New Laptop - Mac vs. Windows (want opinions)

[Kevinwhite338]

Any of the M1/M2 MacBooks are the best laptops you can buy right now.

 

[humpfrey]

i use a hp pro i7 book for years , never had problems
with it

 

[Adman103]

I have recent experience using Macs (Intel and Silicon), Windows, and I have a Linux box running at home. My daily driver is a MacBook Pro, and I wouldn't really consider anything else. It's a workhorse. Everyone else here has really laid out a ton of great points, so I'll just relate my experience- It's run flawlessly for me. It had a wonky keyboard (it's one of the early 2016 MBPs that got that keyboard that would get dirt in it...), and the battery started to swell a few years back- the only hardware problems I've ever had with a Mac- and Apple replaced both the battery and the keyboard, even though the AppleCare warranty had ended, no questions asked, no charge to me. I'd definitely recommend getting a MacBook spec'd out how you want. I usually go with the highest RAM upgrade I can afford.

 

[dean701]

you are mostly going to get opinions based on personal preference and bias. Both systems will do the job. If you have multiple soundcards and want to use them simultaneously, embarrassingly Mac is still the way to go since Windows ASIO still struggles with this.
My preference is windows based on how many macs I have had issues with. I used to be a mac guy when I could take apart everything and fix it. Now they glue everything and it's a gong show. They also keep making things smaller with less ports for connectivity. Windows works for me. an i7 12700 is a quick cpu. Make sure you get something with a dedicated video card with CUDA cores and an m.2 gen 3+ drive. It will last a while.

 

[marsonic]

The general trend in the PC world is also away from replaceable components on laptops, for the reasons I mentioned. However, if upgradeability is an important priority for you, you're far more likely to find a Windows PC to your liking than a Mac.

Not so much upgrades for me as repairs.

I have upgraded things in computers because I was on a budget when I initially built them. But, mostly, my PCs last long enough that new stuff is at least a few generations newer by the time I'd want to upgrade (I'm on an 8086k right now...so...5 generations have gone by since I built my desktop)....and at that point, it makes more sense to replace it. Also, I just realized my desktop is over 4 years old. Next year might be a nice time for an upgrade.

But, yeah....that combined with universally terrible keyboards, mostly bad trackpads (Apple's are the best), and small screens leads me away from laptops in general due to my preferences. I feel like I did my time on laptops in school. And while I do still own a laptop for my day job....I use it maybe once a year, usually after a fresh Linux install because I can't be bothered to even run updates and only need it when I'm traveling but not on vacation.

People have to pick their own poison. I prefer to pick one that works.

I really don't mean to insult you....and I completely agree with the statement.

But...is it sad that I don't know which side you fall on?

Or was that your point?

you are mostly going to get opinions based on personal preference and bias. Both systems will do the job. If you have multiple soundcards and want to use them simultaneously, embarrassingly Mac is still the way to go since Windows ASIO still struggles with this.

If you're talking about aggregate devices used inside one application or different sound cards that use the same driver, then yes.

I thought I'd use that and had fun playing with aggregate devices. But.....it literally never came up.

Virtual cable style routing is also easier and more reliable on Mac (or Linux) than Windows. On Windows, if I want to process/record system audio in a DAW, I actually run it out an S/PDIF or ADAT pair and straight back in to the same audio interface.

It really is just trade-offs to decide between them. You know where I fall....better quality/longevity hardware and a desktop (or rack) form factor and reparability are worth more to me than cost per performance.

If Apple made an actual desktop that didn't force you into expensive Graphics that I don't want or need and somehow convinced me that their service wasn't hot garbage...I'd give them another chance. But, I'm not holding my breath. Right now, you can do better with HEDT/Workstation-class PC hardware than a Mac Pro for a lot of the same reasons.

 

[GlennO]

Not so much upgrades for me as repairs.

Sorry, my comment wasn't addressed to "you" personally. I was trying to help the OP by making a general comment about priorities.

 

[BBN]

Sorry, my comment wasn't addressed to "you" personally. I was trying to help the OP by making a general comment about priorities.

My question/concern was more around repair vs. upgrade. (being that my biggest reason for looking for a new laptop is because my current one had the hard drive crap out)
Since it was a Lenovo, I opened it up, pulled out the drive and put a new SSD in there. I had to load all software back on there...but for $50, I at least have the laptop back in action.

All of this conversation has been very helpful - honestly.

I'm still uncertain on what I will do, but my biggest driver for ask was:
- Most folks I know that use a laptop for a DAW, us Macs (and nobody ever complains)
- But as tech keeps evolving, I'm always wondering if/when Windows machines may catch up and be as good or reliable.
It sounds like they're getting better, but Windows has not surpassed Mac in a way that people are flipping their option saying - "Mac used to be good, but Window's is as good"

Kind of like - ProTools used to be 'the standard' DAW. Now....there are many options just as good or better.
Was very curious if people were starting to sway towards Windows more now a days. Seems like no.

I know that everyone has different opinions. I have been an avid Mac hater for years. But realizing as I'm getting older that I may have hitched my wagon to the Windows train just out of stubbornness....and should be more open to trying something new.

 

[humpfrey]

People have to pick their own poison. I prefer to pick one that works. . like mr ferguson wrote

 

[DaveW]

Opening a can of worms here....but here goes.

I've been a PC user forever and have never owned a Mac. I used to build my own machines, but then started buying more laptops for studio portability.
I was a Cakewalk Sonar user for years, went to Presonus Studio One when Cakewalk went sideways, but have also tried (and don't mind) Reaper, Pro Tools and the new Band Lab version of Cakewalk. No matter what DAW I use, I like it to be capable of working on PC or Mac.

The last laptop I purchases (a few years back) is a Windows 10 i5 Lenovo machine, so yeah - not the latest tech by any means.
The hard drive recently stopped working and I had to rebuild the machine, which was easy enough, but it also has me thinking - it may be time for an upgrade.

My largest band recording projects go to ~40-50 tracks. My i5 Lenovo machine STRUGGLES. I have lots of Studio One crashes, but I honestly don't know if that is Presonus....or my machine....or both. I have the Slate Everything bundle, iZotope Suite, Waves, I use Slate Trigger a lot - plenty of heavy-duty plugins, which I know are taxing my machine.

I would love to find a Laptop that can handle my needs, so I can travel with my studio.
Although I have never owned a Mac, I'm not against it. I just want something stable that runs my DAW consistently without lag/crashing.

So I'd love opinions on - Mac or Windows???
And what specs should I look at for either of those solutions?

Thanks for any insight.

Mac they just work. Jumped from PC a few years ago and have no regrets. Especially if you have an iPhone or iPad then its no brainer.

 

[marsonic]

I'm still uncertain on what I will do, but my biggest driver for ask was:
- Most folks I know that use a laptop for a DAW, us Macs (and nobody ever complains)
- But as tech keeps evolving, I'm always wondering if/when Windows machines may catch up and be as good or reliable.
It sounds like they're getting better, but Windows has not surpassed Mac in a way that people are flipping their option saying - "Mac used to be good, but Window's is as good"

Actually, that has been happening. but, it kind of always has been that way in certain circles. There are examples of pro studios that upgraded from G4 Mac Pros to Intel Macs just a handful of years ago and then switched to PC recently. Not many, but they're there.

There are high-end DAWs (Sequoia, SADiE, and Pyramix) that are Windows-only (and have always been AFAIK). They're more common in old-school mastering than mixing or tracking, but they've never run on Macs. A lot of broadcast has been Windows-only because using computers for that started when Macs were insanely unreliable and had no real software targets for them, and a lot of them still run the same basic things because it's more costly to change than to just keep going.

There are also examples of engineers/studios in specific fields (still mostly mastering and broadcast) that went from running Windows on one of the good iterations of Intel Macs to PCs because they were going to run Sequoia and just wanted whatever hardware was the best at the time. And now Macs can't run Windows, so they were forced to switch either to PC or which DAW they were using.

Depending on exactly what you're doing, the reason the M1s are so "revolutionary" is the high track count latency performance with certain TB interfaces. It's not quite to the point of performing as well as HDX on either Mac or PC...but it's very close and significantly less expensive. A single HDX Core card with no software, no computer, and no audio interface costs five grand. If that's applicable to your use case, buying a Mac Studio with an M1 Pro almost makes perfect sense as an alternative, especially if you can just buy a replacement if it goes down and then deal with the warranty/repair while the replacement is making you money.

But, as an amateur, hobbyist, or anyone not doing big session tracking....HDX doesn't make any sense.

FWIW, all of the people doing live performances with laptops that I personally know are using PCs and Windows (they're all DJs). I quit doing that before I switched back to Windows, so that part of it still seems weird to me. If I went back to it, at this point, I wouldn't use a laptop to perform anymore because I got sick of dealing with controllers and the screen in front of me. I'd be using the Denon players with my old Rane rotary and maybe have one of their smaller all-in-one things for fly gigs. But, I digress...

There are always ways to get around the shortcomings of either system....so it really does come down to which hoops you want to jump through.

Kind of like - ProTools used to be 'the standard' DAW. Now....there are many options just as good or better.
Was very curious if people were starting to sway towards Windows more now a days. Seems like no.

Actually, for what PT HDX is good at (low latency, high-track count recording), no, there actually isn't anything better. There are a lot of things that are "close enough". But, nothing actually as good or better. For non-HDX, it has no advantages except the workflows that TDM/HD/HDX users are accustomed to.

There are ways to get low-latency monitoring for the performers with other things, but none of them are as straightforward as just using sends & busses inside the DAW session and still getting <1ms round trip time with processing (that isn't inherently based on latency....lookahead compression, linear phase filters, etc.).

I know that everyone has different opinions. I have been an avid Mac hater for years. But realizing as I'm getting older that I may have hitched my wagon to the Windows train just out of stubbornness....and should be more open to trying something new.

That's how I felt when I switched to Windows.

Like many of the people who switched the other way (and me when I switched from PC to Mac all those years ago), I also have no regrets.

 

[GlennO]

- But as tech keeps evolving, I'm always wondering if/when Windows machines may catch up and be as good or reliable.

For many people, especially in music production, "surpassed" or "catching up" primarily means cpu performance. On that specific point, the outlook is not good for Intel/x86 compared to Apple Silicon.

 

[dean701]

For many people, especially in music production, "surpassed" or "catching up" primarily means cpu performance. On that specific point, the outlook is not good for Intel/x86 compared to Apple Silicon.

How so Glenn, the benchmark numbers for amd/intel continue to lead. A modest 2022 i7 12700k benchmark is 31k. Not to mention the Amd leaders.
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html

Regardless, to the OP, your software choice may be deciding factor. Although many DAWs are cross platform now, some still funnel you in a certain direction.

 

[marsonic]

For many people, especially in music production, "surpassed" or "catching up" primarily means cpu performance. On that specific point, the outlook is not good for Intel/x86 compared to Apple Silicon.

Yes. We're going to see the sunset of x86 derived CPUs.

But, it isn't Apple Silicone specific. All of the ARM implementations have similar advantages. Apple was first to market (for consumers) with something like them largely because Windows runs like garbage on ARM. Well...not first, but first legit day-to-day real-work computer.

I've had some ARM SoCs running Linux that have absolutely insane performance for their crazy low prices. Unfortunately, outside of Apple, ARM systems aren't appropriate for Audio and are really only made for super low-end budget things (think Raspberry Pi) or high-end highly parallelized cloud-scale servers. That statement also pretty much ignores all phones and tablets, which are all ARM at this point unless I'm mistaken. But having to use only a tablet for music production would make me flat-out quit. Never going to happen.

How so Glenn the benchmark numbers for amd/intel continue to lead. A modest 2022 i7 12700k benchmark is 31k. Not to mention the Amd leaders.
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html

Yup.

In raw performance, high-end x86 still wins...but it takes a somewhat expensive processor with good cooling and a LOT more electricity to do it.

As far as performance in practice....it's really dependent on your specific workload. In some specific things, AS slams x86 even with discrete graphics. In other workloads, it's the other way around. Oddly enough, most of the real world tasks seem focused on video rather than audio. And it really does go either way.

My wife works in film, and there are a handful of people doing very computationally intensive things that are working on a stack of M1 Ultras. Others doing almost the same kinds of tasks in different software are using workstation class PCs with discrete GPUs. They've all tested both, and they don't know what the word budget means. These are the kinds of people who travel with multi-million-dollar rigs. (Movies are crazy expensive)

It really does go back and forth depending on exactly what you're doing.

And the PCs are more expensive if you only look at the computer itself.

Which, honestly, is why I've been hating on Thunderbolt since it came out. The adapters, docking stations, and enclosures that I would need to do the same things as a normal PC make the Apple solution more expensive than the nicest non-HEDT PC I can build. Some of that is me-specific, but I think some of it holds more generally even if not universal. It ties you down in a way that PCIe doesn't, unless you want to use specific hardware.

That trade-off makes sense if you want to use a laptop and not take all your stuff with you for some reason. It makes absolutely zero sense for a desktop and it never did.

What Apple really needs to do is make an M2Pro/Ultra Mac Pro that uses commodity RAM, power, and cooling and has a decent number of PCIe lanes/slots. Frankly, I wouldn't care if it even had a storage controller at that point (I wouldn't use it if at all possible), and I would seriously consider it, despite my horrible experiences with their service.

 

[GlennO]

How so Glenn, the benchmark numbers for amd/intel continue to lead. A modest 2022 i7 12700k benchmark is 31k. Not to mention the Amd leaders.
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html

When you consider cpu performance vs dollars and power, there's a distinct advantage for Apple Silicon in 2022, especially for configurations meaningful for music production. The bigger concern for Intel though, is the long term trend that favors Apple Silicon.

As I mentioned above though, cpu performance is only one of many factors anyone should consider when choosing a computer.

 

[dean701]

When you consider cpu performance vs dollars and power, there's a distinct advantage for Apple Silicon in 2022, especially for configurations meaningful for music production. The bigger concern for Intel though, is the long term trend that favors Apple Silicon.

As I mentioned above though, cpu performance is only one of many factors anyone should consider when choosing a computer.

I certainly wasn't taking power into account power. But if you are bringing price into it, then Apple is certainly not the best bang for your buck. Those stats seem tainted and dated. If I didn't have a broken Mac mini and 2 imacs in the closet my view might be different for Apple.
For the amount of money for a Mac book pro, one could build a serious windows machine that would have better throughput and far more i/o density. (i9 or i7 12k series with 3070ti) To each their own.

 

[GlennO]

I certainly wasn't taking power into account power. But if you are bringing price into it, then Apple is certainly not the best bang for your buck. Those stats seem tainted and dated. If I didn't have a broken Mac mini and 2 imacs in the closet my view might be different for Apple.
For the amount of money for a Mac book pro, one could build a serious windows machine that would have better throughput and far more i/o density. (i9 or i7 12k series with 3070ti) To each their own.

Yeah, the OP is looking for a laptop, so power is an issue. But, even with a desktop, it's amazing how much a difference it makes to have a dead silent computer, thanks to an Apple Silicon cpu, on your desk in the studio. Regarding price, it's hard to make direct comparisons and I wouldn't contend that one is less expensive than the other, but I will say the days when Apple was incontrovertibly the more expensive option are over.

 

[marsonic]

Yeah, the OP is looking for a laptop, so power is an issue. But, even with a desktop, it's amazing how much a difference it makes to have a dead silent computer, thanks to an Apple Silicon cpu, on your desk in the studio. Regarding price, it's hard to make direct comparisons and I wouldn't contend that one is less expensive than the other, but I will say the days when Apple was incontrovertibly the more expensive option are over.

My PC is pretty much silent. Room noise floor measures below 35dB on a measurement device with a self-noise of just under 30dB SPL.

The loudest things in here are the light bulbs.

Pretty much all you have to do to make a PC silent is not be dumb when you're building it. Yes, it's louder than that when it's off-line rendering, but at that point, it doesn't matter.

 

[BBN]

I certainly wasn't taking power into account power. But if you are bringing price into it, then Apple is certainly not the best bang for your buck. Those stats seem tainted and dated. If I didn't have a broken Mac mini and 2 imacs in the closet my view might be different for Apple.
For the amount of money for a Mac book pro, one could build a serious windows machine that would have better throughput and far more i/o density. (i9 or i7 12k series with 3070ti) To each their own.

When you say Windows machine - do you mean desktop or laptop?
You also mentioned which DAW I'd be using may drive the decision.
I am currently I use Presonus Studio One. I would like to keep using it (although I've found it to be a bit crash happy)
It may not be the software though, it certainly could be that my current laptop is not 'enough'.: Lenovo with Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-5300U CPU @ 2.30GHz with 8GB of RAM)

I need this next machine to be a laptop because I will be tracking and editing in different spots throughout the week.
So I am only concerned about laptop performance.

I'm intrigued by your comment that you could get a Windows machine for the same $ as a MBP with better throughput. Again, curious you are saying laptop or desktop?

Thanks again all, for continuing to add more info for me to think about.

 

[dean701]

When you say Windows machine - do you mean desktop or laptop?
You also mentioned which DAW I'd be using may drive the decision.
I am currently I use Presonus Studio One. I would like to keep using it (although I've found it to be a bit crash happy)
It may not be the software though, it certainly could be that my current laptop is not 'enough'.: Lenovo with Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-5300U CPU @ 2.30GHz with 8GB of RAM)

I need this next machine to be a laptop because I will be tracking and editing in different spots throughout the week.
So I am only concerned about laptop performance.

I'm intrigued by your comment that you could get a Windows machine for the same $ as a MBP with better throughput. Again, curious you are saying laptop or desktop?

Thanks again all, for continuing to add more info for me to think about.

Others may disagree with me and that's fine. When my Apple products worked they were great. After switching to windows I am very happy. Dollar for dollar I think a Windows system would be cheaper and faster. I also use Studio One. I have a Lenovo desktop and a Dell laptop. There are cheaper brands but if you can find an i7 or i9 12k series with a 3060ti with an m.2 drive it would last you years.

 

[toneseeker911]

The M1 and M2 MacBooks are frighteningly good. Handle a lot of tracks and heavy plugins even with 16GB, but I’d go with the max ram you can afford. Used to be a windows user, got tired of asio and driver issues. And I really need the aggregate audio device, because I have multiple interfaces including the axe fx that I want to use simultaneously.