my time has come....help required

[tacvbo83]

A lot of people are bashing the new Intel Macs because of several issues that don't seem too important to me. Everyone keeps saying to wait and wait, yet when that time comes there will be new technology on the way and one will never end up buying anything. In my case, I will be a first time Mac OS X user and need a lot of questions to be answered. My main use is for school and for home studio recording. I am making this thread with numbered questions which I will be adding as I think about them. I would greatly appreciate if you guys can help.


Can be answered without MacBook Pro Use:

1) I have a 19" display which can be used with macs. Will I be able to use a MacBook Pro as a "mini" and have it running using my monitor, separate keyboard, and mouse? or even dual monitor capability? (as in the notebook monitor and my 19 inch at the same time and switchable maybe)

2) Since I will be using software with large hard drive requirement(ex: Logic Pro, Garageband Jam Packs, and NI Komplete 3 to name a few) and the notebook will only have 100 Gig hard drive, can some software be installed in an external firewire hard drive. (or just the libraries of the software maybe?)

3) For school I will need MS Office and was wondering if there is a scheduled arrival for universal software? (same for universal VPC)

4) What is the difference between 32 and 64 bit? I keep hearing things about this.

5) Can a faster external DVD+-RW Double-Layer drive be used via a usb or firewire method?

6) Is VPC literaly like running XP on a Mac, or is it somewhat different? (can everything windows based be run using it?)

7) Does this (http://powervision.sprint.com/mobilebroadband/) work on a MacBook Pro?

8) How does AppleCare work? What if my notebook messes up? Do I have to send it to them (Apple) or can a place like CompUSA which is "apple certified" take the repair and charge apple with the AppleCare?


Please answer when you get your MacBook Pro:

1b) Does is get too hot?

2b) How fast can you burn a 4.5 Gig dvd+r?


Well that is it for now. I will be adding more everytime I think of something. (i know i have more questions, i just can't remember them all) It would be nice if you can number your response according to the question you are answering.

[BlueRabbit]

1) Yes for both. Plugging in a monitor automatically goes into screen spanning mode, and F7 will change that to mirroring if that's what you want. You get into clamshell mode by plugging in the mouse, keyboard, and monitor, putting the computer to sleep, then waking it up using the keyboard.

3) Office for Mac will have a Universal binary sooner or later, but everything I've heard says it will run fine through Rosetta. Steve jobs even said something to that effect during his last keynote.

[chucker]

3) For school I will need MS Office and was wondering if there is a scheduled arrival for universal software? (same for universal VPC)

No. Microsoft has yet to make a statement regarding that.

5) Can a faster external DVD+-RW Double-Layer drive be used via a usb or firewire method?

Absolutely.

7) Does this (http://powervision.sprint.com/mobilebroadband/) work on a MacBook Pro?

Well, that seems to be CardBus, not ExpressCard. There's a USB-based EV-DO solution (http://www.engadget.com/2006/02/01/comtech-ccu-550-puts-ev-do-on-a-usb-key/), but you would need Sprint to support that. In the long run, I'm sure ExpressCard-based alternatives will appear (CardBus and ExpressCard are from the same organization, PCMCIA, so the latter is replacing the former in the long run). Also, you would need a driver.

[Luca]

Just answering a few questions that people haven't gotten to yet...
2) Since I will be using software with large hard drive requirement(ex: Logic Pro, Garageband Jam Packs, and NI Komplete 3 to name a few) and the notebook will only have 100 Gig hard drive, can some software be installed in an external firewire hard drive. (or just the libraries of the software maybe?)
OS X wants you to install this stuff to the internal hard drive, and that will be the default location. However, it should be reasonably easy to just move it all to the external drive once it's installed. Mac software tends not to be picky about stuff like that.

Putting the libraries in another location might be a BIT trickier. It might work to move the libraries to wherever you want and then make an alias in their original location so that when Garage Band or something starts looking, it finds the right folder, but the space taken is on the external drive.

I'm not entirely sure on this; could someone who knows better confirm?

4) What is the difference between 32 and 64 bit? I keep hearing things about this.
Not a whole lot, from your perspective. It allows the computer to handle longer words (or bigger numbers), but hardly any applications need this capability or take advantage of it. The main advantage for the typical user is that it 64-bit computers can use more than 4 GB of RAM. However, the MacBook Pro's RAM ceiling is only 2 GB (maybe 4 GB if 2 GB SODIMMs work in it). So you don't need a 64-bit processor. It won't help you, really, unless you need over 4 GB of RAM (in which case you should be getting a Power Mac anyway).

6) Is VPC literaly like running XP on a Mac, or is it somewhat different? (can everything windows based be run using it?)
It literally is. It is incredibly slow, but for the purposes of software compatibility, it's exactly the same. All the hardware for the PC is emulated.

[Matvei]

The current VPC won't work on the new intel macs.

[Luca]

Oh, duh. Okay, yeah, so I guess that's not really an option there.

[curiousuburb]

Can be answered without MacBook Pro Use:

Building on the answers already provided by others...



1) I have a 19" display which can be used with macs. Will I be able to use a MacBook Pro as a "mini" and have it running using my monitor, separate keyboard, and mouse? or even dual monitor capability? (as in the notebook monitor and my 19 inch at the same time and switchable maybe)

Yes to both. Even better if your 19" has DVI input (which generally gives you more accurate colour, too)... otherwise you'll need the DVI-VGA adapter


2) Since I will be using software with large hard drive requirement(ex: Logic Pro, Garageband Jam Packs, and NI Komplete 3 to name a few) and the notebook will only have 100 Gig hard drive, can some software be installed in an external firewire hard drive. (or just the libraries of the software maybe?)

You should have no problem fitting all your apps on the internal 100 Gb drive. Tons of space.

What you may want to do is to park all your data files on the external... iTunes library, movie folders, etc.
There are ways to move your entire home directory, but some apps have lame installers that may complain. Be sure to double check the internal preferences in each app to repoint them to the external data if you move these directories after installation. (eg: iTunes has a prefpane for the location of your library if it is anywhere other than the default ~/Music/iTunes Music Library/ )


3) For school I will need MS Office and was wondering if there is a scheduled arrival for universal software? (same for universal VPC)

No announced date for either, but Steve explicitly said during the keynote that the current Office does run in Rosetta for now. Roz Ho confirmed. Office will be first, undoubtedly. There is some speculation about VPC now that it is owned by MS... they may drag their feet a bit longer there to compel some to switch back to Windows.


4) What is the difference between 32 and 64 bit? I keep hearing things about this.

Unless you're doing cryptography, or decoding the genome, or cosmologically large computations in Mathematica or similar apps, or working with datasets larger than 4Gb, you won't need or notice any difference. Only folks like those really require 64-bit.

See these pages at Apple for a bit more background on 64-bit computing...
http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/64bit/
http://www.apple.com/g5processor/architecture.html


5) Can a faster external DVD+-RW Double-Layer drive be used via a usb or firewire method?

Yes... though FireWire is generally superior (as has been debated in numerous other threads). For external burners, the differences are cosmetic in terms of throughput (limited by the drive speed, not the throughput of USB), but USB devices do have higher overhead in the processor.

Most Apple software now supports the majority of external DVD burners, though the internal Superdrive is guaranteed to work.


6) Is VPC literaly like running XP on a Mac, or is it somewhat different? (can everything windows based be run using it?)

Not all windows software/hardware runs under VPC. Not to nit-pick, but we don't want to overgeneralize... games and/or anything that requires hardware acceleration from GPU or DirectX won't run under VPC, since the libraries aren't directly cross-compatible. Similarly, there may be apps which call 3rd party cards in a PC, which can't find those items under VPC. As for the majority of other common tools, it will run, but may suffer a performance hit since its emulation.

And as noted, VPC won't run in its current form anyway.
Note also that Classic won't run on the Mactels either.


7) Does this (http://powervision.sprint.com/mobilebroadband/) work on a MacBook Pro?

No currently shipping EV-DO ExpressCards for the MacBookPro yet... and current PCMCIA cards will not work in the ExpressCard slot.

but there are notification lists for pending shipments...
http://us.gizmodo.com/gadgets/macworld/live-at-macworld-evdo-to-upgrade-for-macbook-pro-148119.php
http://www.evdoinfo.com/Tips/PC_5220/ExpressCard%1034_&_ExpressCard%1054_For_EVDO_20060110669/
http://www.evdoinfo.com/Tips/PC_5220/MacBook_Pro_and_EVDO_20060111671/

and allegedly there is a USB2.0 Dongle... but I'd say wait for a real card with real drivers.


8) How does AppleCare work? What if my notebook messes up? Do I have to send it to them (Apple) or can a place like CompUSA which is "apple certified" take the repair and charge apple with the AppleCare?

AppleCare is basically an extended warranty (usually well worth the cost for laptops, where some parts are ridiculously priced in replacement cost). Depending on what's wrong, the shop may still have to send it back to Apple (or order parts and keep it until they arrive anyway). Impossible to know for most issues.



Please answer when you get your MacBook Pro:

Don't have one, but...


1b) Does is get too hot?

How hot is too hot? The Core Duo draws less power than the G4, but the ATI x1600 may draw more than the old Radeons or GeForce chips.


2b) How fast can you burn a 4.5 Gig dvd+r?

The internal Superdrive is officially only a 4x model. You can find external drives at 16x.



Hope that helps... sorry for any redundancies.

If you want more details, check out the MacBookPro Technical Overview PDF (http://images.apple.com/macbookpro/pdf/20060120_MacBookPro_TO.pdf) from Apple.

[torifile]

Regarding AppleCare, would you REALLY want someone from compusa touching your computer? Really? My experience with AppleCare is that they are very fast. We're talking 2 day turnaround.

[tacvbo83]

It does not let me edit anymore but I guess for when you get it(MacBook Pro)? why is this...i will be adding some Q's i got writen at work

How loud is it?

I have a friend with an iBook which gets super hot but is quiet which is good I guess.

[tacvbo83]

I have a question concerning a mouse, keyboard, and printer. Now that I see I will be keeping my 4 year old P4 2.6 512MB, I was wondering if there is such thing like a usb input device that can go into the macbook pro as well as my tower and send the signal wirelessly to the mouse and keyboard? I would just need to switch the usb input back and forth to whatever i will be using and vuala!?!?! Also a good multifunction printer, copier, scanner that can be used in both as well.

Keep in mind that the macbook pros are different than old macs now so the problem is compatibality issues. Hope those 3 items can be used in both systems!

Keep in mind

[Brad]

How loud is it?
That's impossible to answer unless you judge by decibels. Relative volume levels are highly dependent on conditions like ambient sound and individual aural sensitivity. One person's "whisper" is another person's "outside voice."

[tacvbo83]

One more thing.........


I am close to just ordering the damn thing but I am unsure about the video card. Should I fork out the extra 68 bones for the 256 or should i just keep the 128. I have been on a 64 for the past 4 years and am ok with it. But then again, I have never had a mac before. What do you guys think???

I will only use it for music recording, and for MS office stuff...maybe watch some vidz and stuff like that....not much if any gaming whatsoever

Edited: disregard a desired higher resale value

[curiousuburb]

You might see higher resale value later if you go for the 256 of VRAM.

[Luca]

However, going for 256 MB instead of 128 MB probably won't actually improve the performance at all. Several tests I've seen show that even going from 64 MB to 128 MB makes very little difference, and there aren't many things that need more than 128 MB of VRAM.

[tacvbo83]

i probably will end up using those extra 68 for an external HD....


Thanks to everyone who helped. It really helped me a lot on deciding what I should get for myself.

[curiousuburb]

i probably will end up using those extra 68 for an external HD....

Eh??? WTF??

How can an external HD use extra VRAM???

Are you conflating functions or confusing specs or contravening the laws of physics?


Thanks to everyone who helped. It really helped me a lot on deciding what I should get for myself.


mmmmmkay... nor sure if you're clear on the whole issue, but glad if we could help. :\

[PB PM]

Are you conflating functions or confusing specs or contravening the laws of physics?


Not sure what you are confused about. He just said that he was going to use the money to get an external drive rather than upgrading from the 128 to 256MB VRAM.

[curiousuburb]

Ah, for some reason I thought he was suggesting an extra 68MB of VRAM for an external HDD... not $68.

[memo to self: don't offer GB/Purchasing Advice help after too many glasses of vino.]