playing 64+ tracks is the domain of professional studios - not home recording artists - and most of them wouldn’t touch any laptop with a bargepole. Most pro studios are pumping audio into a mac pro (or G5) from an analogue (usually from the 70s or 80s) mixer and using Pro-Tools HD as their DAC. For the vast majority of home recorders (either soloists or 4 piece bands), an 8x8 digital firewire 400 mixer more than enough.
The scenario you paint is very, very specialised so your observation about the Pro being for specialists is correct to a point. I just think that ‘speciality use’ is a bit more nuanced and depends more on your workflow than simply reviewing the numbers. Yes there are things that FW400 and the Macbook can’t do but in my experience people are clever at finding workarounds for most hardware limitations.
See my point about forums though? Someone asks a legitimate question about a consumer choice and us nerds creep out of the woodwork. We could argue all week on this because I bet we could find a hundred real-world examples to support either stance. It’s not the tools that are important after all, it’s what you do with them that counts.
Lets stop nit-picking and do some [insert creative passion here]
alas no nit picking here my friend
The fault lies with how vague I answered Specialized versus Everyday uses.
I guess I tend to err on the side of caution for fear of that one person who would try some huge project in ignorance and then be fuming when they didn’t realize the the limitations of their output speed.
(would hate to have a new user to macs purchase something then feel it “wasn’t enough”)
I can also tell by your use of analog and dedicated hardware that you are a “speciality” user (aka power user) and knowledgeable in your recording.
Although I advocate the “digital recording” era I think most professionals still realize that specialized hardware and analog is more forgiving and can actually produce better quality then a small budget limited digital system.
I should have clarified that “everyday use” would the average home user or one that already has other dedicated hardware where as a specialized user was one that already knew the specifications of their needs and utiized it some certain feature (like fw800 or dedicated video card for extensive video use)
Apple put everyone in an odd situation with their current configurations of laptops.
The MBP and the MB currently is an odd lineup.
Odd because bare bones they are almost identical when comparing HD, FSB and CPU.
Most lineups would be some noticeable difference in speed and performance defining the differences but the MB and MBP don’t.
Kinda like car models as an analogy. The MB is the base model, the MBP is the “luxury” model but both are built on the same frame and use the same engine and performance.
The MBP truly has certain luxury offerings like the ambient light sensor, larger screen, optional gloss vs anti-glare, FW 800, DVI output and Express slot.
What sucks is that the MBP only comes in 15 & 17 models so there is no “compact luxury model” which for many is a huge selling feature because they want a small footprint. This small footprint also defines the line from the MBA as well. The MBA is by far a road warrior specialty model but its footprint is still large for a sub-notebook where size and weight matters I would wonder why Apple didn’t release a 12" MBA
In truth I counsel people currently that if they are not needing the needs of a dedicated video card and the “luxury options” are not deal breaking selling points that the mid range MB is the best computer for the money.
It is really cool that the MB is beefy enough to give consumers the options because it really comes down to personal preference and need.
Until Apple revamps the MBP line (they are supposed to this week or next unless they hold off until June) they line that defines the two lines is very very small and comes down to the user deciding if the luxury items is worth the extra cost.
When the lineup changes then the performance line will be redefined once again because the MBP will come in 2.4GHz 2.6GHz and 2.8Ghz and have 6MB of cache instead of the 4MB. They will also use the 45nm Peryn chips which will give 20-50% speed increase on most everyday applications (MS Office, safari, mail, etc) and a 10-40% speed increase on specialty software (Logic, Photoshop, Indesign, etc) at the same speeds. (this is conjecture and not certain fact as of this writing yet … )
When that happens then the choices will be much easier to make and the price difference between the MB and MBP will be easier defined because you will be able to easily choose between the 2.2 Core Duo 65nm w/4MB cache MB or a 2.4-2.8GHZ Core due Peryn 45nm w/6MB cache and a speed increase of 10-50% making the MacBook Pro an actual “Pro” machine instead of just a Luxury MacBook model as it currently is.
This happened with the Mac Pro and iMac a few months back. Before the Pro’s were updated with the Peryn chips and the the iMac was revamped in August the imac was actually outperforming the Pro’s in many aspects making people wonder what in the world was going on.
Then apple quitely updated the Mac Pros to the peryn chips and started offering them with 8 cores as a standard, once again redifing the performance line between the two models.
I do not know why Apple does this but it seems to happen a lot. They beef up one model causing an overlap and thus switching people from one model to another at certain times then after a few months they beef up the other line redifing performance.
In the end for the matter of this discussion I think it comes down to one main thing.
When you choose to buy more so than what your going to buy.
Right now until the MBP line is revamped a MB is a really good buy for an everday user because you get the performance of the MBP at two thirds the cost (sans the dedicated video card and luxury items).
Until the MBP is revamped the choice truly comes down to just feature prefernces in the end mainly
No fault at all Wock. Thanks for your angle on it; I certainly appreciated your comments and your insight and I hope anyone who’s in the market for a new laptop benefits from the forum. I suspect they will; there are a lot of good, well-formed opinions on here from a different people with quite different needs.
I hear you on the MBP lineup. I’m an old 12inch powerbook user and I’d love to see something similar in the MBP range. The MBA is sexy an all, but it’s an odd plum in the apple line up; I think a lot of folk were disappointed that the MBP didn’t get a 12 form factor.
cheers,
CR
Apple could really branch out to many markets with their ability to pack power in small spaces. I think a 12" MBP would be a huge success, why they didn’t continue with the 12" line is a mystery to me. Maybe down the road?
Apple should maybe look at some of the ingenious ways people are using Macs now.
One example is the Mac Mini used in vehicles. Because of its small form factor with a little engineering people have done some amazing things.
One that I find really interesting is the guy who put his mac min in his corvette. THink of all the possibilities of having a full blown wireless computer in your car lol.
Here it is. (This was pre-iphone era)
blog.shofr.com/2007/corvette/mac … tallation/
And the video of it being used. (This is neat to watch)
images.shofr.com/photogallery/bl … rvette.mov
Now if Apple would release a “car kit” and small touch screen for the mac mini I think this would be the hottest after market stereo put in cars and trucks.
Jobs, if you are reading this the “one more thing” should be "two more things.
A 12" MBP or MBA
and a Mac Mini Car kit.
no car kit. Make the MoBo available for purchase so it can be used in custom installs. I don’t need a car PC, but an imbedded platform to use in furniture. I would rather use mac than lintel.
New Macbooks and Macbook Pro’s released yesterday! Just when I thought the debate might settle down…