Which Mac to buy?

j75

I am new to this and have never used a Mac, so buying one is a little puzzling.

I'm leaning more towards a MacBook Pro.
Any advice on what to look for or what to avoid?
One question... is the real hard drive better than the flash?

Thanks in advance.

jamie_c

Hi Jesse, my strategy for buying any new computer is to figure out my budget and then by the best one I can. Any new Mac should run Gamesalad just fine.

bjandthekatz

Flash storage is a faster/stronger hard drive. It consists of no moving parts, unlike a regular hard drive. Like @jamie_c said, any Mac should be able to run GameSalad fine.
I would definable recommend the MacBook Pro though.

tahakitan

the best mac to buy is well... the best one... depends on the money you have though.I bought the most expensive mac book pro and everything works smooth on it. Just remember, you get what you paid for and the performance does make a difference.

SAP_Apps

I have a 13inch Macbook Air and a Desktop that I work on. I do most of my work on my Desktop on Mavericks (Hackintosh FTW). and i have it set up where when i go down stairs to watch some tv or just relax on couch i can open my project im working on on my macbook air and keep pluggin away it is tehhh best evveerrrrrr

tatiang

If you haven't used GameSalad on a laptop, I recommend trying it before buying one. The screen real estate is a little hard to work with compared to a larger screen (e.g. iMac). I guess if you can afford a 15" then it's probably fine but I've done a fair share of game development with GS on a 13" MacBook Pro and it's cramped. Once GS updates Creator to include zooming, window pane collapse/expand, and other fine touches it won't matter, but for now it does make a difference.

KevinCross

I've got an iMac and MacBook Pro, and I'm more productive on the MacBook Pro. My iMac just collects dust. I think it's the keyboard and tracking pad on the MacBook Pro that does it for me, something that just doesn't feel the same or as comfortable with an iMac keyboard and mouse, or even the large official iMac tracking pad which just seems to sit at the wrong angle.

I guess we're all different though so go with what you can afford, and stick with what you're more comfortable working with generally, a laptop or desktop.

jonmulcahy

one thing to be sure, get a mac that supports Mavericks, so released in the past 3 years I think. anything older and you might run into upgrade issues sooner than later.

I would say have at least 4GB of ram, but more is better.
SSD drives are always awesome

I have a 15" retina macbook pro and it's awesome for development. I've developed on a screen as small as an 11" macbook air, 13" macbook pro, 15" macbook pro, and an iMac. This is the best all around development tool for it's portability and screen size. The iMac was great too, but I couldn't take it with me.

the refurbished section of the apple store is a great place to start. You can save a ton of money sometimes and get a full year warranty from apple. Best of both worlds
http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/specialdeals/mac

TheGabfather

The Air is nice. I can work in the bathroom, dining area, balcony, coffee shop, etc.
I just make use of a lot of external drives because I've since made it my primary personal computer and 128Gb won't cut it for me.

GameSalad is pretty smooth on it, too. It's the 2012 model, bought solely for GS at the time (the higher resolution made me get it compared to the Pro's -- not sure how things are with the Retina ones or the newer Air model).

Crestwood

I have a 2012 Macbook Air that I use for on the go. When I am at home, I have a thunderbolt to HDMI adapter that I output to a 27" monitor. This gives me 2 screens. The larger one being my main, and the air screen being a secondary. Makes life real easy.

It runs GS real easy. I only have a 128g SSD, but I use dropbox a lot and have a drive set up on my network tied into my router.

At times I wish I went with the pro for the extra thunderbolt ports (to add another display) and for the horsepower. The air runs Illustrator and Photoshop fine until I start adding a lot of gradients and blends.

j75

Thanks for the input guys.
I found a Macbook pro on sale that works for my budget (around 1k)
I would like more memory but ... in due time.
13.3" Display
4GB Mem
500GB HD

j75

It has the Intel HD Graphics 4000 card and 2.5GHz processor.
The processor is about as fast as my PC so that should be fine. Not sure about the graphics card, but for this price, I imagine it's probably just a standard run of the mill card.

BigDave

Mac book air, just super sexy and light i can cary it around in one hand and program games with it while i cut tomatos.

neoman

I was new to Apple and Mac coming from being a Windows user all my life and always saying that Macs are for dummies I mean mummies and daddies ... lol Man was I wrong ... I got a Mac book pro last year and started game development as you need a MAC to upload your games to Apple. I must say I am loving it ... I would recommend a MacBook Pro and I am glad you found one ... the more ram the better if you can go up to 8GB you will get better performance ... The only thing extra I did was get an external 24" monitor as 13" is a little small but it is handy as I can work from anywhere ... All the best ;-)

KevinCross

Mac book air, just super sexy and light i can cary it around in one hand and program games with it while i cut tomatos.

How many hands have you got?

TheGabfather

It has the Intel HD Graphics 4000 card and 2.5GHz processor.
The processor is about as fast as my PC so that should be fine. Not sure about the graphics card, but for this price, I imagine it's probably just a standard run of the mill card.

Skyrim runs smoothly on Medium to High settings with that card (personal experience).
Just get a cooling pad if you live/work in a warm place.

But for Gamesalad, you won't have to worry about that at all.

The_Gamesalad_Guru

I'm jumping on the new Mac Pro workhorse as soon as it's available. Been waiting for that for a year.

jamie_c

@FryingBaconStudios, The new Mac Pro is the first Mac I've really wanted to get in years. I've always used Macs, but the new Mac Pro is actually desirable!

I hope to get one at home or work once it's available.