Are you a college student, or know someone in college, that uses a 17" mbp? Is it a beastly machine to carry around, maybe a little too beastly in size? I love the specs, but transportation bothers me slightly.
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Quick 17" mbp question
- Thread starter Ryuukumori
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Yes 17" is too big (bulky), the keyboard is the same models that 15" and there are a couple more of extra port and nothing else much.
Ryuukumori, i'm a college student who uses my mbp for everything (especially programming). i currently have a 15.4" late '07 mbp, but i have a 17" one on the way that is supposed to ship this week. i know quite a few people who have the 07/08 17" mbp and don't have any issues carrying them around.
i mean it's only 6.6 pounds. tons of lets say 15" dell laptops are 6.6 pounds, so it's not too heavy when comparing it to the 15" pro. the footprint is kinda bigish, but for a 17 inch laptop it's very slim.
i have seen a guy use his watching movies on it in a economy airline seat, sitting in on his food tray, so it does fit... haha
so yeah it is i think about 20% bigger of a footprint than the 15 inch, which is like an inch wider, not even an inch deeper...
is the 15 more portable yes, is the 17 too big to even carry around... i don't think so.
i think the 17 is just awesome, but you know is a better fit for others
i have seen a guy use his watching movies on it in a economy airline seat, sitting in on his food tray, so it does fit... haha
so yeah it is i think about 20% bigger of a footprint than the 15 inch, which is like an inch wider, not even an inch deeper...
is the 15 more portable yes, is the 17 too big to even carry around... i don't think so.
i think the 17 is just awesome, but you know is a better fit for others
It's expensive but an awesome machine. Maybe a 15" would be more understanding. Thanks for the comments. Any others out there wishing to share their opinion?
It widely depends on what I can get out of a scholarship, or scholarships, to help afford one. Basically, I will be using this machine for some serious kick-butt music recording, as I play piano, sax, and guitar with versatile skills (planning to major in it).
So in this case, a 17" might be a really good choice? Or with portability sake, a 15" mid range model?
My main concern is going for the half-gig dedicated video RAM to handle high quality music recording. Maybe if I waited until June or July (Snow Leopard/ promo), will the bumped specs of the 15" models make way for 512 MB/ 1 GB dedicated video RAM? What do you think?
And also, any ideas on scholarships related to music? With a bit of work, I think I could pull off winning one recording some of my music videos (probably piano).
Thanks guys. Really appreciated. I'm excited for college, but a bit hesitant on a powerful Mac notebook to do the job.
So in this case, a 17" might be a really good choice? Or with portability sake, a 15" mid range model?
My main concern is going for the half-gig dedicated video RAM to handle high quality music recording. Maybe if I waited until June or July (Snow Leopard/ promo), will the bumped specs of the 15" models make way for 512 MB/ 1 GB dedicated video RAM? What do you think?
And also, any ideas on scholarships related to music? With a bit of work, I think I could pull off winning one recording some of my music videos (probably piano).
Thanks guys. Really appreciated. I'm excited for college, but a bit hesitant on a powerful Mac notebook to do the job.
Sounds like your major is related to music/video production or maybe it should be; Berklee College of Music is one of the best and many scholarships related to music require an audition and interview... Good luck 
Forgive me for I'm not really in the music production business but does the GPU affect the performance of the MBP in crunching music files? I'm pretty sure music production is purely I/O and CPU based - unless Snow leopard can off load CPU cycles to the GPU in the future.
I know a couple of people making their living producing music and they all rely on older Macbooks (you know the one with Firewire
) or G4 Powerbooks. So I think you'll be fine with any model of the current Macbook (Pros) performance wise.
Music recording don't require video ram. Music recording require a faster hard drive, more memory and preferably faster CPU. Video ram has nothing to do with music recording.
Are you sure that a macbook pro is a good election?.
After all, the latest macbook pro lack of some ports( for example a midi interface, a separated digital input/output and the latest models lack of fw400) a pro sound card and such.
I will buy a macbook pro only if i was a garageband user, otherwise there are plenty of nice tools outside mac world.
If you don't know anything about recording already, you're not going to win a scholarship. And obviously you know very little, seeing as you're worried about VRAM.
I've recorded albums on the original MBP, 10 tracks @ 44Hz without stuttering. Even a base level MacBook would handle an amateur recording engineer fine.
Check it out in-store
In this case, common advice might be worth taking: go into a store if you can and try a few things out. They often have keyboards hooked up so you can get a feel for working with music and a Mac.
Depending on what you envision yourself doing, you may wish to have the additional screen real-estate to more easily manage multiple tracks, etc. The other thing you may wish to consider is the potential for extra sturdiness with the unibodies; this could be important for recording/studio type environments where you've got lots of equipment to move around.
My guess would be that portability would be less of a concern than usability and power, but then, you need to assess your own needs, eh? Good luck with it all - Macs are great for music!
In this case, common advice might be worth taking: go into a store if you can and try a few things out. They often have keyboards hooked up so you can get a feel for working with music and a Mac.
Depending on what you envision yourself doing, you may wish to have the additional screen real-estate to more easily manage multiple tracks, etc. The other thing you may wish to consider is the potential for extra sturdiness with the unibodies; this could be important for recording/studio type environments where you've got lots of equipment to move around.
My guess would be that portability would be less of a concern than usability and power, but then, you need to assess your own needs, eh?
Good luck with it all - Macs are great for music!
Well that's a load of crap. There is no reason why you couldn't use a PC in a graphic design class provided you have the software for your PC.