I don't currently own one but here's what I know.

Currently the only Daws that are MacIntel compatible are Garage Band, Logic Express 7.2, Logic Pro 7.2 just released this week are Live 5.2, and Soundtrack Pro. There is a smattering of plugs availble, but the big names are not ready yet.

The perfomance report are good, the current macbook has roughly the power of a dual G5.

The iMac and the mini use a slightly slower cpu, and are easily handleing the logic demo song designed to show off the dual and quad G5s.

SX is currently the worst performing Mac DAW, because it shares code base with the PC version and contains little if any OSX optimization. Who knows when Steinberg will deliver a working product. From my experience it takes the three, to four updates on the Mac to get the functionality of the PC version.

Time will only tell if the brute force of the Intel will make SX usable in OSX.

8)

My buddy at school has an M-Audio 18/14 interface and a MacBook that runs ProTools M-Powered. He "only" has a gig of memory, and complains every so often that it always runs out of physical memory. Of course he's like the plug-in king. Running as many plug-ins as he does will make any computer choke :lol:

I would wait a while before going the macbook pro route as manufacturers will release patches etc that should allow compatibility/optimalization for this platform. Also, Cubase is a great program for PC and is familiar, so maybe a PC option would be worth considering. It's always best to wait a while so you can objectively view it's performance and also have the worst bugs sorted out.

I'm not sure how well it will perform, the chip is very similar to the intel core duo - it is designed more for better battery runtime and cooler operation than performance - the performance is better than in the Powerbook G4 but that's not really saying much.

I have a Dell Inspiron 9100 laptop which runs a desktop P4 3.2 Ghz with 1GB dual channel DDR and 7200 rpm drive. The drive speed is important and although my Dell weighs a ton and runs for about 4 minutes on battery :) when on A/C power it flies. I have a friend with a coreduo laptop and he is disappointed in it's performance with his daw (Sonar, but it's probably not the DAW), even though he's tried all the tweaks and optimizations, he can only do 2/3rds of what my notebook can achieve.

The high perfomance gaming notebooks often still have desktop P4 processors - they suck juice but give you raw power.

I would steer clear of the mac mini or g4 based technology, it was once truly innovative but just doesn't cut the mustard any more.

Oh and a good audio card for notebooks is the Echo Indigo I/O PCMCIA card as most laptops (even top line) have absolutely DIRE onboard audio which will choke badly if you try to use it for anything other than playing back an mp3.

I would wait a while before going the macbook pro route as manufacturers will release patches etc that should allow compatibility/optimalization for this platform. Also, Cubase is a great program for PC and is familiar, so maybe a PC option would be worth considering. It's always best to wait a while so you can objectively view it's performance and also have the worst bugs sorted out.

I'm not sure how well it will perform, the chip is very similar to the intel core duo - it is designed more for better battery runtime and cooler operation than performance - the performance is better than in the Powerbook G4 but that's not really saying much.

I have a Dell Inspiron 9100 laptop which runs a desktop P4 3.2 Ghz with 1GB dual channel DDR and 7200 rpm drive. The drive speed is important and although my Dell weighs a ton and runs for about 4 minutes on battery :) when on A/C power it flies. I have a friend with a coreduo laptop and he is disappointed in it's performance with his daw (Sonar, but it's probably not the DAW), even though he's tried all the tweaks and optimizations, he can only do 2/3rds of what my notebook can achieve.

The high perfomance gaming notebooks often still have desktop P4 processors - they suck juice but give you raw power.

I would steer clear of the mac mini or g4 based technology, it was once truly innovative but just doesn't cut the mustard any more.

Oh and a good audio card for notebooks is the Echo Indigo I/O PCMCIA card as most laptops (even top line) have absolutely DIRE onboard audio which will choke badly if you try to use it for anything other than playing back an mp3.