Anybody Use Bootcamp 90% of the time on 13" MBP

[spacepower7]

So it's that time of year to do a bunch of consulting with friends, family, and paying customers.
Yeah, one guy just changed his home and law firm to MBP 15" and iMacs. He's loving the app Paperless too.

One person is going back to school to get their MBA, and looking at the Dell E4300. School discount is is around $1500 for a Dell, a MBP 13" equivalent but with 2.4GHz. I just can't justify someone buying a Dell for $1500 when a student can get a MBP 13" for 1099 plus a free iPod Touch, plus Windows XP, Vista Ultimate, and Office 2007 for less than $30 additional with student discounts. This person would never realize the difference between 2.26 and 2.53 Ghz in Excel, Word, PowerPoint etc...

So my question is does anybody here know anybody who uses a newer Mac laptop in bootcamp 90% of the time and how well is it working out for them?

It's one stubborn person I know, all the rest use windows for work and Mac OS for their personal life.

Thanks for any feedback

 

[thegoldenmackid]

If you are going to use it that much and have no use for Apple specific processes, get a PC. Too many risks of random things not working, specifically external stuff given that drivers aren't 100 percent, plus PC's are cheaper?

 

[Ann P]

Nothing wrong with that, but 90% of the time? I don't know about that... might as well get a PC. With that being said, to each his own I guess.

 

[spacepower7]

The Dell cost more, 400 to 800 more with the spill warranty. I was just thinking if he spent 90% in windows world he might want to try more in Mac OS X for photos movies and music.

He's worried about weight, the Dell website says it starts at 3.3 pounds where the only review says it starts at 3.8 pounds. So Dell's tech specs are probably not including the DVD-rom?

I'm working on my MBA too, and half of the students in my classes use Macs, and switch to bootcamp for the few special Excel 2007 plug-ins we use.

 

[vertigo78]

the track pad is awful in windows. a mouse is a must trust me. my 15" mbp gets really hot in windows and battery life is poor. would guess the same is true for the new 13" mbp.

 

[klee1987]

get a windows laptop. easy.

macs are designed to run mac os.

with windows, the battery life is cut by half in the mbp, and the temperature shoots up to 70-80 degrees Celsius..... it's just not designed to run windows

 

[ShiryuX]

If you are going to use it that much and have no use for Apple specific processes, get a PC. Too many risks of random things not working, specifically external stuff given that drivers aren't 100 percent, plus PC's are cheaper?

Mind elaborating? Just curious.

Anyways, aren't some of you over-dramatizing the fact that running windows on a mac seems blasphemy? Most people I know who use bootcamp for games (main use, duh, work/word processing/music/video in OS X ) say it runs like a normal laptop with the specs of a macbook, no real problem there. Why wouldn't stuff be recognized (granted, OS X has better driver finding and plug & play, period. That's what they say too xD).

I think most people go into windows for windows-only stuff (as I said, most gaming). Other than that, everything is possible in OS X with no troubles. Sides if you want to use the other (OSX) partition in Windows, you use MacDrive or something. I'm thinking of putting my music on my OSX partition and if in windows, read it from there (haven't tested this yet, but should work afaik). In OSX you can access the NTFS drive too with a program.

Although anyone is freely to comment on this. Haven't tested anything in person and only been doing some reading on the subject.

 

[Hal1980]

At my business school, probably a third of people use a mac as well. PC is not necessary. Powerpoint is better in Mac than PC. Most find Excel for Mac sufficient for their needs and don't even need to do bootcamp. Only one or two of the most quant modelers need the PC version for its shortcuts, and they use it in VS Fusion, not bootcamp because they can switch easier.

No real need for a PC in B-school. Anything you can do on a PC you can do on a Mac (and likely do it better).

 

[maflynn]

Another vote for using OSX over windows on a Mac. With that said, I'd say that you really shouldn't run into any problems using windows on a MBP 90% of the problems. Apple provides the drivers and things are very stable. I know a few people who have done this and have not heard of any complaints.

You may have a hard problem getting help/diagnosing problems if they do arise but over all things are just as stable running windows on a mac as running windows on a dell. (funny I used stable and windows in the same sentence )

While I don't run windows in my bootcamp partition, but rather ubuntu I found I could probably run that 60% of the time with no ill affects. There's too many apps on OSX that are better then their linux counter-parts or worse they don't exist on linux.

Edit: One last recommendation. I'd take a hard look at openoffice or neooffice instead of MS office. They're free, can import/export office documents are work better then Ms office. excel is a dog on the mac, things just run slowly or not as you would expect. Its ok, but there are better alternatives to MS office.

 

[phobic99]

My girlfriend uses a unibody Macbook that exclusively runs Windows (Windows 7 right now actually). She's no where near my knowledge level when it comes computers but she dislikes OS X despite my efforts. At any rate, she doesn't really have much trouble running only windows on the machine but that may be because I'm around to troubleshoot.

 

[MultiFinder17]

Well there's a new one!

"Hey, I'm looking for a new computer."
"Alright, well, we have Dells and Apples here."
"Cool. I need something that'll run Windows."
"Okay, both will do that."
"Really? Well, which is cheaper?" *thinks Dell to himself, because 'Macs are expensive'*
"The Apple."
"Hot damn!"
"And you get a free iPod."
""