Ive been using a laptop PC for the past 4 years and have never had a problem,
I use my laptop to run serato and nothing else. To be honest with you,
Im sick and tired of other djs always asking me why I dont use a mac ? Why should I ?
Ive recently bought a new Vaio Pc laptop running win 7, again no problems.
To each his own, Im fine with PC and I aint changing !

YES.

NO.

-----------> www.serato.com

I Was going toget a new macbook pro but after reading this and many other posts a stayed away. UNIT apple fix the problem then i will buy one.

if you buy a pre unibody mac they work really well. so if you can find one of them YES.

Yes it is, depending on the specs of the 15" mac you are getting. But you really should do a search as this topic has been covered many, many times before.

And this thread should be moved to the discussion section.

I have been using Window Laptops with no issue. Currently I running 2.0 on a Dell Studio XPS 1320 with a p8700 chip with Windows 7 64 and it runs great.
I don't trust Apple because they are constantly changing their OS with no regards to anyone. I learned that in the past and that is why I stay with Winodws.

Yes.Ive been a Hp user for a while but since iVe converted over to a Macbook Pro u wont hear a single complain. It even seems smoother to mix but what might have been with my HP. It froze all the time and it justed seemed to take up alot of memory. Goood Luck

Amen brother.

mac all the way :)

Much debated topic. I've used Windows XP, Vista, 7 and MacBook Pro. From pentium M 1.8 GHz to Core 2 Duo 2.16. I have run SSL at 1 msec latency in all systems (win 7 exeption) without dropout on external drives (both with SL1 and SL3 Box) and HID control with a pair of CDJ 400 sharing a hub.

Conclusion: Almost any system is good for SSL. Its how one uses his computer.

Another AMEN.

and this is so true.

i guess the best way would be to borrow the macbook and compare it to your laptop you have at the mo. then make your own choice.

Hi dj thumps - I'm going to move this into the General DJing Discussion, so you can get a few more recommendations from other users :)

u said it only for serato and nothing else thats why u havent had any problems lol
macbook pros are fine,no problems here and if you can get a good price for it why not....

Ok, I was PC since PC came out and last July bought a MBP. Apple products are extremely easy to use and I haven't once had to buy a virus protection, worried about a virus or much anything else. I turn it on and it works.

I can also say that my PCs (Sony, Dell, Toshiba) rarely gave me problems with regard to Serato. I had the usual hang ups, freezes but nothing that Serato generated.

Now that i've given you the thumbs up for Mac, here's my caveat. March 1 my MBP's hard drive took a dump. Yep, 7 months old and it quit on me. I took it to the Apple store and they put a new 500g HD in w/ no questions. I've spoken to numerous people about this and it's just one of those things. You never know when a piece of equipment will crap out on you....I know it shouldn't after 7 months and if you search for Computer discussions, Hard Drive discussions or any other electronics, you're always going to have debate.

In the end, you have to do what's smart for you. Only you know that but one last piece of advice, Mac is different. It's easy to learn, but it is different than PC, so be warned!

Thank you too all that replied! youve all been a really big help and i appriciate your time and honesty! mac here i come!

It's looking like the New 2010 MacBook Pros are getting released either on the 13th or 20th. I hope your friend is giving you a good deal on old hardware. Otherwise I would wait and buy a faster new spec'd one for maybe a hundred dollars more.

I use Serato and have run the wireless internet, imovie, ms word and plenty of other programs at the same time without problem. Never used a mac before this one and will never go back. LOADS BETTER!!

i hope everbody knows Apple uses intel parts - so if you have an i7 in a mac or a pc the only difference is operating software and a more expensive housing

I have/had an HP Dv9 - i wouldnt give a thumps up for HP - they break as soon as there out of warrenty

and i like Macs but im not a fan of there OS and there extreme overpricing

mac/pc - its all from Korea/China

yes it may use the same parts but the software is designed to work better with that hardware, it all comes down to personal preference in the end, but personally i wont ever go back to a pc

thats the only difference but thats all you need, its why the macs are better for all this stuff

Im getting ready to buy a mac. Do you guys think the MBP 15 that are on the site will drop price when the new ones come out? What will the new ones have that will make them so WOW?

i love how every thread about a mac turns into pc vs mac, never gets old, the other night i had to transfer a gig of pics from the armin show from one memory card to another using my MBpro as a median meanwhile my friend started his pc laptop and i turned my lappy on transferred pics and checked my email before his "vista" was loaded. : )

Ummmmmm

Windows 2000, NT, XP, ME, Media Center, Vista, 7

But who's counting......

You need to add Windows 95, 98, 3.1 and countless service packs too.

i use macbook's macbook pro's, leopard & snow leopard, SSL & V-SL.......all good here don't have any issues at all

ALELOUYA.....!!!!!!!!!

That's actually NOT entirely true. There are definite differences in the circuit designs, interaction of various components (and their drivers), quality control, and overall integration of hardware design.

this debate could go on and on and on.... the only way to tell what will work for you is to try! like my link above points out massiv problems with macs. but again not everyone is botherd by the problems or the way they use serato they dont even notice. where others the mac is unusable. and the same goes for windows on some laptops. like the icore chips.

so i would just try both if you can.

i can see how that justifys the 1000+ price difference. . . not

interactions between componets/drivers - that all has to do with the OS and maybe the design of the Mobo - which im sure still is produced somewhere overseas which produces products for IBM/HP/MAC/ECT

i will agree Macs run Serato without as many complications as a PC, but id have to base that mostly on the architecture of the OS which is designed more for what we do

i think there needs to be more testing done on what runs Serato the best - PC/MAC PC with mac os

even better - Rane should make their own series of Laptop designed solely for Serato

which equivilent products are you comparing that have a 1000 price difference

I have found my MBP far more stable than my previous windows machine. Been happy with the switch.

That being said I have my MBP bootcamped with a windows install for rocking some games. I don't think many PC users can boast a dual boot windows / osx machine ;)

considering 2 machines of as equal set up as possible out the door (which includes pc set up and antivirus set up which often requires upfront fee and "membership" for every year you own the pc) the pc after just a couple years costs more then the mac counterpart....

***********FACEPALM************

dammmmm you just got pimp slapped sunnn!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



next time put the baby powder in the palm first

Holy damn this needs to end...


www.microcenter.com


$799

New White Unibody Macbook

Specs: Intel® Core 2 Duo Processor 2.26GHz
2GB DDR3-1066 SDRAM
250GB 5,400RPM Hard Drive
8x Double-Layer SuperDrive
NVIDIA GeForce 9400M
10/100/1000 Network
AirPort Extreme 802.11n
Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
13.3" Widescreen Display
Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard



This isn't about price anymore. These machines are about the same in price as comparable mass produced PC based laptops. This is about preference. That is all. I love my PC for some things, and my Mac for about almost everything (especially audio and video things). Hopefully the whole price defense will end soon.

o sh%t i meant sonnnnnn not sunnnnn lol

people with Macs on here are like people who think there Chrysler 300 is a Bentley

the 300 is wack i drive a bmw

the ULTIMATE driving machine LOLLLL

what if you have a mac and a pc and you have a new corvette?

than you can drive really fast ,throw the pc out the window & post it on youtube so we can see how strong the pc is

hahahahahahahaha best part is i can fit my laptop bag and all 3 road cases under the top when taking the roof out on nice days!

except Macs are the Bentley of computers, PC'a re like Pintos

lol these threads never get old

thats a GOOD price why so cheap, thats $50 than a refurbished on from apple

why don't we ever here about someone using these, they say there real good?
www.dell.com

MBP is better for everything. End of story.

+10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

MBP i hope. i pick mine up today. only had one dropout with windows using the 2.0 beta at home, but the windows system as a whole is becoming unreliable. everytime it installs a critical update it stops working properly and has to be rolled back and reinstalled. hopefully the mac will be more reliable.

Probably because a refresh of the MacBook/MacBook Pro product line is more or less imminent.

Im not reading all of the above. But check it yo. PC and Mac have the same issues. If you dont take care of your shit, if you dont buy a proper laptop. Your going to have problems. Its sad for me to say this but I have friends that run is the teen night club circuit. Not one of them use a mac, all of them are on pc. Its cheaper, but there down fall is they spend $300-600 on a dj laptop new/used off craigslist.

When serato says minimum requirements that doesn't mean oh lets get a used $100 laptop off craigslist with a used sl box and hey look I'm a dj. The bigger the library you got the more ram you want in your laptop. For the past year I've been running a dual core dell with 4gigs of ram. processor clocks at 2.0 each. I have 0 problems and Im running at a 1mil sec latency. If you keep your laptop clean. Regularly defrag the laptop hd and your external. Dont have a redic amount of stuff running in the background. A PC is perfectly fine even on vista. Vista only crashes when theres too much in the memory and it has to dump it all. this problem can also occur on mac's as well. simple fix always start from a fresh boot and get something like ccleaner off cnet downloads to clean out your cache.

2 most important things to look for when getting a dj laptop pc or mac. Is the processor with what brand and what speed they clock at. ont want anything less then a dual core at 1.8 each. The next thing is ram, almost everyone has a huge library of music. 1-3gb will not cut it. Shit I've have 4gb for the past year and mine still lags at times. But my library it just over 72k tracks. Just this past feburary I upgraded to a serious work horse laptop. Got an Alien ware 15m 8gigs of ram and a daul core that clocks at 3.2 each. serato is running now at 0 latency on a pc and I got no complaints.

If you want to not worry about your stuff. Drop the money and buy a real laptop with power. Macs, Vaios, Dells, Alien Wares, HPs. You spending less then a grand on a laptop is a guaranteed its going to die on you in 2-3 years.

Oh yeah and don't buy a refurb. Thats just asking for all kinds of trouble.

Fixed it for ya....

Basically saying the same thing and THERE IS A BIG DIFFERENCE in the OS and the way the Hardware is put together as DJ Mark said.

And you don't need a MacBook PRO to run Serato, many of us run it on plain old Macbooks. Video takes a hit sometimes on a Non Pro but if you are doing audio only, any Macbook with a processor above 2.0Ghz should run Serato just fine.

About $800 - 1000 for a Macbool

Apple refurbs are pretty damn solid, they are triple checked by Apple and come with a full warranty just like paying top dollar (brand new). They come with everything that "brand new one" comes with except the pretty box (plain brown refurb box).

Now is a great time to buy a Refurb, because new models are coming, old BRAND NEW stock gets "brown boxed" and sold as refurbs once the new ones are dropped.

Also if you buy a refurb and it somehow IS BAD, Apple has a 3 times lemon rule, send it back 3 times and they send you the current equivalent shipping model (talk your way up the Applecare ladder).

I didn't bother reading beyond those two sentences, because (excuse my bluntness please) you are flat-out incorrect and anything else you have to say on the subject is probably a waste of time.

yes macs have issues! just read one of these threads!!! ----->>>> www.serato.com

but like said before we can all argue till we die lol. the end of the day its upto the end user what they find best. i know i want a mac but not because pc is shit. iv never had any issues with pc. i just want a mac cuz if there are issues there noramly sorted quicker (apart from the issues in the link i put above) plus i love there design and there built well.

at the mo iv gone for a cheap £500 dell. windows 7 works spot on. but untill apple sort there hardrive issues and lag in loading tracks when useing CTRL + LEFT/RIGHT ARROW. im staying with pc windows 7.

So we all have differnet stories.

you have toget a pc and a mac put both together and run them both and see which performs the best to they way you use it and dj. thats the only REAL way of knowing which is better for YOU!

i didnt know there was new macbook pros coming out. WOW cant wait hope they dont still have the lag issues. wounder if they will have the dreaded i chip nightmares?

i have 2 refurbished macbook pro's , solid as can be i do video two time a week with no issues

windows are no good, always drafty letting in cold air, you have to cover them with plastic to keep the cold air out!

www.pcstats.com nuff said

The new MBPs are out. Some 15 inch models prices were lowered also. Dj Thumps, I hope your friend wasn't taking advantage of you. Most MBP owners knew this update was coming and a lot of them were getting rid of thier old computers at premium prices so they could buy the new ones.

13" MacBook Pro
- $1199: 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo, NVIDIA GeForce 320M, 4 GB RAM, 250 GB hard drive
- $1499: 2.66 GHz Core 2 Duo, NVIDIA GeForce 320M, 4 GB RAM, 320 GB hard drive

15" MacBook Pro
- $1799: 2.4 GHz Core i5, Intel HD Graphics and NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M with 256MB, 4 GB RAM, 320 GB hard drive
- $1999: 2.53 GHz Core i5, Intel HD Graphics and NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M with 256MB, 4 GB RAM, 500 GB hard drive
- $2199: 2.66 GHz Core i7, Intel HD Graphics and NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M with 512MB, 4 GB RAM, 500 GB hard drive

17" MacBook Pro
- $2299: 2.53 GHz Core i5, Intel HD Graphics and NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M with 512MB, 4 GB RAM, 500 GB hard drive

he gave me a mac book pro 15.4 2.66 ghz 4 gb, 320 hd for $1100

way off.

+1

i havent had a blue screen in 4yrs - 3 different computers

My hackintosh does the job perfect

wish i could delete that post - i take it back

mac runs shit

hackinstosh will do

FWIW, I've never been a Mac person, but I picked up a use mid 2007 MBP and have been nothing but happy with it so far. I have the latency turned down further than my HP, and the only time I notice a dropout is when I don't have the power supply plugged in. However in all fairness, HP's in my experience run on the hot side and mine had an AMD chipset, so to me it was a double whammy working against my favor from the beginning.

All in all, like others have said, wit the proper setup, you should be good either way.

Honestly, it doesn't matter, as long as you are competent and know how to configure your laptop..u should be good to know.

But general guidelines
1. Buy an Intel Dual Core Duo chipset machine
2. Use the laptop as a dedicated Serato dj computer
3. Minimum 3 GB RAM
4. Follow the guidelines from Serato on Performance optimization for Windows and MACs.

5. Turn off network connections/ firewall during live gigs

It's up to you:

a. You want a trouble free, working out of the box running perfectly powerful machine? Go with Apple's MacBook (Pro)

b. Want spend all your free time on endless tweaking and setting machine that gives you trouble and who knows how will it work at the end? Get a PC

Simple as that. Your choice.
You shouldn't listen to PC guys that never owned a Mac.

All i can say is i switched to macbook last year after 20 years or more of pc's and wish i would have switched alot earlier, Ive had 2 small problems with serato and they were taken care of with updates by serato so i think if you use serato out at clubs or partys its a good investment. I hear alot of complaints about p.c's. and serato.

I'm a huge Windows 7 fan. In fact for everything else I prefer it over a Mac. However Macs run Serato much much much better.You can debate all you want but if you want your set up to run flawlessly get a Mac. You can pick up the new 13" Macbook Pros for around $999 at a certain store. Get the link to the store here. imixmag.com

^ very nice subtle add!

Im considering getting a macbook pro. Is it true the new os is having problems running ssl?

hang on hang on. bullshit is there no price difference whoever said that! I'm not a fan of Mac as I don't know it like I know PCs, but I know I want one for serato as everyone I've ever experienced with it on a mac has it running WAY better.
However, for $800 I can buy a fucking awesome PC, and for $800 I can buy a not that great Mac. Add another 400 and we're talking, 13inch MBP. I want it, but I need to sell my fucking kidneys to afford it.

If you're running windows 7 and use it as a dedicated serato laptop, then you're set. I switch between 2 harddrives (both internal). One is for general use, the other is for DJing ONLY. The only problem i've had was with 2.1 and clearly there are a lot of issues sitting around lol. 2.0 runs like a charm. Never had a crash, never had drop outs, never had an issue :P

i was using a windows 7 pc for serato when i first got it and had to use that before i could afford a laptop. ( SL3 is equivelant to $813 in uk). i bought an end of line macbook pro 13", the 4gb ram version for £1000 ($1564). it should have cost £1200 ($1877). im glad i bought the mac. i wish the prices were as cheap as they are in the u.s. $1200 won't buy you a base model mac book here.

i didn't have any issues with windows 7 but the mac just works better. end of the day buy whichever you feel gives better value for money( p.c - better specs, less cash, mac - better stability, probable longer life span)

I'm stuck between the older Pro 2.26Ghz and the macbook 2.4Ghz. I can get either one at a great deal and brand new. Any suggestions?

I have black MacBook 2.2GHz with Intel x1300 gpu & 4Gigs of RAM. Works like a charm with video as well. So I would say 2.4 is the way to go!

where the hell are the quadcore macbooks damnit

well the true quad cores will be avail. in a few months to next year - apple is releasing the i7-640M chip first, then probably the rest of the i series later

but for now you will have to settle with the hyperthreading i7, i5 chips

honestly its been doin work so far for me - pretty sweet having 4 files analyze at once

^i actually doubt we will see Quadcore Macbook untils 2012/2013 at the earliest.

All the new upcoming quad core sandy bridge intel mobile cpu's are 45-55w TDP.. Apple has been sticking to 35W TDP :/

o woops - ya i thought the 620M was quad - but its not

you prob right, at least another year or 2 for them to get the 45w they need without the added heat

haha all these comments make me laugh! apple? or don't apple???? pc or don't pc???? i use both and im happy neither is better than the other in my opinion mac is just too expensive!!!
apple lasts longer ... pc more bang for buck

i agree with the pimp