I'm a Freshman Film/Video major at Drexel in Philadelphia. I'm torn between a Mac Pro and a Macbook Pro. The Pro offers tremendous bang for your buck and the technology would last longer than the MBP, but the MBP is portable. I'm a commuter so having a laptop on the train would be cool, but editing on the small 15.4 inch screen is brutal. While the MBP is cheaper than the pro, it probably would get outdated much faster than the pro. And really, do people edit "on the go"? Drexel recommends waiting until sophomore year until buying a machine, but i want to get off windows as fast as possible. So Mac Pro (November update) or Macbook Pro (Penryn Update) for a Film Major?
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MacBook Pro or Mac Pro
- Thread starter ChemiosMurphy
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Are you going to be cutting films on this machine?
I would get a MacBook Pro, they are kick ass laptops.
I would hate to have a Mac Pro for college.
The only risk of having a portable is having it stolen.
I would get a MacBook Pro, they are kick ass laptops.
I would hate to have a Mac Pro for college.
The only risk of having a portable is having it stolen.
You say editing on the 15.4 inch screen is brutal, but the Mac Pro doesn't even come with a monitor. So, take the money that you were gonna buy the monitor with and buy a nice external display for the MBP. I had to make the same choice as you, only I'm not in school for video or anything. I chose the MBP and a 22" Dell display, portability is what basically made up my mind. Just because you have a notebook doesn't mean you have to "edit on the go," but if you need to, then you can. Either way though, whether you pick the MBP or the Mac Pro, I believe you would be happy.
The mac Pro is SO MUCH FASTER (I have both and I do Video).
Besides, you can get a cheap 22" monitor, and is way upgrable (you will need a external FW drive for the MBP).
It will last you 6 years (I work with my Dual G4).
So if you want to be serious, HD editing, Cheap HarDrives upgrade, a killer machine, the new MACPRO thats comming out soon.
The 15.4' is quite good for editing, but 2x22" LG is FAR better.
If you try the mac pro one time for FCP, rendering and Compressor, you will not be back to any other machine.
My 2 cents.
PD: The macbook Pro is the better laptop in the market anyway, but currently the old quad 2.66 Macpro is 2 times faster.
Besides, you can get a cheap 22" monitor, and is way upgrable (you will need a external FW drive for the MBP).
It will last you 6 years (I work with my Dual G4).
So if you want to be serious, HD editing, Cheap HarDrives upgrade, a killer machine, the new MACPRO thats comming out soon.
The 15.4' is quite good for editing, but 2x22" LG is FAR better.
If you try the mac pro one time for FCP, rendering and Compressor, you will not be back to any other machine.
My 2 cents.
PD: The macbook Pro is the better laptop in the market anyway, but currently the old quad 2.66 Macpro is 2 times faster.
Maybe save some money and get the 2.8GHZ Imac, it comes with and excellent scren, and is 15% faster than the MBP, slower anyway than the MP.
If you are any serious about video, get Mac Pro DEFINITELY.
Sure, "editing on the go" seems nice, but its actually quite impossible to do. First of all, you need to hook up a FW drive to MBP. Next, you need to become comfortable with the small display and heat on your lap. Also, your battery wont last longer than 2 hours, especially with a FW drive. You use track pad.
Now imagine you have a Mac Pro with a nice big screen (not a cheap 22" mind you). You have a rock-solid machine on your desk and a comfortable chair. Full keyboard and a real mouse. Big quality display. You can work as long as you like, its VERY easy and cheap to add more fast storage inside a Mac Pro, you have 2 more CPU cores that help tremendously in this task. You also have an option to have 2 DVD drives, again, inside a computer. Not to mention ability to add TON of RAM and much faster graphics card in it. Or 4. You will also want to connect a small TV to your computer and mac Pro easily alows you to do so. PCI-e cards? Easy. More than 2 displays? Easy.
You probably wont believe me, but since I got my first laptop (this MacBook), I value the comfort of working (or playing) on a desktop MUCH more.
Laptops are good only for internet on the go
Sure, "editing on the go" seems nice, but its actually quite impossible to do. First of all, you need to hook up a FW drive to MBP. Next, you need to become comfortable with the small display and heat on your lap. Also, your battery wont last longer than 2 hours, especially with a FW drive. You use track pad.
Now imagine you have a Mac Pro with a nice big screen (not a cheap 22" mind you). You have a rock-solid machine on your desk and a comfortable chair. Full keyboard and a real mouse. Big quality display. You can work as long as you like, its VERY easy and cheap to add more fast storage inside a Mac Pro, you have 2 more CPU cores that help tremendously in this task. You also have an option to have 2 DVD drives, again, inside a computer. Not to mention ability to add TON of RAM and much faster graphics card in it. Or 4. You will also want to connect a small TV to your computer and mac Pro easily alows you to do so. PCI-e cards? Easy. More than 2 displays? Easy.
You probably wont believe me, but since I got my first laptop (this MacBook), I value the comfort of working (or playing) on a desktop MUCH more.
Laptops are good only for internet on the go
If you value portability, then there's only one option. If not, then I'd say the Mac Pro, but wouldn't take any hard drive or ram upgrades from Apple as they're stupidly priced. And they still need to put a decent graphics card in the machine too!
I say go for the mac pro and a big monitor if you'll be doing lots of editing. If not get the MBP and an external screen. They are very fast and it's nice to surf the web on the couch. Either way you'll be happy with a new machine.
As a former Mac Pro owner, obviously it's much faster than my current 2.4 GHz MBP.
That being said with 4 Gb of RAM *and* by using an eSATA card with a good external HD (e.g. 1 Gb Hitachi) for your data, you get basically the performance of an iMac, which ain't bad at all.
I'm using it at home with a 27" screen (got a good price through a Dell promo) and it feels like I'm using a desktop, thus I have "shutdown" my main desktop...unless perhaps I get a new Mac Pro if they ever pimp it with SLi or something like that.
That being said with 4 Gb of RAM *and* by using an eSATA card with a good external HD (e.g. 1 Gb Hitachi) for your data, you get basically the performance of an iMac, which ain't bad at all.
I'm using it at home with a 27" screen (got a good price through a Dell promo) and it feels like I'm using a desktop, thus I have "shutdown" my main desktop...unless perhaps I get a new Mac Pro if they ever pimp it with SLi or something like that.