Macbook Pro vs Air

[Andys]

So I'm going to be looking for a new laptop soon for mobile dj work and I want something which is fast and stable. Obviously I've heard OSX is way faster than Windows so I'd like to try it out. Many mobile dj's I've spoke to use MBP's and they say they love them!

My question is; is there much difference between the Air and the Pro? Obviously the Pro is slightly more powerful, but when it comes to running the basics will it matter a hell of a lot? All I will be using the laptop for is to run Virtual DJ on. My current laptop sometimes struggles with it sometimes (although it is quite a few years old now.)

[iLogan]

Well a Macbook Air doesn't have a DVD/CD drive, so I'd recommend the Pro if you're using CDs to rip songs etc

[Andys]

Well a Macbook Air doesn't have a DVD/CD drive, so I'd recommend the Pro if you're using CDs to rip songs etc

I'm not ripping CD's, I do all of that on my desktop computer and transfer them to my external drive. Saying that I've stopped buying CD's these days as it's easier to buy them digitally off Amazon!

[Fifty-Six]

I've got both an Air and a Pro, and I highly recommend OSX. It really depends on what you want to do with your computer. Air's don't have many ports on them; 2 USB's, the charging port, and some other one, meaning no Firewire port or place for an SD card. There's also no CD drive, but I honestly find that I rarely, if ever, use it on my Pro. MacBook Pro is obviously a much more robust system; more RAM, more memory and capacity, etc. If your DJ software is fairly powerful you might want to go with a Pro. There isn't a huge price difference, the only thing you want to decide on is the size. I'd go with a Pro.

[GommeInc]

The Pro seems the better choice for DJ'ing. It has more power than the Air and a longer lasting battery life (7 hours = Pro / 5-7 hours = Air). Plus there are the extra ports the Pro has which the Air doesn't to make it thinner.

[Andys]

The only thing keeping me looking at the Pro here is the ports. I don't think it has to be too powerful just to run Virtual DJ, but then again my current laptop isn't too great at running it!
Battery life doesn't make the slightest difference as it will always be plugged in, as I'll only ever be using it for shows.

[Recursion]

OSX isn't more powerful than Windows and a lot of the professional DJ software like Traktor works on both Windows/Mac.

If you're set on a Mac though, I'd get a MacBook Pro for real DJing, the variety of ports will thank you later when it comes to soundcards, midi controllers etc and you'll be able to sample songs quicker.

[mrwoooooooo]

So I'm going to be looking for a new laptop soon for mobile dj work and I want something which is fast and stable. Obviously I've heard OSX is way faster than Windows so I'd like to try it out. Many mobile dj's I've spoke to use MBP's and they say they love them!

My question is; is there much difference between the Air and the Pro? Obviously the Pro is slightly more powerful, but when it comes to running the basics will it matter a hell of a lot? All I will be using the laptop for is to run Virtual DJ on. My current laptop sometimes struggles with it sometimes (although it is quite a few years old now.)

any new laptop will run it fine, you're only playing mp3s fgs. but go ahead get a mac lol

[Andys]

any new laptop will run it fine, you're only playing mp3s fgs. but go ahead get a mac lol

Thanks, @mrwoooooooo for reading through my post thoroughly. As you can see, or probably did not see, I already said that my current laptop struggles with Virtual DJ. It will probably be used for karaoke files in the future also, which are a lot more intensive than mp3's.

The "cpu" bar on the top regularly goes into the red (peaks) which isn't supposed to happen. I also witnessed first hand last week when I was out with a DJ who had a Toshiba laptop, which may I say was a pretty high spec, crashed during one specific song, but then played his next song fine no problem.

Thanks for your input.

[Futz]

You should buy a cheaper laptop and fit it with an SSD, OSX ain't ****