can the new macBook pull it off

[aicul]

Unfortunately an ugly wave got the best of my 6 months old MacBookair. Guess doing work on a boat is not the greatest of ideas.

Anyway, I need to get a new portable mac and notice that the new 12" macbook is available.

I'm wondering if anyone has any experience with the 12" and VMware using virtual PCs running - ideally - windows 2003.

Comments on PC speed as compared to the MacBookair would be useful.

Thanks for any input

 

[placidity44]

I think the 12 inch MacBook is more suited toward users who place an emphasis on design and browse the web, iTunes, occasional light home video editing, photo editing, etc. Things casual computer users do it will more than fit the bill. Bootcamp would be a way better option for this computer as you have to split the cpu and ram usage via parallels or vmware. As tempting as the 12 inch MacBook is I firmly believe the 13 inch MacBook Pro retina at the same price is a way better buy for what you use a computer for. Believe me it's portable. It's 3.48 pounds compared to the 2.96 of the Air and 2.03 of the MacBook. That's a difference of 1.45 pounds in your bag...in exchange for more power for the same price.

 

[aicul]

Thanks for bringing the price equivalence with macbook pro to me. Makes me think.

However, I emphasise that I'm looking for a portable as a "true portable" machine. I don't need it to do things I can do in the office on my 27". I've worked like this for years and don't need to put all eggs (so to say) in one machine to follow me around the world.

I really need to know if VMware will work reasonably fast on the new 12".

And weight wise, I cannot justify a MacBook Pro even for the same price.

Finally, has anyone used the 12" resting on their legs (i.e. while waiting at airport gate). Is it wide enough ? Apple store here will not let me try..

 

[yjchua95]

Thanks for bringing the price equivalence with macbook pro to me. Makes me think.

However, I emphasise that I'm looking for a portable as a "true portable" machine. I don't need it to do things I can do in the office on my 27". I've worked like this for years and don't need to put all eggs (so to say) in one machine to follow me around the world.

I really need to know if VMware will work reasonably fast on the new 12".

And weight wise, I cannot justify a MacBook Pro even for the same price.

Finally, has anyone used the 12" resting on their legs (i.e. while waiting at airport gate). Is it wide enough ? Apple store here will not let me try..

Reasonably fast? Perhaps, as long as the CPU doesn't throttle. Running a single Windows VM can heat up the processor pretty fast in my experience and it would throttle pretty quickly. So I don't think the 12" rMB would give you a satisfactory experience.

 

[aicul]

Reasonably fast? Perhaps, as long as the CPU doesn't throttle. Running a single Windows VM can heat up the processor pretty fast in my experience and it would throttle pretty quickly. So I don't think the 12" rMB would give you a satisfactory experience.

If my understanding of throttle is correct this is when the CPU voluntarily slows down to avoid over-heating. And since the 12" has no fans and VMware is prone to heating you are saying that regardless of the power of the CPU, I would end up with slow response times?

Hmm, if above is correct then you have a good point.

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Thanks to yjchua95 I looked further and found this after a few googles..

[..] at the end of the day the point is that Core M is not designed to offer the same kind of high performance under sustained workloads that Intel’s more powerful processors do.

[..] Case in point of course is the MacBook, which utilizes a simple aluminum case without any kind of fans (active cooling). The end result is that for workloads that go longer than a short burst, Core M’s performance is tightly coupled to the cooling capabilities of the laptop it’s in.

[..] Ultimately what this means is that we expect that the MacBook should be able to compete with its larger brothers in those short, bursty workloads that Core M is optimized for, while in sustained workloads it’s going to fall behind MacBook Air and other laptops using Intel’s larger 15W processors.

(full article here OSX Performance)

However, it says "we expect".

Anyone tried or have direct experience of running VMware on a 12" MB ?

 

[Mike Boreham]

Have a look at this thread in the MacBook forum.

The answer seems to be yes, it can pull it off.