This is more of a review/informative post. I just got a new macbook pro for classes for dual booting osx and windows for onenote. The macbook pro (base 15" model) overall is a wonderful computer and works quite well. I've haven't had any freezes or lockups yet as described in some other posts, so i guess i'm in the clear for now.
The main reason i'm writing this is to rectify a longstanding myth about bootcamp, that the drivers suck for windows. I had a 2.2 ghz 8600gt 128mb macbook pro 15" nonunibody before this with vista and osx and yes, the drivers were terrible. I'd get half the battery life of osx and it would run at twice the heat during even simple things like reading the news or firefox. It would lock up all the time and on the whole was pretty terrible. With this new macbook pro, I first tried vista, but it was equally as bad as it was on the old macbook pro. Then, I decided to try windows 7. Windows 7, I gotta say, runs perfectly on this machine. No crashes or lockups. Runs cool. No issues what so ever. The only thing is that it runs the 330m full time instead of switching back and forth between the intel and the 330m like apple set it up for osx. So, you're looking at about 3 hrs of battery life instead of 5 or w/e in osx. I wouldn't get your hopes up, but graphics switching is still something that could relatively easily be added in the future, as it is increasingly common in the pc world. But still...3 hrs of battery life is plenty for most people. Also, even with the 320 gb hd it comes with, rebooting back and forth between osx and windows 7 takes about a minute.
Overall, if you're thinking about bootcamping a new macbook pro, I highly recommend windows 7 over vista or xp, because the driver support from apple and the os as a whole is far superior.
The main reason i'm writing this is to rectify a longstanding myth about bootcamp, that the drivers suck for windows. I had a 2.2 ghz 8600gt 128mb macbook pro 15" nonunibody before this with vista and osx and yes, the drivers were terrible. I'd get half the battery life of osx and it would run at twice the heat during even simple things like reading the news or firefox. It would lock up all the time and on the whole was pretty terrible. With this new macbook pro, I first tried vista, but it was equally as bad as it was on the old macbook pro. Then, I decided to try windows 7. Windows 7, I gotta say, runs perfectly on this machine. No crashes or lockups. Runs cool. No issues what so ever. The only thing is that it runs the 330m full time instead of switching back and forth between the intel and the 330m like apple set it up for osx. So, you're looking at about 3 hrs of battery life instead of 5 or w/e in osx. I wouldn't get your hopes up, but graphics switching is still something that could relatively easily be added in the future, as it is increasingly common in the pc world. But still...3 hrs of battery life is plenty for most people. Also, even with the 320 gb hd it comes with, rebooting back and forth between osx and windows 7 takes about a minute.
Overall, if you're thinking about bootcamping a new macbook pro, I highly recommend windows 7 over vista or xp, because the driver support from apple and the os as a whole is far superior.