[secu]

Hello - I am thinking of buying a MacBook pro. I keep changing my mind though. One minute I think the £1,500 is a solid investment. Then I think for £1,000 I could buy another laptop.

Somebody please tell me what they think of the pros and cons of spending that extra £1,000.

Main tasks I will use it for is

Football Manager
Photoshop
MS Office (Mainly Access, Excel, PowerPoint and Word)
Music Production

I do also have an Ipad and Iphone.

[paulj48]

Dont forget if you spend £1500 on the Macbook Pro you'll need another £600+ to spend on a copy of Photoshop.

[chrisjr]

Do you already have Mac OS compatible versions of those programs? I believe Football Manager has both on the same disk but I don't think Office does. Not sure about the others.

If you don't have Mac compatible versions then that is extra you will need to spend on top of the price of the Macbook.

[paulj48]

Also Access is not available in Office for Mac, you'd have to run the Windows version via Bootcamp or Parallels on OSX

[secu]

Software is not an issue in terms of being a show stopper. Didn't know that about Access. Is it difficult to configure a dual boot of Windows and Mac OS?

[anniebrion]

Originally Posted by secu

Software is not an issue in terms of being a show stopper. Didn't know that about Access. Is it difficult to configure a dual boot of Windows and Mac OS?

Could you not use LibreOffice Base instead of Access?

http://www.libreoffice.org/download/?nodetect

[mred2000]

Originally Posted by secu

Is it difficult to configure a dual boot of Windows and Mac OS?

There are numerous avenues for making this relatively straightforward.

Just check the T&Cs of any software you're using (if going the legal route...) as some companies limit, or don't support at all, software loaded on a Win partition on a Mac.

Personally, for those uses, I'd stick with a PC.
If you were doing much more video or graphic work then it'd be a close one. Obviously, it's always down to user preference.

[Recurring]

I think the only one of those things that warrants the Macbook is music production for Logic, but unless you're serious about it you might want to stick with a laptop and use another Windows compatible DAW and save yourself the difference. Otherwise I'd go for the Macbook, definately a solid investment.

[MassiveDynamics]

Originally Posted by secu

Software is not an issue in terms of being a show stopper. Didn't know that about Access. Is it difficult to configure a dual boot of Windows and Mac OS?

Boot camp is very easy - but it only supports Windows 7.

It will partition the HD, download the drivers and puts them on a USB stick (or CD/DVD if you have a drive).

I had installed an SSD in my MacBook Pro last summer but only did a boot camp install yesterday (need direct access to the hardware and I don't have a Windows laptop nowadays).

[chenks]

Originally Posted by MassiveDynamics

Boot camp is very easy - but it only supports Windows 7.

no, you can run Windows XP as well, and no doubt Vista if you really wanted to.

[paulj48]

Originally Posted by anniebrion

Could you not use LibreOffice Base instead of Access?

Filemaker Pro is a database program for the Mac, gets very good reviews too.

[paulj48]

Originally Posted by chenks

no, you can run Windows XP as well, and no doubt Vista if you really wanted to.

Not with the latest version of Bootcamp that comes with Mountain Lion.

[chenks]

Originally Posted by paulj48

Not with the latest version of Bootcamp that comes with Mountain Lion.

still possible if you want to.
plenty of tutorials that will guide you thru the process.

[MassiveDynamics]

You could use XP unofficially but you would be unsupported by Apple and in early 2014 unsupported by Microsoft as well.

Only the bottom of the range MBP has 4Gb of ram, all the rest have 8Gb so XP would kind of wasted on the hardware - is the dual GPU switching set up even supported by XP?

[cnbcwatcher]

Tricky one OP but it's up to you really. If you feel you'd be better off buying the Mac then go for it. Who am I to argue? Are you planning on buying the normal MBP or the Retina one?

[paulj48]

Originally Posted by chenks

still possible if you want to.
plenty of tutorials that will guide you thru the process.

Seen the tutorials, lots of people saying it doesnt work on 2012 MBP i5 and i7's they get the blue screen of death, it can be done via Parallels though.

But come on your not going to spent £1500 on a Mac and then put on an 11 year old operating system.

[chenks]

Originally Posted by paulj48

Seen the tutorials, lots of people saying it doesnt work on 2012 MBP i5 and i7's they get the blue screen of death, it can be done via Parallels though.

But come on your not going to spent £1500 on a Mac and then put on an 11 year old operating system.

funnily enough, i have XP but only in Vmware.
i does what i need if i ever need to drop into windows (which is very rare).

i'd say though that if windows is important then you're not gonna be buying a mac anyway (or shouldn't be).

[paulj48]

Funnily enough I also have XP running on Parallels on a 2011 MBP but only to run one program thats called Sporttracks that uses .net code (its a running/excercise logbook)

I choose to use XP as I still have a valid license for it

[soulboy77]

Originally Posted by secu

.. One minute I think the £1,500 is a solid investment. Then I think for £1,000 I could buy another laptop....

I don't think 'investment' is the right word here! For £500 - £750 you can buy a pretty decent Windows laptop that will have enough oomph to do all that you require. If you go for an MacBook Pro you are deciding to pay a big premium for the Apple name and design.

So be in no doubt, as you don't need it to run certain specialist apps, the real reason to go for a MacBook Pro is purely to have the qudos of owning one.

[Stig]

Originally Posted by soulboy77

I don't think 'investment' is the right word here! For £500 - £750 you can buy a pretty decent Windows laptop that will have enough oomph to do all that you require. If you go for an MacBook Pro you are deciding to pay a big premium for the Apple name and design.

So be in no doubt, as you don't need it to run certain specialist apps, the real reason to go for a MacBook Pro is purely to have the qudos of owning one.

Technically, you expect an 'investment' to increase in value; a computer of any description will depreciate heavily.

Dell do some very nice Ultrabooks which are almost as desirable as a MBP for a lot less money. There were some nice ones on Dell Outlet last week.

[chenks]

Originally Posted by soulboy77

I don't think 'investment' is the right word here! For £500 - £750 you can buy a pretty decent Windows laptop that will have enough oomph to do all that you require. If you go for an MacBook Pro you are deciding to pay a big premium for the Apple name and design.

So be in no doubt, as you don't need it to run certain specialist apps, the real reason to go for a MacBook Pro is purely to have the qudos of owning one.

if you want to run logic then you then a mac of some sort.
for music production it's pretty much close to industry standard.
the OP did mention music production in the origina post.

[mred2000]

Originally Posted by soulboy77

For £500 - £750 you can buy a pretty decent Windows laptop that will have enough oomph to do all that you require.

You could probably knock the starting price down to £350-£400...

Originally Posted by chenks

...the OP did mention music production in the original post.

But not which package. I've played about with a few packages on both platforms in the past.

[Stig]

Originally Posted by chenks

if you want to run logic then you then a mac of some sort.
for music production it's pretty much close to industry standard.
the OP did mention music production in the origina post.

What about Pro Tools? That runs on PC and Mac.

[chenks]

Originally Posted by Stig

What about Pro Tools? That runs on PC and Mac.

pro tools, yeah
but walk into any studio or look on stage and it'll be macs and logic you'll see 9 times out of 10.

[soulboy77]

Originally Posted by chenks

if you want to run logic then you then a mac of some sort.
for music production it's pretty much close to industry standard.
the OP did mention music production in the origina post.

That's my point. The OP can justify the cost in terms of having the right tools for the jobs. Only he knows if he just wants to dabble in music production or is going to do it seriously and needs to run high end s/w.