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Macbook Pro For Graduation Present.

J

jshauns

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 13, 2010
12
0
Hello, my wife is insisting on buying me a laptop for Christmas and after I graduate Basic training in December. I searched the forum for a topic like this and wasn't sure how to word it. My question resides in specific software that might not be compatible with OS X?

I know this isn't the software forum, but I am also concerned with the hardware too. I am somewhat tech savvy, in the way of building my own PC's and being the local 'tech' guy around the families; however, I am concerned about over all conformity with hardware and the general 'military' experience.

I am looking at the 15" i5 with AG, everything else stock. I know the build quality is there and so on, but I am going to be using it during AIT, which is 26 weeks, and while I don't foresee any problems I am somewhat reluctant to go full throttle with this purchase. As my wife will be making a complete 'blind' purchase, Read: She's going to buy what I tell her to, I am just worried about the over all safety of the purchase. (As in being mostly independent of windows (not that its bad to have parallels or bootcamp**))

TL-DR -- Is a MBP 15" a Safe buy for a new Army Soldier. I'm only concerned about AIT and software/hardware suitability, all while being able to stay in contact with my wife with available internet access. Any Military folks please chime in with your experience
 
You've mentioned the words "compatibility" and "Encryption" multiple times without explaining what compatibility and encryption you're referring to?
 
HLdan said:
You've mentioned the words "compatibility" and "Encryption" multiple times without explaining what compatibility and encryption you're referring to?
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Err.. Sorry about that! I was posting from a mobile device and didn't really preview. My question actually spawns from the unknown. If I knew about any configuration problems that might prohibit my ease of use/complete functionality, I wouldn't have wanted to waste anyone's time. its the, "if. I'd known this, I would have changed this" type of information. I know web type security encryptions are browser dependent and often can be circumvented through various channels. But I am more curious about specific apple hardware/mac software, that would specifically prohibit it from working for possible research work where the military requires some type of OS/Hardware dependent authentication or branding.

Safe to assume if they require it I'll more than likely be doing it on there stuff, but on the off chance just want to make sure. I am just taking the precautions to make it as smooth a transition as possible. I leave for basic in less than a week amd don't want any surprises. I'll have enough to deal with leaving my Wife and Dog. I don't want her to spend money on a mbp and then find out its not going to work with the wifi because its not a specific device or it's a mac and they won't release files to me for some preconceived reason
 
Worst case scenario and your mac is completely useless. Pretend theres a program you need to run thats windows only or what have you...

With every mac there is a tool called bootcamp. It is a setup assistant to aid you in partitioning your hard disk and install any windows operating system you wish. Once completed you can choose to always boot in either mac or windows. As an added convenience you can hold the option key at start up and choose which OS to boot into.

The main hardware in a mac is easily found in other PCs. The small stuff (trackpad/wifi/bluetooth for example) has provided drivers to ensure compatibility with windows. This temporarily turns your mac into a PC (giving you full computing power vs parallels which is a split on resources).
 
Zak.V said:
Worst case scenario and your mac is completely useless. Pretend theres a program you need to run thats windows only or what have you...

With every mac there is a tool called bootcamp. It is a setup assistant to aid you in partitioning your hard disk and install any windows operating system you wish. Once completed you can choose to always boot in either mac or windows. As an added convenience you can hold the option key at start up and choose which OS to boot into.

The main hardware in a mac is easily found in other PCs. The small stuff (trackpad/wifi/bluetooth for example) has provided drivers to ensure compatibility with windows. This temporarily turns your mac into a PC (giving you full computing power vs parallels which is a split on resources).
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But that would defeat the purpose of getting a mac if he has to run windows on it 24/7 just for his "encryption" or whatnot, to work.
 
Rodger, Thanks for that. LOL Truth be told its a pretty big purchase, resonable... but big, I just dont want her to get me this thing and it doesn't work how we want it too. Mainly going to be used for staying in contact through skype or something similar. she wants to make me happy and I told her jokingly that I wanted a Macbook pro and she said okay, get through Basic training and I'll get you one. Now I feel guilty for having such an induglance. I just want to make sure I get every possible ounce of worth out of it. Even though I know I wont get 1/10th out of it with as much computing power that it offers.

@Aeboi: Yeah, Sorry I used the word encryption so much so that if affected your delicate sensabilitys. I will edit my previous post as to reflect the redudancy part of the F.A.Q. for MacRumors that states that any verb can only be used no more than 3 times in the post. :D
 
yeah i totally agree it would be a waste if you were constantly booted to windows.

However it does offer a failsafe that you will be able to do what you need to. If you could ask someone about the compatibility of the expected programs to run you could get a better idea. I know the military doesn't give away too much info but it would be worth a shot. All you need is "is the expected software mac compatible"

As for browsers you can get firefox/google chrome/ and a host of others that will 99% guarantee no encryption issues.
 
A macbook pro will be fine.

I am former military (just got out of IRR officially 10 days ago) and also a former DoD contractor who worked in IT fixing military computers.

There were a lot of soldiers with Macs. You will have no problem using them. Any type of work you will do in your MOS will be done on government supplied computers anyway so the Macbook pro will be most likely be for personal use.
 
Thanks Everyone, Needed to get this knocked out so I can have a trouble free last couple of days. Appreciate the timely responses.

@Chrono, Thanks for the conformation that the MBP will be fine. As I said in the begining I didn't want to make a mistake and be blindsided by some weird DoD rule. LOL Thanks for the help Sir.
 
And if you need encryption, PGP WDE 10 works great. It's not the fastest thing in the world, but it does the job; also I think the performance hit is pretty much standard with disk encryption.

I care more about not letting my data getting into the wrong hands than recovery, so that's my mentality for encryption and the slow speeds.
 
jshauns said:
Thanks Everyone, Needed to get this knocked out so I can have a trouble free last couple of days. Appreciate the timely responses.

@Chrono, Thanks for the conformation that the MBP will be fine. As I said in the begining I didn't want to make a mistake and be blindsided by some weird DoD rule. LOL Thanks for the help Sir.
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Not sure what environment you'll be using it in, but Lenovo is superior to Apple in build Quality. It even works if you spill water all over it.

It's something to consider when you're in the Army and need something that works all the time and is robust.
 
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