Need some help making up my mind on which MBP to buy

[cnymike]

I'm a mobile DJ and use VirtualDJ. The computer will be primarily used as my "work" computer at gigs, but will also be used for travel, some audio editing, a little video editing, ripping CD's, general web activities.

I'm considering the purchase of another mid-2012 MBP.

I currently have a mid-2012 MacBook Pro 2.9GHz Dual-core Intel i7. Has 8Gb RAM and a 750GB hard drive. It cost $1424 from Amazon. It works well for me and seems pretty zippy.

I want to buy a backup computer and originally was just going to get a refurb of the exact same computer from Apple for $1269.

But then I started thinking how nice it would be to have a 15" screen so am also looking at the following two computers...

A MacBook Pro 2.7GHz Quad-core Intel i7 with Hi-Res antiglare widescreen display, 1680-by-1050, refurb price is $2249
vs the MacBook Pro 2.7GHz Quad-core Intel i7 with glossy widescreen display, 1440-by-900 resolution, refurb price is $2169.

Both 15 inch MBP machines spec out with:
8GB (2 x 4GB) of 1600MHz DDR3 SDRAM
1TB Serial ATA @ 5400 rpm
8x double-layer SuperDrive (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M with 1GB of GDDR5 memory

To me, it seems like the Hi-Res anti-glare display is a no-brainer for only an $80 difference in price. I have used my 13" outdoors and the glare is a real bitch. So anti-glare would be nice. But then again I'm not outdoors all that often so it's not critical and I do think anti-glare also reduces sharpness a bit so that is a consideration for me as I love the sharp glossy screen on the 13".

I'm just a little nervous about the hi-res screen and not knowing if it will work well with video in VDJ or if the skins will work with it, etc.

So of the three choices, what would you do and why? I value outside input since I may be overlooking something obvious.

 

[bogatyr]

If this is a work backup - I'd go as identical as possible. Makes the transition in an emergency more seamless as there are less little items to crop up.

If it was just a for fun machine, I'd go as loaded as possible with as little glare as possible.

 

[r0k]

I'm a mobile DJ and use VirtualDJ. The computer will be primarily used as my "work" computer at gigs, but will also be used for travel, some audio editing, a little video editing, ripping CD's, general web activities.

I'm considering the purchase of another mid-2012 MBP.

I currently have a mid-2012 MacBook Pro 2.9GHz Dual-core Intel i7. Has 8Gb RAM and a 750GB hard drive. It cost $1424 from Amazon. It works well for me and seems pretty zippy.

I want to buy a backup computer and originally was just going to get a refurb of the exact same computer from Apple for $1269.

But then I started thinking how nice it would be to have a 15" screen so am also looking at the following two computers...

A MacBook Pro 2.7GHz Quad-core Intel i7 with Hi-Res antiglare widescreen display, 1680-by-1050, refurb price is $2249
vs the MacBook Pro 2.7GHz Quad-core Intel i7 with glossy widescreen display, 1440-by-900 resolution, refurb price is $2169.

Both 15 inch MBP machines spec out with:
8GB (2 x 4GB) of 1600MHz DDR3 SDRAM
1TB Serial ATA @ 5400 rpm
8x double-layer SuperDrive (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M with 1GB of GDDR5 memory

To me, it seems like the Hi-Res anti-glare display is a no-brainer for only an $80 difference in price. I have used my 13" outdoors and the glare is a real bitch. So anti-glare would be nice. But then again I'm not outdoors all that often so it's not critical and I do think anti-glare also reduces sharpness a bit so that is a consideration for me as I love the sharp glossy screen on the 13".

I'm just a little nervous about the hi-res screen and not knowing if it will work well with video in VDJ or if the skins will work with it, etc.

So of the three choices, what would you do and why? I value outside input since I may be overlooking something obvious.

I just picked up a 2.5 ghz 15.4 in hires MBP from Microcenter for $1600. New in box. They say that's $500 off but I think there's more off than that because when I looked at these things last year, I seem to recall I couldn't find a way to get a hires antiglare machine for less than $2400. Yep. It was $2449. I got $849 off this thing or over 30%. Wow.

I downloaded virtual dj home. Thanks for that btw. It works just fine on my main screen and I wasn't even mildly tempted to drag it over to the 1080p external monitor. In fact, now that I've got a real touchpad and it's so easy to get around with 2 and 3 finger gestures(I moved up from a 2008 Macbook), I think I might not need that external monitor so much any more.

The skin in my screenshot is the 1280x1024 2 deck skin. I also tried all the other skins and they look and work fine. 6 decks? I'm not sure when I'd use that one. BTW, the 4 deck skin shows 4 turntables at the same time while the 6 deck skin shows two and minimizes the other 4.

 

[cnymike]

@r0k: Wow, you got an amazing deal on the late-2011 MPB. Apple has them as refurbs for $1779. I'd almost consider that except that I really want USB 3.

BTW, glad you like VirtualDJ. They are actually working on what will be an amazing upgrade. It'll be a while before it comes out, but it will be fantastic.


I'm leaning towards the 2.7GHz Quad-core Intel i7 with Hi-Res antiglare display. It just is too good of a deal to pass up.

I'm not so concerned about having an identical computer for the backup since I use Dropbox and SkyDrive for file storage so I don't reallly need to worry about having a cloned, identical backup machine. I just need a backup machine and I would make my 13" the backup and use the 15" as my main computer, for work and for play.

I probably won't make my mind up for another couple days so would enjoy hearing anyone elses opinion too.