I'm looking for some advice in regards to Macbook Pro's. I have a Macbook Pro ordered and delivery to the supplier is expected within a day or two. It's a 17' 2.4GHz, 4GB RAM and a 200GB 7200rpm HDD.
The supplier rang today and asked if I would prefer one of the newer models instead, which are 'expected' in the next two weeks. Turns out this is a rumour, so it could potentially be much longer than that. It looks like these new models have a small Solid State Drive, which would be cool, but apparantly existing macbooks can also get an upgrade to have one of these, so it's not as much of a feature for me now. They use the new Penryn chip, which will apparantly give about a 20% performance increase and also use less battery and produce less heat.
This machine will only be used for live and not studio production, so I don't think that 20% is that important. My current setup is unreliable and I need a solid performance machine which is why I ordered the Mac.
So, my questions:
1. Is it worth waiting for the new Macbook Pro's? The benefits aren't that huge to my eyes, especially since later in the year there's talk of quad core Macbook Pros, so I'd just want to upgrade then anyway. I'm worried about the 'two weeks' becoming 'two months' or more, and being left without a solid live rig which I need for gigs in the next few months (first gig is in 3 weeks).
2. Do Apple have a history of bringing out new machines that are rock solid? My previous purchase was a Toshiba Dual Core that turned out to have an audio glitch, after the previous versions were recommended highly by other producers as being stable and flawless with audio and a MOTU Ultralite (which I have). I don't want to risk spending $4000 AU on a new Macbook Pro only to have some glitch appear. so when a new machine comes out, is it normally stable for audio?
Any other thoughts appreciated. thanks!