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I found my own solution to the Windows vs. OSX debate. I have a 2015 rMBP which operates smoothly and seamlessly. Love the ease of use, the quick updates, and the fact that I don't have to always maintain the system. That's my primary device. Then I have a Dell Venue 8 Pro which I have been playing with a lot and enjoying. Actually, I'm rather intrigued with Windows 8.1. I love it's flexibility with the touchscreen, and the pen. I use the tablet function a lot. Pretty nifty little device that Dell. I think I am enjoying the best of both worlds with what I've got. For a while I was torn between an HP Sceptre X360 and the Mac. But, I'm happy I went with the Mac, and am quite satisfied with the little guy when I want to play with Windows. I also have Windows 10 on reserve. Should be fun.
 
The Bootcamp display driver is mediocre. Not as colorful as on OSX but that could be due to how colorful OSX is in the first place but the ONE thing that really hampers the Windows experience on the MBP is the trackpad. It's like Apple did this purposely. It's so horrendous on the Windows side. Very sluggish and has a "sticky" feeling when navigating. I'd much rather use a mouse but I can get by on the trackpad if I really take notice of how much pressure I'm applying to the trackpad. I really wish it worked as well as it does on OSX.

On the power consumption, I find that the Windows Bootcamp lasts about 50-75% as long as the OSX partition on battery power.

Apart from all that, I find Windows to be a more enjoyable experience on my MPB than a Windows PC due to the lack of bloatware. It's kind of like how Android users prefer stock Android over the manufacturers brand of it. It just runs so smoothly. Never seen a "BSOD" on my Windows partition or any other weird stuff.

EDIT: I also notice on the OSX partition that the speakers sound "fuller" whereas on the Windows partition they sound "tinny."

colorful? In that context, it has nothing to do with drivers. It's a conscious choice by the UI team for both OS. If you pull up a photo and calibrate both OS to the monitor, both should look identical. Bootcamp just uses nvidia/amd/intel drivers with some small customizations.
 
Can modern windows laptops compete with mbp in terms of performance, battery life and not becoming slow and laggy over time?

I have been using PCs since _the_ PC and Macs since very shortly afterwards. There are a lot of good posts in this thread. The short answer is that if you spend equivalent money and pay a little attention to how the Windows machine is set up, the experience and hardware quality is largely the same, although no one can touch Apple trackpads, especially the new version. Buy what _you_ feel comfortable with and you should be fine either way. There's no shortage of terminally unhappy Apple owners, as you can discover by browsing the Apple discussion forums - simply buying a MacBook of one type or another is not a cure-all.
 
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colorful? In that context, it has nothing to do with drivers. It's a conscious choice by the UI team for both OS. If you pull up a photo and calibrate both OS to the monitor, both should look identical. Bootcamp just uses nvidia/amd/intel drivers with some small customizations.

I believe I did say it was probably due to the UI with OSX being more vivid, sharper and having bright colorful icons.

The Bootcamp display driver is mediocre. Not as colorful as on OSX but that could be due to how colorful OSX is in the first place....
 
On the plus side of the Windows camp, it is a far more fluid OS, with no lag or frame rate issues. Especially windows 10, extremely slick even in beta. El Capitan is better thus far but its not nearly as fluid.
 
What do you mean optimized experience? What part of the Windows experience am I missing out on because I am running it on a MBP?



What's there to configure apart from installing the Bootcamp drivers? Every Windows user has to configure their Windows build to suit their preferences ie what programs open what files, when the computer goes to sleep etc...just like every user has to configure their OSX to meet similar demands.

EDIT: I misunderstood you. Pretty much you're saying their not used to using Windows.

Oh, here are the benchmarks, the MBP performs better running WINDOWS surprise surprise:

32 win

http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/2963858

64 win

http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/2963871


32 osx

http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/2963922

64 osx

http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/2963944

EDIT: I did have to enable hyperthreading on Windows manually so I don't know if that affects anything but hyperthreading is on by default on OSX so it's only fair to run both tests with similar configurations.

Just a note that I bring up in every thread where people cross platform compare via geekbench. I have an HP Z600 with is comparible to the '10-'12 Mac Pro running Linux it scores about 18,000 in geekbench, I installed OS X on it and now my score is close to 30,000. The computer didn't just magically get faster because OS X is on it, it still encodes and transcodes at the same speed etc. it's just the GB is poorly optimized you see the same thing in phones. GB is good to compare Mac v Mac but much less good cross platform.

===

OP you can find Windows laptops as good as the MBP but you're going to pay as much just pick your OS and go with it.
 
Just a note that I bring up in every thread where people cross platform compare via geekbench. I have an HP Z600 with is comparible to the '10-'12 Mac Pro running Linux it scores about 18,000 in geekbench, I installed OS X on it and now my score is close to 30,000. The computer didn't just magically get faster because OS X is on it, it still encodes and transcodes at the same speed etc. it's just the GB is poorly optimized you see the same thing in phones. GB is good to compare Mac v Mac but much less good cross platform.

I don't know much about the GB algorithms but a 12,000 jump is immense. I would assume video encoding/transcoding would be the same as the processor hasn't changed but aren't the scores based on how well overall your PC is running on said OS? So your HP running OSX performs better than it does running Linux? And there are so many different flavors of linux and different kernels plus you're running a hackintosh which is not really a legit brand of OSX. So I hear what you're saying but the OS's you're using aren't really good examples which probably accounts for such a huge leap in the GB score. I've really never heard of such a jump. It's like it saw your computer twice while hackintoshed.
 
On the plus side of the Windows camp, it is a far more fluid OS, with no lag or frame rate issues. Especially windows 10, extremely slick even in beta. El Capitan is better thus far but its not nearly as fluid.
I have to say I like the direction that occurring with windows 10 as well. That will be out soon and I think that will only improve the platform. Again back to argument of getting value for your money.
 
On the plus side of the Windows camp, it is a far more fluid OS, with no lag or frame rate issues. Especially windows 10, extremely slick even in beta. El Capitan is better thus far but its not nearly as fluid.

DirectX API is still the best in GPU scaling hardware acceleration. It can even do super smooth 3x 4K screens provided that the GPU supports it.
 
Well I've had to reset the NVRAM on my MBP at least twice in the last two weeks after an update. So MBP definitely has its issues over time also.
 
Well I've had to reset the NVRAM on my MBP at least twice in the last two weeks after an update. So MBP definitely has its issues over time also.
Odd, I've not needed to do so for what is probably years. I can't remember the last time I've reset my NVRAM. Evenso, I'd not really qualify that as issues as that is a simple fix. :)
 
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I just find the anti-Windows comments from people who have these rare problems that the majority of users don't experience. It's like their still using windows Vista lol. When Windows 7 came out it just really changed the whole Windows game. All these bugs and errors just simply, just, went away. You can do a clean windows install on almost any PC laptop and windows will automatically install most of the drivers for you. That's the case with Windows 8.1 anyway. I had an Acer that came with Windows 8, did a reinstall and had to install each driver separately (trackpad, ethernet/wifi, bluetooth, graphics card etc) Apart from the graphics card which was still an optional install to tweak the ATI graphics card performance, windows 8.1 did the job for all other hardware related software driver. Windows is not the same OS that gave people headaches 10 years ago.
 
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I just find the anti-Windows comments from people who have these rare problems that the majority of users don't experience. .
I know, but like many things, people take the windows vs. OS X to a personal level. At this point its silly to reference windows as windoze. I get it they don't like windows, but in all honesty its as stable as OS X, its much faster in a number of tasks and overall it has not given me much of any issues.

Win7 has been great, win8.1 has brought back features that make it a good platform and I really like where windows 10 is going.

Both platforms offer their own set of advantages and disadvantages.
 
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I know, but like many things, people take the windows vs. OS X to a personal level. At this point its silly to reference windows as windoze. I get it they don't like windows, but in all honesty its as stable as OS X, its much faster in a number of tasks and overall it has not given me much of any issues.

Win7 has been great, win8.1 has brought back features that make it a good platform and I really like where windows 10 is going.

Both platforms offer their own set of advantages and disadvantages.

I agree windows is now a fast fluid stable OS, I also hate it with a passion I find almost everything about it irritating to use, with the exception of snap to side by side windows.
 
I just find the anti-Windows comments from people who have these rare problems that the majority of users don't experience. It's like their still using windows Vista lol. When Windows 7 came out it just really changed the whole Windows game. All these bugs and errors just simply, just, went away. You can do a clean windows install on almost any PC laptop and windows will automatically install most of the drivers for you. That's the case with Windows 8.1 anyway. I had an Acer that came with Windows 8, did a reinstall and had to install each driver separately (trackpad, ethernet/wifi, bluetooth, graphics card etc) Apart from the graphics card which was still an optional install to tweak the ATI graphics card performance, windows 8.1 did the job for all other hardware related software driver. Windows is not the same OS that gave people headaches 10 years ago.

I actually never had any problems with Vista, other than drivers for legacy (and I mean really old) hardware. Windows 8.1 has been super fast, stable and light on both of my current Windows machines, which are a BYO i7 4770K with 32 GB of RAM and a 2007 Dell XPS M1330 with a T9300 C2D and 4 GB of RAM. The interface still requires a little bit of stop-and-think on my part after using Windows for 25+ years, so I look forward to possible interface improvements in Windows 10. I go back and forth between OS X and Windows all day long and where the hardware is equivalent, the experiences are also equivalent.
 
I know, but like many things, people take the windows vs. OS X to a personal level. At this point its silly to reference windows as windoze. I get it they don't like windows, but in all honesty its as stable as OS X, its much faster in a number of tasks and overall it has not given me much of any issues.

Win7 has been great, win8.1 has brought back features that make it a good platform and I really like where windows 10 is going.

Both platforms offer their own set of advantages and disadvantages.

Yes, it's quite silly. It really tell you more about the people using expressions like that that Windows. But I guess some people just believe so hard that it's easy to confuse personal opinions with facts.
 
On the plus side of the Windows camp, it is a far more fluid OS, with no lag or frame rate issues. Especially windows 10, extremely slick even in beta. El Capitan is better thus far but its not nearly as fluid.

This.

Even as far as three months ago, Windows 10 Preview was demonstrating a significantly more fluid OS than Yosemite. Windows 10 has shown even more improvement in the fluidity of the UI over the past couple of weeks. It's a good think Apple is focusing on squashing bugs and improving performance with their next OS release, the fact is they need to in order to keep up with the competition.

What concerns me is how Windows 10 will behave like a tablet when the keyboard is detached, and like Windows 7 when the keyboard is attached. In a lot of ways a Windows 10/Surface Pro 3 is going to be the best of both worlds.

Even with a more fluid Windows 10 UI vs. Yosemite, I still prefer Yosemite by a small amount, but I feel that Microsoft is starting with an OS that as a much stronger foundation. With Windows 10 so fluid, with such a small footprint, and more efficient in terms of memory usage, they'll be in a position to refine the UI as they please since they are now following a different model in terms of updates. Basically, Microsoft has finally focused on user experience and taken feedback from customers, and it shows.

Tim isn't going to have the luxury of pulling his team off of OS X development to work on the next Apple Watch project and then spare OS X development quality. It's not like Microsoft has to focus on multiple devices, and now they don't even have to focus on multiple OSes, their tablet OS is the same as their desktop OS which is the same as their phone app. I really think Microsoft is the one skating towards where the puck is this time, not Apple. Let's hope Apple is developing something and just keeping silent about it (which is possible).
 
This.

Even as far as three months ago, Windows 10 Preview was demonstrating a significantly more fluid OS than Yosemite. Windows 10 has shown even more improvement in the fluidity of the UI over the past couple of weeks. It's a good think Apple is focusing on squashing bugs and improving performance with their next OS release, the fact is they need to in order to keep up with the competition.

What concerns me is how Windows 10 will behave like a tablet when the keyboard is detached, and like Windows 7 when the keyboard is attached. In a lot of ways a Windows 10/Surface Pro 3 is going to be the best of both worlds.

Even with a more fluid Windows 10 UI vs. Yosemite, I still prefer Yosemite by a small amount, but I feel that Microsoft is starting with an OS that as a much stronger foundation. With Windows 10 so fluid, with such a small footprint, and more efficient in terms of memory usage, they'll be in a position to refine the UI as they please since they are now following a different model in terms of updates. Basically, Microsoft has finally focused on user experience and taken feedback from customers, and it shows.

Tim isn't going to have the luxury of pulling his team off of OS X development to work on the next Apple Watch project and then spare OS X development quality. It's not like Microsoft has to focus on multiple devices, and now they don't even have to focus on multiple OSes, their tablet OS is the same as their desktop OS which is the same as their phone app. I really think Microsoft is the one skating towards where the puck is this time, not Apple. Let's hope Apple is developing something and just keeping silent about it (which is possible).

DirectX and Direct3D are very mature compared to the OpenGL API used by OSX and Metal so it's no surprise in that regard. If somehow Apple can get their iOS OpenGL ES smoothness on OS X, OS X will be the perfect OS.
 
Windows is also not scaling like OSX does. I wonder if it had the same type of dpi scaling, would it be as fluid. I doubt it, but thats the price OSX users pay for not having to deal with fuzzy fonts and out of whack UIs in certain programs.
 
It doesn't scale
Windows is also not scaling like OSX does. I wonder if it had the same type of dpi scaling, would it be as fluid. I doubt it, but thats the price OSX users pay for not having to deal with fuzzy fonts and out of whack UIs in certain programs.

It isn't really scaling. It's just doing font DPI scaling + zooming in on the Windoze UI (not scaling on the actual program itself which is a huge fail!) unlike OS X retina scaling where the GPU actually does scale everything and doing post processing to make the everything as sharp as possible. That's why some people argue that the lag is a hardware limitation since scaling everything is taxing when there's 20 - 100 apps open at once.
 
Any equivalent or close Windows PC costs just as much as a Mac. Look Dell's XPS 15 and One 27 AIO, or the Razer Blade. If you're content with your $500 Windows laptop, then stay on your cheap Windows laptop. For me, there's no going back. One of my first laptops was a $500 Dell inspiron. Keys falling out, failing screen, and the motherboard died after a year. No thanks. My $2500 2007 Sony VAIO still runs flawlessly, however.

Typically, when people cite a Windows PC as having better specs, they almost always overlook trade offs. For example, your PC may have the all powerful GTX 970M, but your PC may lack PCIE SSDs or use a cheaper non-Iris Pro processor. Also, many reviewers still pick Apple displays as some of the best in the industry even over their higher res 4K PC counterparts.

As for software, Windows 10 is amazing. Will always prefer OS X, but thankfully Apple is focusing on Experience and performance for El Capitan as Yosemite has got to be one of the overall slowest versions of OS X to date. Windows 8.1 is smoother in many areas than Yosemite on my iMac. I'm also happy to see Apple have focus on improving gaming performance. Most games run absolutely abysmal on OS X. It's like having a different, all-new GPU every time I boot into Windows.
 
In the end PC laptops are about choice and Apple laptops are about ecosystem. I use things daily that I just cant get on an Apple laptop and if you combine that with Apples EFI implementation being special they just don't work for me they do however work fine for my wife. The computer needs to be a tool of sorts first and a reflection of your personality and values second and I say that as a person that loves his computers far more than is rational.
 
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