Should I buy an Apple laptop?

Oh obviously if you get a Mac Mini you'll have to budget in the SSD + display

You can get a pretty okay IPS panel, 23-24", for ~$150-200

You'll want it to be IPS tech for more better accurate faster harder colors

Also I don't even know how relevant the video card is to video editing

I think if you use Final Cut Pro maybe it's relevant. IDK

Nice to have if you just want to play some sickass games

Where's my homie markers

not sure

since we're doing laptop talk: I'm just using an old shirt as a cover for my rmbp in my backpack (snorgtees obv), but I dunno maybe I should use something a little more durable? I like the shirt because it's so light & other laptop cases I've had have been bulky & heavy. can any of you heads point me to a good light sleeve for this beast, something with THINTENSITY™?

macbook air 13, I'd still get, or save up for, a nice 24 or 27" monitor, like the Dell ultrasharp or try one of the monoprice ones. I think the 13" screen is gonna feel tiny, esp for video editing or any kind of work like that, and for less than 300$, adding a budget IPS monitor will make things feel great. Even the 24" is ok when used in a dual monitor set-up with the macbook air 13.

http://www.fcp.co/final-cut-pro/news/1209-real-life-editing-experiences-with-a-macbook-air-and-final-cut-pro-x

just fwiw someone asked me similar re video editing on a mba recently and i found this for them

Nice

I think the 13 MBA is like one of the best values in computers right now

I got mine for ~930 refurbished

Sadly locked out of the world of 8GB RAM. But that would have meant buying new

The 10+ hour battery life is a goddam miracle

dayo otm

hey thank you so much everybody. it feels like when you google for some kind of tech problem & find some sort of utopian, 100% benevolent online commune of forum guys just helping out people dropping in, Welcome to the Board Jeff! Post your Error Log Alan Forbe, Posts: 11872 Old hand]. i really appreciate the hand-holding. i have to figure out what i can get. when i buy my new computer i will bump this thread every time i use it.

thank you x

early 2015 13 mba 8gb. buy now? not immediate necessity. mistrust what apple might do this year but havent read up

do you care about retina display?

^

no i don't think so. i don't do anything that relies on imgs and i prefer my films to look shitty. i havent had much interaction with retina either though so maybe just ignorance i will rue in the future. i imagine non-retina would have longer battery, which would def be more important

i'm pretty sure i know that the 2015 would be totally fine for my usage case tbh, i'm just fully not sure what i'll be missing out on from the 2016 lineup. and yknow that classic fake processor anxiety they do where it's like SKYLLAKE ugh how can i use this broadwell DOGSHIT when you could never tell in ur entire life

force touch i guess

i have totally lost track of the CPU situation but for me if you want a laptop now and you don't care about retina then get an air and max out the RAM

the dinky processor on the macbook is slower than the one in the air iirc, and the skylake is not in macbook pros, never mind the airs, so i don't think there's a massive cpu jump imminent

more likely i think is that they just ditch the air form factor?

MacBook Air likely dead walking, but that's no reason not to buy one now if it meets yr needs.

I got the latest one from work, and it's really not a great machine. The screen is really pretty poor, even by MacBook standards, and it seems to have weird hardware issues - kernel panics a lot when connecting devices or monitors, sometimes is reluctant to startup. This is probably just a lemon, mind, my 2011 11" is one of my favourite ever Macs.

my 2013 13" air is my favourite ever mac (os x sucks though)

I love love love the Macbook Air. It's so light! Why would Apple kill it?

is there a PHYSICAL reason a macbook air would intermittently make a noise that sounds like a quiet, brushed cymbal roll? i've been hearing it recently and i can't tell if it's the hardware or the software, whether i'm causing it, etc.

i thought maybe it could be connected to some kind of esoteric feedback for high-inertia/speed / long-distance two-finger scrolling in safari, but i can't replicate that - and i would have heard it doing this before if that were the case.

also i recently started running garageband, and the sound is recognizably musical, but other than that i have no ideas.

i say PHYSICAL because it almost sounds to me like something vibrating up to a resonant wave, like upon repeated trackpad swipes

I’d plug in headphones to see if it’s a software generated sound. If not, the only moving part would be a cooling fan, which may be gunked with dust.
My MacBook generates a quiet hiss when it turns on speakers to put out a sound - only audible in quiet environments, and lingers a couple of seconds after the sound.

i'll try that. this has the definite profile of an EVENT of some sort, but as far as i know i have done nothing that would have caused it to start happening. uncanny!!

i read a neat trick to grep fs_usage's output for 'aiff' to catch accesses to the system sounds' files, which unfortunately does not catch even other UI sound effects like trash-emptying, let alone whatever this is. but maybe i'll be able to spy something happening in the console if i'm ever paying enough attention when the sound happens again.