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Best apple notebook for journalist?

K

K.Lizarazo

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 24, 2011
7
0
Hello everyone. First post here.

I'm a student journalist. I'm based in Stony Brook University.

I'm posting this from my dell studio 14z, which I love very much. Had it for two years, and it still runs like brand new. I take care of my equipment.

With that being said, I've been having way too much fun in the newsrooms on campus. mac pros everywhere, each with dual 27-inch displays? Super fun. More notably, I see all of my peers/professors in the j-school carrying around their macbooks and macbook pros. They all swear by it.

Even though I have this laptop currently, I've become really interested in picking up an Apple as well. What I want to know is, what would be the best long-term investment for someone like me? I'm looking to own one for about two to three years before buying a replacement.

Here's what I want to do, all basics aside: write, record, film and send off to my editors/professors. I want to be able to edit HD films from a Canon t2i on it with Final Cut, and all without taking any hits to the performance of the machine.

Battery life is a huge priority. If you guys have any tips and tricks on how to maximize an Apple battery, let me know.

I also would plan to replace the HDD with an SSD upon purchase (if you guys have any suggestions, please chime in) as well swapping out the RAM.

Also, what's the programming scene like over here? I like to dabble.


Thanks, everyone. Sorry that this is rather long. :)


Edit: I should add, I don't plan on buying anything until the summer specials that Apple always has for back-to-school.
 
Any of the existing models are powerful enough easily run everything that you need. The question here is now, what form factor do you prefer? Do you want a bigger screen with more screen real estate or you want a smaller more portable Mac. If you can sacrifice the horsepower you can also consider an Air for its weight. Its all up to you. :)
 
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What's your budget? I'd say go with the 15" with the upgraded screen for a good balance of screen space and portability. You might want to stick with the glossy screen for better color (though the AG isn't bad on my girlfriends 17").

Hello from ronkonkoma!
 
Jiten said:
Any of the existing models are powerful enough easily run everything that you need. The question here is now, what form factor do you prefer? Do you want a bigger screen with more screen real estate or you want a smaller more portable Mac. If you can sacrifice the horsepower you can also consider an Air for its weight. Its all up to you. :)
Click to expand...

Not quite sure, to be honest. I'm on a 14-inch screen right now, and I like it for the most part. Sometimes, I wish I had more room, though. Other times, I wish it was smaller.
 
SDub90 said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

What's your budget? I'd say go with the 15" with the upgraded screen for a good balance of screen space and portability. You might want to stick with the glossy screen for better color (though the AG isn't bad on my girlfriends 17").

Hello from ronkonkoma!
Click to expand...

No real budget set -- in the end, I could deal with spending around $2,000 on it, give or take. Plus or minus the cost of an SSD/RAM upgrade.
 
Sounds like a base 15 is a good machine for you, you will love the extra power it brings when editing, encoding movies, compared to the dual core 13"
 
Well, as he mentions, he will do video editing, he will save alot of time going for a mbp over a mba then
 
henrikrox said:
Well, as he mentions, he will do video editing, he will save alot of time going for a mbp over a mba then
Click to expand...

This is right. While I love ultra-portability, I really wouldn't mind carrying around a 15-inch mbp. I carry around this 14-inch dell just fine.
 
K.Lizarazo said:
Ah, interesting. Why?
Click to expand...

yeah portability and just how speedy it is in general, perfect for a journalist.
As far as video editing goes, it really depend on how heavy duty you are with that, I imagine a film major who needs to encode video all day could use a 15 inch, if you are talking about some amateur level video editing here and there, MBA will be fine.
 
The base 15 sounds like your best bet. It's the best machine all around anyway. If you don't mind the extra weight and size, go for it. Otherwise just do the higher end 13.
 
mashsensor said:
yeah portability and just how speedy it is in general, perfect for a journalist.
As far as video editing goes, it really depend on how heavy duty you are with that, I imagine a film major who needs to encode video all day could use a 15 inch, if you are talking about some amateur level video editing here and there, MBA will be fine.
Click to expand...


You make a good point. I would be doing a lot of HD video editing though, as I'm specializing on the online/broadcast branch of journalism. Since I'm trying to gather as many clips/videos as I can into a portfolio I can show off to potential employers, doing a lot of video editing is definitely in my future. Broadcast is intense. It's demanding, in this j-school.
 
vincenz said:
The base 15 sounds like your best bet. It's the best machine all around anyway. If you don't mind the extra weight and size, go for it. Otherwise just do the higher end 13.
Click to expand...

Just did a small comparison on my current machine and the 15 inch mbp. Virtually no difference. I feel like this is the best bet indeed.


Does anyone here do HD film editing? Anyone here running an SSD in their mbp?
 
Well i see it two ways.

Yes the portability of the mba is great, and its a real sexy machine. And its awesome for light work, text, etc.

But it lacks raw peformance. Since you will be doing alot of video editing, it comes to the simple matter, of how fast you want your work to be done.

Also with the 15" you can have a bit more fun, if you play games or do other stuff.

If you werent doing video editing i would also say air. But i mean, if i needed a work machine i would pick the machine which made my life the easiest. You are going to save many many minuets because of the quad core cpu.
 
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