MacBook Air for Windows user

[roland.g]

My father in law is overdue for a new machine and must use Windows for work. He travels quite a bit and his extremely heavy toshiba is just about dead. He has used a 12" PowerBook and has our old Mac Mini at home hooked up as a server to his Apple TV. So he is slowly making a Mac transition. But he will always need Windows for work.

How viable is the Air as a Boot Camp or VMWare/Parallels machine running Windows. At this point he would get the advantages of lightweight, sturdy construction, some OS X, etc.

Will Windows co-operate with all the MBA hardware well, incl. the Ethernet USB adapter for office networks, and the Superdrive if he needs one.

Which route would you suggest, Boot Camp into Windows, or VMWare/Parallels. I don't honestly know how much OS X use he would really need side by side with Windows. Or if booting into Windows through Boot Camp will truly take advantage of the new MBA Hibernation and near instant on features.

I would love to recommend this solution to him, in either the 11.6 or 13.3 size, but I need to know that it will work for him.

 

[mark28]

There are bootcamp drivers to make all the Apple hardware work under windows. So it should be no problem. MBA has no optical drive, but that shouldn't be a problem, you can download it from the Apple website.

I use VMware alot and it's fine. Only if you max out your machine, then you will need to go to bootcamp.

So it depends on what kind of software your father in law will use. Also get 4 gb if you'll use vitual machine.

 

[aberrero]

Honestly, go with a PC. Look at the Asus U33Jc, it is pretty nice. Throw in an Intel or Sandforce SSD and he will be good to go. Yes, it is heavier, but a large part of why the MBA feels fast for us is because we use it with OS X. If he is running windows then it will be quite a bit slower than the Asus. There is also the battery life issue. Macs get bad battery life in windows, and I would bet that the Asus does quite a bit better than the MBA. You also won't have to deal with a USB ethernet dongle or displayport adapters.

Yes, it is heavier, but 3.7 pounds is still really good.

Edit: if you want to install windows in bootcamp, you must use an external optical drive. At this point, it is not possible to install it with a flash drive.

 

[roland.g]

Honestly, go with a PC. Look at the Asus U33Jc, it is pretty nice. Throw in an Intel or Sandforce SSD and he will be good to go. Yes, it is heavier, but a large part of why the MBA feels fast for us is because we use it with OS X. If he is running windows then it will be quite a bit slower than the Asus. There is also the battery life issue. Macs get bad battery life in windows, and I would bet that the Asus does quite a bit better than the MBA. You also won't have to deal with a USB ethernet dongle or displayport adapters.

Yes, it is heavier, but 3.7 pounds is still really good.

Edit: if you want to install windows in bootcamp, you must use an external optical drive. At this point, it is not possible to install it with a flash drive.

I didn't know that about the battery life. His Toshiba is somewhere around 9 lbs. or more. He would probably buy the superdrive either way, and the ethernet dongle he would need for work because he can't use wireless there, but would most likely leave it attached to the cable and just plug the usb into the MBA each day, rather than carry it in his bag. Really it is about the travel thing because his briefbag is enormous and heavy with all the paperwork he reads. His powerbricks and laptop just adds so much more weight and bulk to it.

EDIT: and why that ASUS over the UL30Vt-A1?

 

[Cat5e]

Honestly, go with a PC. Look at the Asus U33Jc, it is pretty nice. Throw in an Intel or Sandforce SSD and he will be good to go. Yes, it is heavier, but a large part of why the MBA feels fast for us is because we use it with OS X. If he is running windows then it will be quite a bit slower than the Asus. There is also the battery life issue. Macs get bad battery life in windows, and I would bet that the Asus does quite a bit better than the MBA. You also won't have to deal with a USB ethernet dongle or displayport adapters.

Yes, it is heavier, but 3.7 pounds is still really good.

Edit: if you want to install windows in bootcamp, you must use an external optical drive. At this point, it is not possible to install it with a flash drive.

I would have to disagree here. My brother has 7 on his 11" MBA and it runs very fast, much faster than my old M11x.

I say go for it. Setup Boot Camp to boot into Windows by default and he'll be good to go. Then, when he's at home or not doing things for work, he can hop into OSX and enjoy himself.

 

[aberrero]

The UL30VT is an older model. Ya, it is nice and cheap, but the CPU is slower than the one in the MBA11.

The U33Jc is actually pretty cool. It has WiDi, which lets you do wireless HD streaming to a TV(not too useful, but nice to have), more importantly it also has USB 3.0. The biggest feature is the bamboo palm rests which from the pictures online look pretty cool.

If you don't care about any of that, and are fine with integrated graphics, then get this http://www.amazon.com/U35F-X1-Light...DA4A/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1288287570&sr=8-2

 

[aberrero]

I would have to disagree here. My brother has 7 on his 11" MBA and it runs very fast, much faster than my old M11x.

I say go for it. Setup Boot Camp to boot into Windows by default and he'll be good to go. Then, when he's at home or not doing things for work, he can hop into OSX and enjoy himself.

These asus laptops will be a lot faster for non-gaming tasks than the M11x. Throw in a good SSD and it is game over.

Don't get me wrong, a fully specced out MBA13 will be almost as fast, but you are paying 2-3 times as much for it and it is a waste of money if you are just going to be using windows.