A fair analysis of the Macbook Pro from a recent switcher to all future switchers

[glocke12]

well, Im a switcher also, going on about 6 weeks now. Im not going to tackle the OP's comments on a point by point basis, but I'll tackle a few.

Safari: Ive never had any problems or issues with the way safari loads pages. They actually load pretty rapidly for me.

Office 2004 for mac: of course it sucks, its a microsoft product. I use office on a daily basis, and find it to be a very cumbersome and non-user friendly software package.

Network issues: I have a MBP, a mac-mini, and an imac. All three found my wireless network right away, and havent had any problems since.

ichat: no problems at all...

bootcamp: I partioned my MBP to run XP, more as a test than anything. I never had any problems running various games or anything else. I removed the partition after 3 weeks because I have a dell desktop for running games, and have no other interest in running windows on my mac systems.

Maybe a mac isnt for the OP. The mac OS is different enough from windows that it does take some getting used to. Once I had gotten used to mac OS, I find trying to do the same tasks in windows to be very cumbersome.

 

[PimpDaddy]

I know it might be a long shot but have you tried using iChat with a google talk account? iChat never worked for me with an .mac/aim account. But now it works like a charm.

 

[jbg232]

I know it might be a long shot but have you tried using iChat with a google talk account? iChat never worked for me with an .mac/aim account. But now it works like a charm.

I didn't do that but how does that work? Can you use the camera and everything just like ichat using AIM? I was reluctant to have my parents try an install something (I set up their AIM account) but if it doesn't work on my next computer I will definitely try it out. Most likely though I really think it was a hardware issue... even knowing how rarely that truly is the cause.

 

[wildmilne]

Good read...im on the verge of switching if the new MBP comes out soon. It's nice to read non "fanboy" or "hater" posts, suprisingly you see very few.

What do you describe as the "corrupted"? After it was messed up you couldn't even boot in to XP? Could you recover any data?

I will need windows for potentially a few things (games, maybe some music stuff, windows development)...but i prefer to keep as much as the music/video/photo hobby stuff on the mac side.

Thanks.

 

[abijnk]

Let me start with, really nice review.

There were a lot of comments on Windows Bootcamp and I think I should clarify my experience with it. I used windows because I have programs that only run in windows and office 2004 doesn't work well. Thus I NEEDED windows. Bootcamp worked perfectly when I installed it alone. However I found it incredibly annoying to restart the system to use that program or office. Thus I installed parallels to mitigate that process and make it easier. Installing parallels corrupted the bootcamp partition multiple times in multiple configurations. So I think that bootcamp is great and works well on its own but is incredibly flaky when using it with parallels. On my next computer I will install just parallels and give up that speed advantage of running windows natively. Hopefully if I install just parallels it will not corrupt but either way I don't trust it.

Honestly, this sounds more like user mistake than a bootcamp problem. You seem to not understand what bootcamp is, and its pretty common actually. Bootcamp isn't running windows for you or anything like that, all bootcamp does is partition your drive for you, its a nice easy partition device that sets everything up for windows for you.

Now, what I would suggest you do is back up your files (I think you mentioned having time machine) and reformat (erase) your hard drive and re-install leopard. Then, don't partition with bootcamp, just use parallels. You shouldn't have any problems then. It might also help ichat if the reason you are having issues is that the data for it somehow got corrupted.

 

[GlossyIsBad4U]

"Leopard was just not snappy compared to windows boot camp."

Let me welcome you to the Mac Community!

Ok, first off XP is a older, feature reduced OS on the latest/fastest hardware. Of course it's going to be fast. And Windows 1.0 would be even faster.

Leopard is the latest, more feature rich OS on the latest hardware. It has considerable new graphic ways to displaying information that is rather taxing to processors and graphic cards. It's innovation and progress. Apple created the personal computer and brought the Graphical User Interface to the public, it's kind of their responsibility to improve on it.

A more fair comparison would be Vista against Leopard on the same hardware or Tiger vs XP. You'll find that Leopard will be faster than Vista.

XP allows one to reduce the features of the OS to get more speed and OS X doesn't.

Microsoft and Apple both add features, better rendering qualities (and sometimes bloat) and so forth to their OS's in order to motivate hardware sales. Apple seems to be highly motivated to add features to OS X, before anyone else even, in order to create the "WOW" factor that makes a hardware sale.

It's my experience that people buying the "lower end" of Apple's computers tend to experience the eventual OS upgrade slowdown and sooner turnover rate than those who buy the higher end machines. So pay a little more up front and get a Pro machine, keep it longer than the "consumer" level machines, bypass a upgrade cycle, sell your used Mac for a good price on eBay and save money in the long run. (Mac's have a excellent resale rate, check it out!)

I've found that Apple will purposely set certain render speeds on things like page redraws, scroll speeds etc. They certainly can make them appear wild and out of control, snapping to every touch or click, because running performance programs like X-Bench shows the graphic redraw capabilities are there.

Certain programs can help make your Mac more snappy, like Safari Speed will help considerably, having a RAID 0 pair of WD Raptors as a boot drive helps in other areas. But others can't be bypassed as it's in the OS itself. Other tricks are available to "slim" down OS X and Safari to reduce features. Google is your friend there.

By the way XP is a slow, bloated pig on my friends Dell here. The screen doesn't redraw correctly, programs take ten seconds to close, it doesn't handle multi-tasking well. The audio out carries ground noise and A/C hum to his receiver. Of course the anti-this and anti-that to be run to keep the machine from being Pwned.

 

[nikhsub1]

A more fair comparison would be Vista against Leopard on the same hardware or Tiger vs XP. You'll find that Leopard will be faster than Vista.

Umm, wrong. Vista is far faster (feels faster anyway) than Leopard on the same machine, in my sig.

 

[wildmilne]

Let me start with, really nice review.



Honestly, this sounds more like user mistake than a bootcamp problem. You seem to not understand what bootcamp is, and its pretty common actually. Bootcamp isn't running windows for you or anything like that, all bootcamp does is partition your drive for you, its a nice easy partition device that sets everything up for windows for you.

Now, what I would suggest you do is back up your files (I think you mentioned having time machine) and reformat (erase) your hard drive and re-install leopard. Then, don't partition with bootcamp, just use parallels. You shouldn't have any problems then. It might also help ichat if the reason you are having issues is that the data for it somehow got corrupted.

So are you saying boot camp is no good? Some people want (or need) to run windows natively ...or they wouldn't be even considering the new mac's. People are only trying to do what Apple is advertising it does. Waiting to get the details on his "courruption", but if he means, he uses boot camp then installs XP, then tries to connect in parallels and now his partition is no longer valid (in parallels or native boot, then thats a big problem).

 

[abijnk]

So are you saying boot camp is no good? Some people want (or need) to run windows natively ...or they wouldn't be even considering the new mac's. People are only trying to do what Apple is advertising it does. Waiting to get the details on his "courruption", but if he means, he uses boot camp then installs XP, then tries to connect in parallels and now his partition is no longer valid (in parallels or native boot, then thats a big problem).

I never said bootcamp was no good. I never even suggested it wasn't any good actually... I personally use bootcamp because I need to run natively in windows with my engineering software. What I was saying is if the partition is corrupted he needs to reformat his disc completely and start over.

 

[jbg232]

So are you saying boot camp is no good? Some people want (or need) to run windows natively ...or they wouldn't be even considering the new mac's. People are only trying to do what Apple is advertising it does. Waiting to get the details on his "courruption", but if he means, he uses boot camp then installs XP, then tries to connect in parallels and now his partition is no longer valid (in parallels or native boot, then thats a big problem).

That is exactly what happened:
1. I used bootcamp assistant to partition out a 30GB partition
2. I installed Windows XP into that partition
3. I installed Macdrive onto Windows XP to have access to my Mac HD
4. Windows XP running under bootcamp with macdrive to access my files (ie restarting the computer to use that partition on bootup) worked perfectly but was very annoying.
5. I installed Parallels on Mac OS
6. I set Parallels to use my bootcamp partition as its Virtual Machine OS
7. This last step corrupted everything - Parallels wouldn't boot because the drivers were "changed" and then I couldn't boot from startup into Windows XP using bootcamp because the HD became corrupt.
8. I formatted the partition using bootcamp assistant/disk utility
9. I repeated Steps 1-6
10. Same problem with corruption - Genius bar was of no help apple support was of limited support.
11. I decided that parallels should either be used alone or bootcamp should be used alone, but having parallels RUN your bootcamp partition in VM is a recipe for disaster.

Fortunately when I was using XP under bootcamp I was saving all my office files that I was working with on the Mac HD (using macdrive) so I didn't lose any important files, but it was still a very annoying experience. I'm considering using fusion VM Ware but am reluctant to spend more money on VM software after I already paid for parallels.

Of note, I did try to use parallels on its own (ie installing windows xp into the vm instead of its own partition under bootcamp) after this was all over, but that also was buggy so the only thing I can say that I know works for sure(at least for ME) was installing windows XP into a bootcamp partition and leaving it at that.

 

[wildmilne]

Thanks for the update, would like to hear feedback if you do go ahead and get VMware. Is VMware capable of "attaching" to the bootcamp install as parallels does?

 

[nikhsub1]

Thanks for the update, would like to hear feedback if you do go ahead and get VMware. Is VMware capable of "attaching" to the bootcamp install as parallels does?

Yep, I run vmware off my bootcamp partition all the time. It is the best of both worlds as you can vmware if you need something quick or you can boot to Windoze via bootcamp to do something more if needed.

 

[Consultant]

As you said, XP works under bootcamp.

Parallels is not made by Apple. You probably did not set it up correctly, you need to contact Parallels for support (assuming that you paid for it). I am not sure how a person's inability to set up an app (while many have success with VMWare or Parallels) has anything to do with MBP.

That is exactly what happened:
1. I used bootcamp assistant to partition out a 30GB partition
2. I installed Windows XP into that partition
3. I installed Macdrive onto Windows XP to have access to my Mac HD
4. Windows XP running under bootcamp with macdrive to access my files (ie restarting the computer to use that partition on bootup) worked perfectly but was very annoying.
5. I installed Parallels on Mac OS
6. I set Parallels to use my bootcamp partition as its Virtual Machine OS
7. This last step corrupted everything - Parallels wouldn't boot because the drivers were "changed" and then I couldn't boot from startup into Windows XP using bootcamp because the HD became corrupt.
8. I formatted the partition using bootcamp assistant/disk utility
9. I repeated Steps 1-6
10. Same problem with corruption - Genius bar was of no help apple support was of limited support.
11. I decided that parallels should either be used alone or bootcamp should be used alone, but having parallels RUN your bootcamp partition in VM is a recipe for disaster.

Fortunately when I was using XP under bootcamp I was saving all my office files that I was working with on the Mac HD (using macdrive) so I didn't lose any important files, but it was still a very annoying experience. I'm considering using fusion VM Ware but am reluctant to spend more money on VM software after I already paid for parallels.

Of note, I did try to use parallels on its own (ie installing windows xp into the vm instead of its own partition under bootcamp) after this was all over, but that also was buggy so the only thing I can say that I know works for sure(at least for ME) was installing windows XP into a bootcamp partition and leaving it at that.

 

[jbg232]

As you said, XP works under bootcamp.

Parallels is not made by Apple. You probably did not set it up correctly, you need to contact Parallels for support (assuming that you paid for it). I am not sure how a person's inability to set up an app (while many have success with VMWare or Parallels) has anything to do with MBP.

First of all, I did buy parallels which makes me even more upset that it didn't work well. I have been building computers since the age of 10 (which was 15 years ago) so I'm pretty sure I know a thing or two about them.

Second, of course many people do have success, I was one who did not. I was only relating MY experiences to future users. Obviously no one would buy the program if it didn't work on anyone's computer. My purpose in writing this thread was to talk about my own experience of USING a mac in the real world without all the fanboyism or pessimism. Real users WILL be using non-apple programs (ie parallels, XP, Office, Firefox, etc) and this thread was meant to discuss the practical issues surrounding the day to day use of those applications. I don't care that parallels is not made by apple - there are many switchers or non-switchers alike who may need this program and I wanted to give some insight of how it worked for me.

Basically, this thread is about the entire mac experience, and that included parallels along with other non-apple programs that most people use, so how that is not relevant is beyond me.