My MacBook Pro - first impressions

re: My MacBook Pro - first impressions

Kanwal — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 02:16:02 GMT

I have been thinking the same thing. Buying a MBP but just wondering how Vista, VS2005 and MOSS 2007 would run with it. This as a development machine, do you think I should take the plunge?

re: My MacBook Pro - first impressions

Keith Combs — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 07:26:38 GMT

If you want to run all of the operating systems on the market, there is really only one choice.

You are going to pay a lot more for that privilege. My Mac was $1300 more than my ThinkPad. The CPU difference is $300 so you can factor that out. If Apple shipped a 1GB stick MacBook Pro, I probably could have saved another $500-600 on memory. So that leaves an extra margin of $300 or so for the design and backlit LCD screen.

Bottom line is that if you can handle the money, don't mind the poor thermals, and want to run OS X, Windows Vista, Linux, etc., then the MacBook Pro with VMWare Fusion is going to be hard to beat.

My only beef on the money part is the premium Apple is getting for memory. But then again, if you are worried about the $300-400 extra you are paying for that, then you probably should be looking at a different tier of machines.

re: My MacBook Pro - first impressions

Erik Rozman — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 12:00:59 GMT

WD-40, I am always surprised yet I think you can solve any problem with DW-40...

re: My MacBook Pro - first impressions

smearp — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 01:33:32 GMT

@Kanwal:

I have a MBP myself, and it is the fastest Vista Machine I have seen. PCWorld agrees, rating it the fastest Vista laptop of 2007 (http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,136649-page,3-c,notebooks/article.html). Visual Studio works fine as well.

As far as MOSS 2007, however... that is a server-oriented product, so disk I/O on a laptop hard drive (as well as the amount of available memory you have) will be a factor. That is more a limitation of using a laptop to run MOSS than the particular vendor you choose.

re: My MacBook Pro - first impressions

Keith Combs — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 04:18:48 GMT

The PC World article is flawed in my opinion. First of all they don't tell you what hard drives were used in the test and trust me, laptop hard drives are not created equal.

Second, look at the difference in speed in the top 10 laptops. They are so close to each other that most people aren't going to notice the difference in everyday usage.

And third, thermal cooling should be in the test mix and properly weighted. If it was, the MacBook Pro would NOT be number one.

Regarding Sean's comment on MOSS 2007, if you plan to run something that is I/O intensive, make sure you plan to a virtual machine like that off the laptop hard drive to an ExpressCard attached eSATA drive. Most of the top laptops include ExpressCard slots. The MBP uses a 34mm slot. The ThinkPad uses a 54mm slot.

re: My MacBook Pro - first impressions

All I know is my macbook is white? — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 16:51:38 GMT

Keith, you're a very entertaining writer. I really enjoyed reading your story! :) Thanks!

re: My MacBook Pro - first impressions

Greg — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 20:55:48 GMT

I have a neighbor running Windows Vista Ultimate on the mac and indicates that it's running beautifully. How are other applications running?

re: My MacBook Pro - first impressions

Bob Brock — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 23:01:43 GMT

Thank you for your first impressions. I am considering a MBP. One note, I've been using smcfancontrol on my macbook for about four months and it lowers the temperature dramatically. It simply gives you the option to increase your macbook fan speed. Seems to work quite well.