I'm just curious whether some of you here own both a windows and mac laptop. For those who use Windows, do you just install via Boot Camp/ softwares (eg. Parallels) on your Apple laptop or do you prefer having a separate laptop/PC that runs Windows?
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Both Windows and Mac laptop?
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I have a Surface Pro 3 for work running Windows, a home PC running Windows and 2 MacBooks Pros.
I'll run Windows in a VM on the MacBooks occasionally, used to boot-camp the 15" for gaming occasionally, but if you don't need to do high end 3D stuff or games, then a virtual machine in Fusion, Virtualbox or Parallels is fine.
For gaming I prefer a separate machine or boot camp, everything else - virtualise it. You can set up a clean image, snap shot it and roll back if something screws up. Can snapshot before software installs, etc. in case they screw up.
Even my Windows machine runs copies of Windows in Workstation but I'm a bit of a special case, as my job involves Windows SOE platform maintenance and development.
I'll run Windows in a VM on the MacBooks occasionally, used to boot-camp the 15" for gaming occasionally, but if you don't need to do high end 3D stuff or games, then a virtual machine in Fusion, Virtualbox or Parallels is fine.
For gaming I prefer a separate machine or boot camp, everything else - virtualise it. You can set up a clean image, snap shot it and roll back if something screws up. Can snapshot before software installs, etc. in case they screw up.
Even my Windows machine runs copies of Windows in Workstation but I'm a bit of a special case, as my job involves Windows SOE platform maintenance and development.
For me one or two is enough.
Is the Surface Pro 3 considered a laptop? I thought it was a tablet. Don't know much about it...You have a lot of laptops thereFor me one or two is enough.
The Surface Pro 3 can be considered both sort of.
Opinion: Its a crappy tablet though, not enough battery life, runs hot if you do much with it, there are no good Windows 8.1 touch apps, etc.
I consider it to be more of a second-rate Macbook Air competitor that you can draw on with the pen.
The SP3 is a work supplied machine, i didn't buy it....
The Surface Pro 3 can be considered both sort of.
Opinion: Its a crappy tablet though, not enough battery life, runs hot if you do much with it, there are no good Windows 8.1 touch apps, etc.
I consider it to be more of a second-rate Macbook Air competitor that you can draw on with the pen.
The SP3 is a work supplied machine, i didn't buy it....
I keep seeing it mentioned a lot. It received great reviews though!
A lot of garbage products get great reviews in my opinion.
Don't get me wrong - as Windows tablets go, the SP3 is probably one of the best available (which is why I have one for my work machine - we're a Windows shop at work and I need a portable Windows machine).
Windows just doesn't work well on a tablet, there are no good tablet apps, and you've still got viruses and other PC stuff to worry about.
I've been through 3 of them in the past year. One possibly faulty hardware, one I moved on to another user because i needed bigger SSD. I've had quite a lot of random Windows problems with it, and i'm not talking viruses - failures to boot, crashing, screen scaling issues, compatibility problems, etc.
I've handled/re-imaged plenty of them - and the quality control on the type cover is pretty dodgy. Every type cover i've used feels quite different to type on - the first one i had was pretty good, the second one was junk and kept failing to register some keys for me unless i consciously pressed harder, the third one seems OK...
2c.
I just use parallels on my Retina MacBook Pro - I only use windows to check websites and things are working in Windows too. I have bootcamp on my MacPro for Steam - but I haven't booted that up in ages for gaming as I just use my WiiU/PS4/XB1/3DS for gaming.
I had a surface pro 2 but sold it. Really liked it - but windows HiDpi support is poor and third party HiDpi support on windows even poorer. Some of the programmes I bought it for (illustration / painting) were broken in HiDpi (using 200+ dpi) and using a Surface Pro 2 at standard dpi meant much of the toolbars and such were so tiny they too were practically unusable - especially as the pen input kind if phased out towards the edges of the screen causing issues when trying to select a tool even with the pen. So yeah, frustration led me to sell it ... Have no temptation to buy another windows device at present - will stick to Parallels on my 2015 rMBP
I had a surface pro 2 but sold it. Really liked it - but windows HiDpi support is poor and third party HiDpi support on windows even poorer. Some of the programmes I bought it for (illustration / painting) were broken in HiDpi (using 200+ dpi) and using a Surface Pro 2 at standard dpi meant much of the toolbars and such were so tiny they too were practically unusable - especially as the pen input kind if phased out towards the edges of the screen causing issues when trying to select a tool even with the pen. So yeah, frustration led me to sell it ... Have no temptation to buy another windows device at present - will stick to Parallels on my 2015 rMBP
I don't have any choice, I can only VPN into my employers network from a work supplied machine running Windows. So I have a personal Mac Mini and a work supplied Windows laptop, both connected to a 32" TV as display. Not the preferred setup but required.
I have a 2014 11" Macbook Air, Acer Aspire Switch 11, Surface 2, Asus X200MA notebook (in addition to a stack of tablets, and an iMac) that I use on a regular basis.
I prefer to keep the devices separate (Windows on the Windows devices, OSX on the Apple devices). For the rare occasion that I need a Windows app on my OSX devices, I use Wineskin Winery to run them. (No need to have Windows installed)
I have iWork 09, LibreOffice 5.0, and MS Office 2011 installed on my iMac, iWork 09 and LibreOffice 5.0 on my MBA, LibreOffice 5.0 on my Acer Aspire and Asus. MS Office comes standard with the Surface 2.
I keep the core workset of documents that I'm currently working on, on DropBox and can edit them from any of the listed devices. With the recent update of LibreOffice to 5.0, document preservation between LibreOffice and MS Office is more reliable than it's ever been.
When I bought my first OSX device, I used both BootCamp and Parallels. BootCamp was clunky as I found myself rebooting more frequently than doing actual work. Parallels worked well except for the constant need to upgrade Parallels (at a cost) every time I updated OSX.
I prefer to keep the devices separate (Windows on the Windows devices, OSX on the Apple devices). For the rare occasion that I need a Windows app on my OSX devices, I use Wineskin Winery to run them. (No need to have Windows installed)
I have iWork 09, LibreOffice 5.0, and MS Office 2011 installed on my iMac, iWork 09 and LibreOffice 5.0 on my MBA, LibreOffice 5.0 on my Acer Aspire and Asus. MS Office comes standard with the Surface 2.
I keep the core workset of documents that I'm currently working on, on DropBox and can edit them from any of the listed devices. With the recent update of LibreOffice to 5.0, document preservation between LibreOffice and MS Office is more reliable than it's ever been.
When I bought my first OSX device, I used both BootCamp and Parallels. BootCamp was clunky as I found myself rebooting more frequently than doing actual work. Parallels worked well except for the constant need to upgrade Parallels (at a cost) every time I updated OSX.
Sure. I let go windows when i got my first non trial Macbook this year. I trailed Mac last year, both the Air and Pro. However...
I had to grab a Windows laptop as i missed it. Also.. i like gaming as well and as capable as Mac's may be these days... it's not enough. So its a HP AMD equipped slave.
I like Windows 10 too.
I had to grab a Windows laptop as i missed it. Also.. i like gaming as well and as capable as Mac's may be these days... it's not enough. So its a HP AMD equipped slave.
I like Windows 10 too.
I have a Surface Pro 3 as well as a retina rMBP and gold macbook. Plugged the SP 3 into a screen and use it as my "stay home" computer.
That's a lot of tech. I hope you use them well enough. For me it's just an iPad Mini, rMBP 15, 2011 Dell 17R as my devices.
It is..and I always think is there something I could sell..and I just can't because I use all of them.
I have a mid 2014 15" rMBP and a Dell Precision M4600 laptop. The Macbook is the daily driver and the Dell is used for for CAD and CAM programs.
It's bulky and heavy but it's a great machine. Upgraded the RAM to 24GB, switched the spinning drive for 500GB SSD, and it already had a second gen quad i7 and nvidia quadro graphics. It plows through everything with ease.
It's bulky and heavy but it's a great machine. Upgraded the RAM to 24GB, switched the spinning drive for 500GB SSD, and it already had a second gen quad i7 and nvidia quadro graphics. It plows through everything with ease.
You could downgrade to something cheaper and pocket the difference. Like a machine for web browsing and basic emails can be handled with a chromebook.
When I'm in the market for a "full" Windows notebook (not a 2-in-1 hybrid), the XPS13 is the one I will buy. (non-touchscreen model)