What Mac Should I Get?

[BoonMcNougat]

I came into some money, and I need some of your wisdom to guide me in my purchases.

What I want to know is

A) What's the difference between Final Cut Studio 2 (http://store.apple.com/133-622/WebObjects/australiastore.woa/wa/RSLID?mco=7E4F2D7D&nplm=MA886Z/A) (Aus $1698) and Final Cut Express 4 (http://store.apple.com/133-622/WebObjects/australiastore.woa/wa/RSLID?mco=7E4EB91E&nplm=MB278Z/A) (Aus $268)? I know Studio comes with Final Cut Pro 6 and Motion and stuff, but I want to know what it does that is not achievable in Final Cut Express 4.

B) I am not sure what to get. I'm stuck between a
MacBook Pro (http://store.apple.com/133-622/WebObjects/australiastore.woa/wa/RSLID?nnmm=browse&mco=7B72367C&node=home/shop_mac/family/macbook_pro) (Aus $2,728)

* 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
* 2GB 667 DDR2 SDRAM - 2x1GB
* 200GB Serial ATA Drive @ 5400 rpm
* SuperDrive 8x (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
* MacBook Pro 15-inch Widescreen Display
* Keyboard/Mac OS
* Apple Remote
* Country Kit

and an iMac (http://store.apple.com/133-622/WebObjects/australiastore.woa/wa/RSLID?nnmm=browse&mco=7B723685&node=home/shop_mac/family/imac) (Aus $2,299)

* 2GB 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM - 2x1GB
* 320GB Serial ATA Drive
* Apple Mighty Mouse
* Apple Keyboard + Mac OS X
* 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
* ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO with 256MB memory
* 20-inch glossy widescreen LCD
* AirPort Extreme
* Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR

Even though they're specs seem to be the same, I assume that the iMac is more powerful?


C) On the MacBook Pro you can change the screen to "Glossy" at no charge. It says " At no extra charge, you can choose a glossy widescreen display that makes graphics, photos, and videos appear with richer color and deeper blacks." What's the catch?

D) Or, do you recommend I just buy a cheap Windows PC with similiar specs and buy Sony Vegas?

Keep in mind I'll likely primarily be using this for editing video.

Thankyou for reading my post.

[TSPhoenix]

A) No idea

B) Is this even a real question? You obviously want the MacBook. These are both indeed just as powerful as one another. iMacs are for suckers who are paying laptop prices for a non-portable. If you want a desktop Mac go with a tower or mini, never and iMac.

C) The catch is that it is so glossy that unless its pitch black your screen turns into a mirror.

D) It all depends on what else you want to do with it. Are there any Windows apps/games you think you can't live without? If not then base it purely on the video editing suite you like more.

[SG]

iMacs don't usually come with the graphics cards capable of running those high powered video editing suites. I believe the mac "laptops" make up for their slightly lower specs with better graphics cards etc. You'll really need to make sure which ever one you buy actually has the beef in the burger to taste how you want it to taste, if you catch my drift...

[TSPhoenix]

SG is corrent, for video editing you really want as much power as you can get. You ideally want a Mac Pro but sadly the markup on Australian ones as opposed to US ones is over $1000, they are minimum quad core which is nice for video editing though. What is your max budget?

[BoonMcNougat]

SG is corrent, for video editing you really want as much power as you can get. You ideally want a Mac Pro but sadly the markup on Australian ones as opposed to US ones is over $1000, they are minimum quad core which is nice for video editing though. What is your max budget?

I want a Mac Pro, but they start at $4,000. And my budget doesn't allow that. If I get a Macbook Pro, I'll have to go with Final Cut Express, since my budget won't allow me to get studio.

[bigsim]

If you're going to be video editing and junk, look at the matte screen. Personally I love my glossy screen, but the colour reproduction isn't really that authentic. And really you don't want Final Cut Pro anyway - I'm not even sure what the difference is, but I can tell you it won't be worth $1300 to you.

[glus]

I would say Macbook Pro, but whatever you do don't get the MacBook Air, it has alright specs for it size but with a lack of ANY CD drives and only a few USB ports that only fits the smaller ones because the port itself is too small for most USB sticks, generally alright specs but without necessity's like CD/DVD drive it is horrid

[TSPhoenix]

Plus it has squat all storage and SSDs aren't particularly fast at writing data which kills that advantage if you went for the high end model.

As for the screen, I don't see why anyone would ever want a non-matte screen. All these shiny ones are totally useless for looking at in light which is great for people buried in a dungeon of darkness but nobody else. Speaking of screens all I can say is that larger screens do wonders for productivity.


The real question here is how much performance do you really need, what is your video source going to be?

EDIT: Second hand? (http://cgi.ebay.com.au/Apple-Mac-Pro-2x2-66GHz-DualCore-Xeons-1-2-TB-HD-3GB_W0QQitemZ190212406453QQihZ009QQcategoryZ4607QQ ssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem)

[piem@n]

MacBook for sure.

Heaps nicer, and they are portable, and generally better than an imac.

[bigsim]

Plus the new Macbook Pro inherited the multi-touch trackpad of the MacBook Air.

TSP, I find that if I'm in light that would be distracting on my glossy screen, any sort of display (matte or glossy) would be too washed out to be of any use anyway. I really like glossy - the colours are much brighter; they may not be representative of the "true" colours, but that's alright for me because I don't do anything that needs them.

[Benjamin]

Definately a MacBook Pro, it does everything that an iMac does, but it's portable. I've been wanting to get one for myself...

Or you could get a Big Mac.
http://a.abcnews.com/images/Business/ap_big_mac_070824_ms.jpg

[BoonMcNougat]

Definitely not consideting a Mabook Air. However, that Big Mac DOES look delicious.

Thanks for your input guys, I'll likely get the macbook pro, or that second hand mac pro.

[chibi]

Even though they're specs seem to be the same, I assume that the iMac is more powerful?

Generally speaking yes.

Really depends on how you're going to use the system.

Do you need portability? If you don't there's no point in getting a Macbook Pro, as it has less storage space, slower hard drive, and obviously smaller lower resolution screen. Also if you're going to be doing a lot of video editing, the faster hard drive on the Imac along with more storage space will help. Other wise may need to purchase an external hard drive for the Macbook Pro if you think you're going to fill up the 170gbs of storage it has. Then again its not hard to fill a 300gb hard drive doing video editing either on the imac.

However I use my macbook pro for everything, and with the mid and high range macbook pros now featuring Nvidia 8600GTs they're even pretty good for gaming under windows. So if you're looking for a portable machine they're awesome, they are very capable machines.

I do some video editing on my macbook pro when i'm at work and home. I have an external hard drive and a 24" LCD monitor i hook up to it at both work and home, and it makes for an excellent desktop replacement. If you combine a Macbook Pro with a external LCD high res monitor and hard drive, you've got a imac that's portable basically.

C) On the MacBook Pro you can change the screen to "Glossy" at no charge. It says " At no extra charge, you can choose a glossy widescreen display that makes graphics, photos, and videos appear with richer color and deeper blacks." What's the catch?

Its highly reflective, shows finger prints like nothing else, annoying, and not usable in the sun. Some people like it though, its just a coating they put over the screen.

[darksplat]

Use www.priceusa.com.au and save some bucks on the mac book pro
cheers
Jeremy

[Jader7777]

Get the Macbook thin air thing.

It looks awesome. Tell me if you snap it. I want to get one but I'm scared I will accidentally do said snapping.

[piem@n]

Get the Macbook thin air thing.

It looks awesome. Tell me if you snap it. I want to get one but I'm scared I will accidentally do said snapping.

Pay like 1k extra for something crap, just cos its skinny?