Toying with the idea of getting a Macbook Pro - Questions

[CurseTheSky]

My Envy 14 has been a great computer, but it has a few faults. The touch pad is the biggest downfall - even two-finger scrolling can be painful.

To make a long story short, I'm toying with the idea of selling it (it has a rare Radiance Display, so I can get back most of what I paid for it) and grabbing a 13" Macbook Pro. I've never owned a Mac before, so I don't know what I'm in for.

A few questions:
1. Is the latest Macbook Pro up to par with previous generations, or are there any quirks or faults? (Missing ports compared to older ones, overheating, driver issues, etc.)
2. What kind of battery life (web browsing / light tasks) can I realistically expect out of it under OSX? What about under Windows 7?
3. Are there any features / ports / etc. that do not work under Windows 7?
4. I have an Intel G2 160GB SSD. Can I replace the hard drive myself, will the Intel SSD work in the MBP, and how difficult is it to open it up?
5. What are my options for an external hard drive? I'd prefer something 2.5", and I like the speed benefits of eSATA on my current notebook. Is Thunderbolt a realistic option or not readily available in most peripherals?
6. Anything major that I should know, jumping into the Mac work for the first time?

The biggest downfall I'm considering right now is going from a 1600x900 screen down to just 1280x800. I really wish they at least offered a 1440x900 upgrade option. Too bad the 15" Macbook Pro is so expensive.
Thanks. 🙂

 

[TheStu]

My Envy 14 has been a great computer, but it has a few faults. The touch pad is the biggest downfall - even two-finger scrolling can be painful.

To make a long story short, I'm toying with the idea of selling it (it has a rare Radiance Display, so I can get back most of what I paid for it) and grabbing a 13" Macbook Pro. I've never owned a Mac before, so I don't know what I'm in for.

A few questions:
1. Is the latest Macbook Pro up to par with previous generations, or are there any quirks or faults? (Missing ports compared to older ones, overheating, driver issues, etc.)
2. What kind of battery life (web browsing / light tasks) can I realistically expect out of it under OSX? What about under Windows 7?
3. Are there any features / ports / etc. that do not work under Windows 7?
4. I have an Intel G2 160GB SSD. Can I replace the hard drive myself, will the Intel SSD work in the MBP, and how difficult is it to open it up?
5. What are my options for an external hard drive? I'd prefer something 2.5", and I like the speed benefits of eSATA on my current notebook. Is Thunderbolt a realistic option or not readily available in most peripherals?
6. Anything major that I should know, jumping into the Mac work for the first time?

The biggest downfall I'm considering right now is going from a 1600x900 screen down to just 1280x800. I really wish they at least offered a 1440x900 upgrade option. Too bad the 15" Macbook Pro is so expensive.
Thanks. 🙂

A few questions:
A few answers:
1. Is the latest Macbook Pro up to par with previous generations, or are there any quirks or faults? (Missing ports compared to older ones, overheating, driver issues, etc.)
1: I haven't heard of many issues, I think the first ones off the line had some QC issues (that really only came up in disassembly) but I would imagine that those have been worked out
2. What kind of battery life (web browsing / light tasks) can I realistically expect out of it under OSX? What about under Windows 7?
2: Apple rates it at 7 hours max, I think that you can expect about that, maybe as little as 5. 'Light tasks' is a little ambiguous. Expect half of that in Windows
3. Are there any features / ports / etc. that do not work under Windows 7?
3: The trackpad isn't as good in Windows, other than that, it should be good to go.
4. I have an Intel G2 160GB SSD. Can I replace the hard drive myself, will the Intel SSD work in the MBP, and how difficult is it to open it up?
4: Replacing the drive isn't an issue, remove 10 screws to open the bottom, and then 1 more to remove the hard drive. If you don't need/want the optical drive you can get a bay adapter, put the SSD in that and keep your hard drive
5. What are my options for an external hard drive? I'd prefer something 2.5", and I like the speed benefits of eSATA on my current notebook. Is Thunderbolt a realistic option or not readily available in most peripherals?
5: USB and firewire. Firewire 800 runs at 100MB/s throughput, so you will take a bit of a performance hit, but not nearly as badly as you would with USB. Thunderbolt is still early days, there aren't really many peripherals (read: none I think) available yet.
6. Anything major that I should know, jumping into the Mac work for the first time?
6: Don't expect it to work like Windows does. Even aside from little stuff like CMD vs CTRL, htere are significant low-level differences that can require you to change the way you think a bit.

 

[CurseTheSky]

Thanks for the input.

I'm a bit leery. The better battery life is the #1 thing that's attractive to me, though I'm afraid that I'll end up spending most of my time in Windows and won't really get to take advantage of that. My needs are fairly basic (FTP client; good PHP / HTML / Javascript / etc. smart editor similar to Notepad++ on Windows; browsers for testing), but I'm afraid of not being able to find a comparable program, or at least one that I like.

Are there any good alternatives to iTunes? I'm not a big fan of iTunes and just want to keep my options open.

 

[TheStu]

Thanks for the input.

I'm a bit leery. The better battery life is the #1 thing that's attractive to me, though I'm afraid that I'll end up spending most of my time in Windows and won't really get to take advantage of that. My needs are fairly basic (FTP client; good PHP / HTML / Javascript / etc. smart editor similar to Notepad++ on Windows; browsers for testing), but I'm afraid of not being able to find a comparable program, or at least one that I like.

Are there any good alternatives to iTunes? I'm not a big fan of iTunes and just want to keep my options open.

There is songbird as an alternative to iTunes, but really iTunes is better in OS X so give it a whirl there first, see what happens.

For FTP there is Cyberduck or Transmit, but if you are doing web coding then take a look at Coda, it has built in FTP (so does Terminal for that matter, but if you want a GUI...)

 

[Tyranicus]

Are there any good alternatives to iTunes? I'm not a big fan of iTunes and just want to keep my options open.

There is a Mac version of Songbird.

 

[Pardus]

Things i liked about my macbook pro:
-no plastic on case, all metal/aluminum around
-never had heat issues like i did with dell's
-mac os was really easy to work with, installing and unisntalling was simple.
-no viruses to worry about
-had the ability to run windows with bootcamp or in vmware
-tons of free or low cost apps that did everything a pc could
-backlit keyboard amazing

Things i didn't like about my macbook pro:
-13" screen was too small
-1.8ghz processor was too slow
-had to replace the dvd burner twice as it failed, cheap hardware
-isight camera was terrible
-never got used to tkey keypad, used an external keyboard/mouse
-they cost 3-4 times that most windows laptops

also didn't like having it stolen, never got it back.

 

[CurseTheSky]

Pardon me, I'm full of questions. 😉

So, I know I can go the Boot Camp route and boot into either OSX or Windows 7. However, I'm worried about the loss of battery life and other quirks. ActiveX mentioned VMWare, which could be a great solution. Would that:
A) Retain the normal battery life of OSX (within reason), and;
B) Allow me to run any normal Windows program (Microsoft Office, Windows games, etc.) without problems, and finally;
C) Allow me to maximize the VMWare window so that I can essentially use Windows 7 like it's the primary OS, if I so choose

Basically, I'm just concerned that VMWare is only going to get me half way there (for example, games won't work).

Next question: with OSX 10.7 coming out shortly, should I hold off and grab a Macbook Pro with it preinstalled, or just get one now (while I still have the itch) and pay for it afterward? What's the upgrade cost usually?

With the 13" / Intel graphics, is there any way to drive two displays if I so choose? The Thunderbolt port should work fine for one monitor, but what about a second 1080P or 1200P monitor?

Final question (for now): I heard there's a $200 off + $100 iTunes card promotion going on for students. Do I have to go to an Apple store to get that, or would big-name retailers also offer a similar promotion? I have a bunch of Best Buys around, but other than that, the nearest Apple store is 1-2 hours away. There is a Micro Center that's a little bit closer...

 

[TheStu]

Things i liked about my macbook pro:
-no plastic on case, all metal/aluminum around
-never had heat issues like i did with dell's
-mac os was really easy to work with, installing and unisntalling was simple.
-no viruses to worry about
-had the ability to run windows with bootcamp or in vmware
-tons of free or low cost apps that did everything a pc could
-backlit keyboard amazing

Things i didn't like about my macbook pro:
-13" screen was too small
-1.8ghz processor was too slow
-had to replace the dvd burner twice as it failed, cheap hardware
-isight camera was terrible
-never got used to tkey keypad, used an external keyboard/mouse
-they cost 3-4 times that most windows laptops

also didn't like having it stolen, never got it back.

Your Cons column...
Screen: Can't do much for you there aside from saying that they make a 15" model
CPU: Fixed
DVD Burner: Thank god there is a warranty
iSight: There are nicer cameras, but it gets the job done
Keypad: Can't help you there
Cost: If they cost 3-4x as much then I could conceivably get a 13" Sandy Bridge with backlit keyboard and gigabit ethernet for $300-400? Please show me this, it would be a great thing to recommend people.

Pardon me, I'm full of questions. 😉

So, I know I can go the Boot Camp route and boot into either OSX or Windows 7. However, I'm worried about the loss of battery life and other quirks. ActiveX mentioned VMWare, which could be a great solution. Would that:
A) Retain the normal battery life of OSX (within reason), and;
B) Allow me to run any normal Windows program (Microsoft Office, Windows games, etc.) without problems, and finally;
C) Allow me to maximize the VMWare window so that I can essentially use Windows 7 like it's the primary OS, if I so choose

Basically, I'm just concerned that VMWare is only going to get me half way there (for example, games won't work).

Next question: with OSX 10.7 coming out shortly, should I hold off and grab a Macbook Pro with it preinstalled, or just get one now (while I still have the itch) and pay for it afterward? What's the upgrade cost usually?

With the 13" / Intel graphics, is there any way to drive two displays if I so choose? The Thunderbolt port should work fine for one monitor, but what about a second 1080P or 1200P monitor?

Final question (for now): I heard there's a $200 off + $100 iTunes card promotion going on for students. Do I have to go to an Apple store to get that, or would big-name retailers also offer a similar promotion? I have a bunch of Best Buys around, but other than that, the nearest Apple store is 1-2 hours away. There is a Micro Center that's a little bit closer...

VMWare questions:
A: Yes, since it is essentially a program within OS X, expect to get the same battery life you would out of any other program that is using a a decent amount of CPU power
B: Yes, the programs have no idea that it is a VM
C: You have 3 choices with a VM, you can window it, you can full screen it, or you can integrate it. The last choice lets you have your Windows and OS X windows side by side.
D: Games... fuhgedaboutit. Some might work, most won't. 3D support is currently rudimentary at best.

I think that ThunderBolt allows for 2 displays on the same port, but they would need to be ThunderBolt displays.

The education discount is available online, you can order it there, you just need to select the Education Store from the left side and proceed from there.

 

[Emulex]

i think the macbook pro 2.66 (unibody) 17" matte is a very nice laptop - for everything else i use my 13" macbook air.

tried the 13" and 15" and quite honestly i didn't see the point and traded them. (traded i5 15" macbook pro for 17" core2duo macbook pro - with applecare! apple replaced everything from glossy screen to logic board to top/bottom (dented) case - so i have essentially a good as new 17" matte 1920x1200 puppy - LOVE IT!

macbook air ! $700 - dents. 32gb ssd - replaced 120gb sata and love it!

love the backlit keyboards - they are lovely.

keep the pc for doing the real work 🙂

 

[CurseTheSky]

Yeah, I likely won't be doing much gaming on the machine if I get it anyway. I do wish they had still included some kind of low-end discrete graphics solution, but it'd be pretty low on my wish list compared to a higher resolution screen and more connectivity options.

All that aside, the only thing I've read recently that may make me reconsider is spotty SSD support. Apparently people are having issues with various third-party SSDs (mostly SATA 6.0Gb/s models), but there have been a few accounts of issues with Intel X-25M G2 drives. That worries me. I'd hate to spend an extra $200 just to get the Apple-branded 128GB SSD.

The Macbook Air is tempting too. I hear there's a refresh coming up soon, but I don't know how soon. If it was a month away or less, I'd probably wait just to see what they have up their sleeve. I'd hate to have buyer's remorse if Apple keeps up with the higher res 13.3" display and basically brings the rest of the machine somewhat up to par with the MBP line.

 

[PhoKingGuy]

I'm pretty much in the same boat here.

What kind of battery hit are you looking at with running OSX or Win7 in bootcamp? I might just use the 11 air as an RDP terminal to my desktop in my apartment..or if theres a way to cloud synch MS one note that would be the best I suppose.

 

[wantedSpidy]

its around 70% battery life with win

 

[CurseTheSky]

Any ideas on the SSD question? I'm hoping that an Intel X-25M G2 160GB will work.

Also, does Apple have any black or other non-white cables? Specifically, I'm hoping for a black AC adapter.

 

[TheStu]

Any ideas on the SSD question? I'm hoping that an Intel X-25M G2 160GB will work.

Also, does Apple have any black or other non-white cables? Specifically, I'm hoping for a black AC adapter.

The AC adapter is white, even the Black MacBook which had black anodized screws and black IO ports had a white adapter.

As for the SSD issue. Just remember that people that have had bad experiences will shout the loudest. You should be ok.

 

[silverpig]

I've got an SSD (OCX Vertex 2) in my 2009 MBP and it works flawlessly.

Office 2011 for OSX is great. 2008 for Mac sucked, but 2011 is just about as good as for windows.

For gaming... you take a penalty going from a desktop to a laptop, and another one going from windows to OSX... There are some games for OSX in steam, but you're not going to be able to run the latest and greatest.