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Turku, FIN

I have 13" macbook air, been using it with maschine and works like a charm. Never had any problems, although my projects are always quite light. It's awesome to carry around to gigs. Audio in would be nice from time to time.

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Litebritedeath Land

Thank you!  Exactly the kind of info I was looking for.  I have actually been eyeballing the iMacs as well.  Curious about how easy/hard it is to move them around if need be?

12ianma wrote:

I have a love hate with the new lineup. Hate that I can't replace the parts love the hardware. The 15inch retina MacBooks are a wonderful piece of hardware. oddly enough I really am most impressed with the 13inch MacBook Air. Can get an i7 in them and they are stupid fast (pcie flash etc).

I ended up going imac due to graphics power, but it was between that and the retina 15"

As far as a windows based recommendation, acer makes some pretty solid 13-15" laptops at a very good price. fanboys will hate but they seem to be very good to me

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matt's mind

have you considered a mac mini?

also, you can get audio-in through thunderbolt/usb/etc interfaces, don't let a missing 1/8" hole scare you from a 13".  the future is now tongue

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Taichung, Taiwan
kitsch wrote:

have you considered a mac mini?

This.

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considering he wants to use it with a live dj tool, a mac mini isnt worth the trouble if you are looking to play gigs.

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SLC, UT

FWIW I work for an apple reseller. iMacs are surprisingly portable, I would say for a live set up it would be fine. The new ultra thin 21.5" imacs aren't really that much heavier than a 15" non retina mbp. I always recommend a desktop if you can do it because you get so much more for your money (screen real estate, specs, etc).

However a recently discontinued 15 mpb upgraded to an ssd is a great option. Quad core processor with the ability to go 16gb ram is very free.

I also have access to pre owned macs that are in surprisingly good condition. If you know specifically what you're looking for I can check to see what we have. Generally these are a much better value for customers.

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Unless he is booting headlessly  into his daw and playing blind with his midi controller, i dont really see how portable it can be.

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SLC, UT

I read that probably 5 times and I still have no idea what you're trying to say.

Speaking of iMac portability, I ran into these fine people once in a hotel lobby:

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To put it another way: How portable is a mac mini if you have to drag along a mouse, keyboard, and 13-15 inch lcd with you? And your midi controller. And a imac provides no real protection for transport of the screen.

Last edited by herr_prof (Nov 22, 2013 10:25 pm)

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Toronto, Ontario, Canada

He's saying that without a monitor (which is not generally very portable), it'll be tough to use a Mac Mini.

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That being said it would be great if someone made some sort of clamshell lcd for the macmini like those playstation screens from a few eyars back.

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Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Yeah, you could easily bolt on a tiny little screen and use a small bluetooth keyboard/mouse to make it more portable, but I don't see a major advantage over a laptop.

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seattle
TylerBarnes wrote:

That isn't true. It's been thoroughly debunked

oops, sorry. that's just what i heard, i should've confirmed that before i posted it.

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Litebritedeath Land

@kitsch yeah I actually think I am going to go the mini route.  It's easy to upgrade yourself and even maxed out much cheaper than a macbook that is totally unupgradable except for the hard-drive.  I could get a nice thunderbolt monitor for home use and a decent cheap one for gigs and still have a more powerful computer than a macbook and it would still cost less.

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Litebritedeath Land

@jefftheworld the advantages are 16GB of ram not costing $300 since apple solders ram into the new MacBooks.  Also the minis have faster processor options than the 13inch MacBooks at a fraction of the price.

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Litebritedeath Land

As for giging I live in Midwestern Kansas so shows are small venues and it's not very hard for me personally to bring a monitor and a Mac mini over a macbook.  Also having everything being modular with a mini is nice because if one thing breaks you are not f'd like an all in one unit such as a macbook or iMac.