Personal computing discussed

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Arvald
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Re: Recommend a Mac Book?

Mon Aug 19, 2013 9:44 am

best bet is to get out and get your hands on one to hold (either Best Buy or Apple store)

I like the Mac Book Pro Retina. I toyed with getting an Air but I want to run a windows VM on it in Parallels and the storage is too light for that.

the 13" looks and feels like a great machine.
 
stoydgen
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Re: Recommend a Mac Book?

Mon Aug 19, 2013 10:27 am

I recently purchased a 2013 MBA 13" and love it. The 2013 MBA is perfect for uni use also. I routinely get 12 hours on normal usage at uni. I'd recommend getting the upgrade to the 256GB SSD though.

Arvald: I run a windows 7 VM on mine without issue for some apps without issue. I have the image on 60GB of storage.
 
windwalker
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Re: Recommend a Mac Book?

Mon Aug 19, 2013 10:31 am

The nicest is obviously the Retina MacBook Pro, but if you need lots of built in storage for cheap the classic MacBook Pro is best.
The Air is the lightest and so the obvious choice if you'll be carrying around with you all the time.
 
Beelzebubba9
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Re: Recommend a Mac Book?

Mon Aug 19, 2013 11:29 am

Newtotechnology wrote:
windwalker wrote:
The nicest is obviously the Retina MacBook Pro, but if you need lots of built in storage for cheap the classic MacBook Pro is best.
The Air is the lightest and so the obvious choice if you'll be carrying around with you all the time.


Thanks for all your replies!

Yep, that is exactly the reason I am tempted by MacBook Air, I'll be taking it everywhere so it does need to be light. However, I am not that sure there will be enough storage for all of my files.
Also, how easy is it to install Windows on a MacBook? Is it worth doing it or is it best to keep OS X?


If you're going to get the Retina MacBook Pro, wait a few weeks until the Haswell models come out. They'll cost the same and should have 50% (or better) battery life. If you're not, the Air is a great choice now since it already ships with Haswell CPUs.

If you're not going to use OS X as your primary OS, there might be better options for you. That said, installing and running Windows - either with Bootcamp or in a VM - is very easy and reliable. The only reason in my opinion to run Windows in Bootcamp is if you want to play games on your Mac, but if that's your primary use for the machine, you'd be better served by another laptop entirely.

FWIW I'm an Infrastructure Engineer at a mostly-Windows shop and I perform my entire job off of a 13" rMBP and a Windows VM.
 
End User
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Re: Recommend a Mac Book?

Mon Aug 19, 2013 11:35 am

Arvald wrote:
I toyed with getting an Air but I want to run a windows VM on it in Parallels and the storage is too light for that.

You can config a MacBook Air with up to 512GB of storage. I run Windows 7 and Ubuntu 13.04 on my 256GB equipped 11" MacBook Air.
 
End User
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Re: Recommend a Mac Book?

Mon Aug 19, 2013 12:02 pm

Newtotechnology wrote:
I am not that sure there will be enough storage for all of my files.

Do you have to bring everything with you when you are mobile? I've got 10TB+ worth of movies/music/photos/documents but I am content to leave most of it all behind when I am mobile. If I go on a trip with my MacBook Air (256GB) I can still load up with movies/music and have room to spare. If you need more storage then buy a large capacity USB 3.0 2.5" external drive or even a NAS.

As I mentioned previously you can spec the Air out to 512GB of storage.

Newtotechnology wrote:
Also, how easy is it to install Windows on a MacBook? Is it worth doing it or is it best to keep OS X?

Boot Camp makes installing Windows on a Mac a relatively painless process. You can have a dual boot solution with Boot Camp (Windows and OS X). If you have no interest in gaming under Windows then stick with OS X and run Windows in VM under Parallels or VMware Fusion.
 
windwalker
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Re: Recommend a Mac Book?

Mon Aug 19, 2013 12:34 pm

From what you're saying it's pretty clear that you would be best served by an Air and a 2.5" USB 3.0 external drive.
I have one and it's great: USB powered, plenty fast, holds 2 TB and is smaller than most Android phones. :P
 
Arvald
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Re: Recommend a Mac Book?

Mon Aug 19, 2013 12:46 pm

For gaming I use Steam mostly and the Mac capable list is growing fast :-)

I personally consider even 512GB tight with 2 O/S running and wanting to do other stuff on the machine ( a few steam games and a movie or 2 on the go in HD )
 
mdk77777
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Re: Recommend a Mac Book?

Mon Aug 19, 2013 12:56 pm

Recommend a Mac Book?

No. :wink:
 
Beelzebubba9
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Re: Recommend a Mac Book?

Mon Aug 19, 2013 1:02 pm

Arvald wrote:
For gaming I use Steam mostly and the Mac capable list is growing fast :-)

I personally consider even 512GB tight with 2 O/S running and wanting to do other stuff on the machine ( a few steam games and a movie or 2 on the go in HD )


Yeah I've been surprised at how oddly robust OS X gaming is becoming for non-hardcore gaming.

Also, as long as the VMs are thin provisioned, I don't really have space issues on a 256GB SSD. Obviously our use cases are very different, but my Windows VMs are rarely bigger than 35GB.
 
Adaptive
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Re: Recommend a Mac Book?

Mon Aug 19, 2013 1:41 pm

MBP 13" is the best right now, since it's Haswell. Check the Anandtech review.

If you want a MBP or Retina, wait for Haswell.
 
Star Brood
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Re: Recommend a Mac Book?

Mon Aug 19, 2013 1:55 pm

Beelzebubba9 wrote:
If you're going to get the Retina MacBook Pro, wait a few weeks until the Haswell models come out. They'll cost the same and should have 50% (or better) battery life. If you're not, the Air is a great choice now since it already ships with Haswell CPUs.


This.

I came onto this thread just to let you know that the next batch is imminent. I don't know when, but it's pretty obvious the new stuff is coming out soon. I wouldn't buy a laptop these days unless it had a Haswell CPU inside.
 
keltor
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Re: Recommend a Mac Book?

Mon Aug 19, 2013 3:09 pm

I use a rMBP 15 as my main day to day machine and it honestly works quite well. I'm also working on my phD, so I walk a bit around a University campus and really its weight really has no impact. All of the school stuff I have to bring outweighs it by quite a bit. I also bring a 2TB 2.5" USB drive with me. Honestly I have basically stopped using bootcamp, not because there is anything wrong with it, but because of Steam ... I have enough games now for 99.99999999% of mobile gaming needs. :)

I use a backpack to hold the laptop on the go - a Herschel Little America specifically.

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