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What MBP do you have and what are you doing with it

U

underblu

macrumors regular
Original poster
Apr 19, 2010
167
12
Lota threads regarding the new MBP. It's cool typical excitement and speculation prior to Apple unveiling a refresh/upgrade.

However let's admit current and earlier gen MBPs are still great computers so for all MBP users out there what MBP do you have and what are you doing with it.

To get this thread started I'm using a 2011 quadcore 17" MBP and I love it. I use it for web surfing, word processing, music recording, and some other creative tasks. Actually I'm embarrassed to say for most of the activities I use it for I could probably get away with a '10 MBA. But then i'd miss that big 17" screen.

I was trying to think if there could be any possible advances with a new MBP that would make me want to upgrade and I really can't think of any.

My current MBP has:
Great big hi res matte Display
Fast quadcore processing,
Good discrete mobile graphics performance
Great battery life
light weight slim design
gorgeous brushed aluminum unibody
Love Snow Leopard too. Just about the nicest most elegant unobtrusive OS
I ever used and it appears this was the last OS from Apple optimized for computers as opposed to mobile devices.

I figure if and when i need any performance boost additional ram and an SSD drive would fit the bill nicely though honestly I never had a machine boot as quickly as this one and I found 0 need for any performance boost for the programs I run

I guess the edges by the palm rest could be a bit more rounded and hey you can never have too much battery life but other than those items I pretty much see this MBP staying with me for a while.

So what's everyone else doing with their MBP.
 
I've got the 13" MBP (late 2011) hooked up to a Thunderbolt Display and it's sweet. I do Photoshop, Apeture stuff on my MBP and video conversion and wow, it's fast.
 
I've got an early 2011 15" MBP, matte display, 16 gig of ram and 512 gig of SSD.

I mainly use it for running VMs which I need to do demos with for work - I run 7 simultaneously and I've become spoiled at the performance when forced to use, say, the iMac with a 5400 rpm drive. :)
 
Here's what I'm going to get and what I'm going to do with it:

13" MBP i7 2.8GHz with 256G Crucial SSD, 16G Corsair RAM, 750G 7200 second hard drive in Optical spot.

Extra SW: MOTU Digital Performer 7.2.4, Apple Mainstage, NI Komplete 8, ToonBoom Studio, Maybe Photoshop/Illustrator

Peripherals: MOTU 896HD Audio Interface (studio) and Focusrite Saffire Pro 14 (live), Wacom Bamboo tablet. Audio interfaces via FW conversion cable, Wacom via USB

I'm going to use this as my Portable Creativity Station, to record, arrange and mix music (using Digital Performer as my DAW and NI Komplete as my instrument set) for commercial release. I will also use it as my live keyboard rig, leveraging Mainstage and Komplete for keyboard sounds. I'll also use the Wacom tablet and ToonBoom Studio to make animation.

And as my go-to laptop, it'll be used for lots of email, writing and web surfing.

I want a separate HD, since music recording works much better by using separate drives (not just partitions) for OS+Apps on one drive and audio files on another. Since the audio files involve lots of writes, I thought a platter HD would be better than SSD (which I'll have OS and Apps on). I want 16G RAM, since digital audio and particularly virtual instruments eat lots of RAM. While some may urge me to bump up to a 15" with quad core, I prefer convenience of size, cost and I'm sure the MBP will still be a huge leap over the 1.8GHz Dual PPC G5 that has served these functions up to now. It still meets my needs, although I increasingly have to cripple my workflow to work around processor and RAM limitations, which I need to get past with the purchase described above.

And unless the new models have a way to install a second HD inside, I'm buying the current version of the 13". Just waiting (if I can) for the price drop that usually accompanies EOL for a model.

Any flaws in my thinking here?
 
Just bought a Late 2011 MBP 15"

I recently bought a 15" MBP with the 2.4 Ghz Core i7 and Radeon 6770 1Gb and I'm absolutely pleased with the performance.

I use it for college (word, excel, web surfing, and some Think or Swim investment client) and some 3D modeling with Rhino. Also I do some casual gaming but I do like playing games with good detail and descent fps.

Sincerely I was waiting for the new models to come out, but you know waiting will always make you regret what you just bought when the next model comes out. This MBP has enough power to handle most of the software that you use (non professionally) for a couple years at least.

My recommendation is, if you can, get yourself a faster HD than the ones from Apple. I have at this moment a Momentus XT and its just wonderfully fast. I can tell when you open your apps and do some hard drive intensive tasks.

Specs: MBP Late 2011 Core i7 2.4 Sandy Bridge, 8Gb 1600mhz RAM, Radeon HD 6770m, Momentus XT 500Gb, Glossy Display.
 
Just got a MBP 15" Quad core job and only upgraded to 8GB of RAM.

I will be getting an SSD as well to help speed things along if I don't get a new (2012) 17" when I see what they look like.

I use it at work which involves having many programs and websites open all at the same time and while just doing the RAM upgrade has made this much quicker I feel I may benefit from the SSD as well.
I just got Aperture and plan on doing photo editing but other than that its just web browsing, basic video editing based around my hobby (RC helicopters) and messing around really.

Got this as my first dive in to Mac and so far it seems perfect and far superior to anything I have used before :)
 
I have a 15" 2010 2.4 Ghz i5 with 8Gb Ram.

I use it mostly for web surfing/watching youtube. I also use it as my photo library(iPhoto). It's also my portable machine and I take with me everywhere I go on vacation as my local computer and more or less portable gaming machine as I will right now when Diablo 3 comes out(I'm making a long 2 month vacation in Romania and my MBP is going to help me play Diablo 3 until I get back home). I usually use it for everything involving computing in my personal time except for gaming.
I also have a Self-Built Desktop that is only used for Gaming and also ocasionally surfing the web(like if I don't fancy switching computers just to look up something on the net)
 
What MBP do you have and what are you doing with it

late 2011 mbpro 15 inch
2.2 quad core
512 mb video ram
8 gb ram (upgraded from the stock 4 gb around 5 months after purchase)
500 gb hard drive 5400 rpm stock apple hdd

This computer is my life.

I use it for school, video editing for school and personal use, graphics and website design, picture holding.

if you care... im 17. my old mac broke my dad sayed to me pay the money for the repair or get a new mac but pay part of the price for the new mac. I was about to get the 13 inch then decided to go with the 15 best money i have ever spent.
 
Mid-2010 17" MacBook Pro; 2.53GHz Intel Core i5 (Dual Core) / nVIDIA GeForce 330M (512MB) & Intel HD GFX (256MB) / 500GB 7200RPM HDD / 8GB 1067MHz RAM / Glossy / OS X 10.6.8

I use it for everything, but mainly in college was for Photo Editing and Graphic Design. As of now I have no plans of purchasing a new MacBook in the near future.
 
Entry 13" 2011. It's probably used at least 99% of the time just for using a very small amount of the 10.82 billion web pages available on the wonderful World Wide Web! iTunes will be on in the background often, but I don't do anything exciting except occasionally play a game. Fortunately I don't have the stress of writing up long essays because my subjects are Maths and Physics based.

There you go!
 
I just replaced a 13" aluminum MacBook with a 15" 2.4GHz MacBook Pro with high res antiglare display. My daughter gets the old system which she needs for college. I'm not concerned about a new model.

I use it for running electrical engineering CAD programs in a Windows virtual machine, class lecturing (projection of CAD tools, Keynote, and various other materials, and capturing with IShowU Pro), video production of lectures (iMovie), notes (Circus Ponies Notebook), photography (Aperture and Photoshop), and programming (Java, Qt). It's not my main system -- I spend more time on my iMac or a Windows computer at work, but in a pinch I can do everything on the MacBook Pro and it's the fastest computer I've got.
 
talmy said:
I just replaced a 13" aluminum MacBook with a 15" 2.4GHz MacBook Pro with high res antiglare display. My daughter gets the old system which she needs for college. I'm not concerned about a new model.

I use it for running electrical engineering CAD programs in a Windows virtual machine, class lecturing (projection of CAD tools, Keynote, and various other materials, and capturing with IShowU Pro), video production of lectures (iMovie), notes (Circus Ponies Notebook), photography (Aperture and Photoshop), and programming (Java, Qt). It's not my main system -- I spend more time on my iMac or a Windows computer at work, but in a pinch I can do everything on the MacBook Pro and it's the fastest computer I've got.
Click to expand...

I'm going to be doing Electrical & Electronic Engineering at Uni this October. Do you know what sort of software I'll need?
 
I still use my 15" C2D 2.16, 3GB RAM, 500GB HD hooked up to a 24" Eizo display.
Most of the time, I do basic web stuff, watch DVDs, and play around in Aperture. That's where it's a tad slow, but luckily my camera is old too, so at least the RAW files aren't very big :)
 
The newest one. I like taking it out to auditoriums full of people, talk it up a lot, show it off, and then say "One more thing...I need to dry clean my turtleneck daily."
 
As signature says, I have a 13" MBP 2011. Used mainly for college word processing, but I prefer the keyboard so actually do the majority of my typing on it while at home. In the real-world, is a far faster system than the iMac.
 
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I have a Late 2011 13" MBP with the stock blah blah blah. I just use it for music/internet/minecraft/school and such. I am going to get the new macbook pro 15" if I like it. I honestly hate such a small screen and no space. =/
 
Dangerous Theory said:
I'm going to be doing Electrical & Electronic Engineering at Uni this October. Do you know what sort of software I'll need?
Click to expand...

There are typically site or student licenses available for the software you need. Don't attempt to buy in advance, wait until you get there. Expect a Spice simulator, Mathcad, probably a digital simulator for digital classes, compiler for programming, and generic student software like Microsoft Office. You should expect to need a copy of Windows and virtualization software (Parallels, Fusion, irtualBox) because most CAD programs are Windows only.
 
I just love the portability of the 13" and the fact I have lots of Pro software open with no slowdown at all. :apple:
 
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