PC User thinking of buying a rMBP

[frenchtony]

All right, I made the jump.

I ordered a rMBP this weekend (due to be delivered early next week).
I took the 2.6 GHz, 16 GB, 512 GB, 15" retina.

I'm now decided on making the effort of really using OSX, and I'll see how it goes, I give myself a year to really decide if I'm sticking to it or if I revert back to a PC.

 

[N19h7m4r3]

All right, I made the jump.

I ordered a rMBP this weekend (due to be delivered early next week).
I took the 2.6 GHz, 16 GB, 512 GB, 15" retina.

I'm now decided on making the effort of really using OSX, and I'll see how it goes, I give myself a year to really decide if I'm sticking to it or if I revert back to a PC.

I did the same as you, I've always used Windows for personal use, and linux for other things.

I got the same macbook as yourself and I've not installed windows on it at all. I still use my windows machine a lot, but that's only because of the 27" monitor which I'm too lazy to plug into my macbook so far. The other reason is for some games that don't have native OS X clients.

I find OS X great to use, there are a few things to get use to. Especially the filesystem and how data is stored as apposed to Windows but I'm liking it.

I'll just have to put some virtual machines on later for Linux and Windows ( for database work). Other wise I'll most likely just use OS X exclusively as it does everything I want except for the above mentioned points.

 

[Spikeywan]

That's exactly what I bought before Christmas. I had a go at installing windows, but it will only accept Windows7, and I have an XP disk.

Having to buy a copy of Windows has stalled the process, but it's looking increasingly like I'm not going to need it. My main reason was to run an F1 simulator, but as Feral Interactive do F1 2012, there's even less reason for me to install it now.

If you want to see how capable it is, try some of the game demos at Feral Interactive. The Dirt2 demo, with refections of the bonnet of your car, and water with reflections and ripples looks good enough to lick.

It's a fantastic machine, and you'll be grinning like a looney for weeks.

 

[LS3 Machine]

Windows vs Mac

I just went thru the same decision process. I ended up getting both a new think pad W530 and new cMBP. As a new Mac user, I noticed the quality is very good for the MBP and OSX. The thunkpad is super nice as well (it's my 5th thinkpad). I believe that if budget is a concern, most people would be fine with a good quality windows laptop or a MacBook Air. I need a powerful machine, as I render video, and capture animation, and also use multiple monitors. The Thinkpad was nice in that I was able to configure it with a quadro 2gb graphics, top of the line chip, and 32 gb ram, and a 512gb ssd for not much more than the price of the loaded cmbp I ordered. The MBP has a much nicer trackpad, but I tend to use a high quality mouse, so not really a issue. As far as OS goes, I'm impressed with OSX, but honestly, win 7 is very nice, and its been improved to a very high level of quality and reliability. Anyways, they are both beautiful machines, and both have their plus and minuses. Enjoy!

 

[frenchtony]

The beast has now shipped (a bit in advance)

I'm going to start a blog about my "conversion", I'll give you the URL soon if someone's interested.

 

[Spikeywan]

It's nowhere near as painful as you imagine.

As long as you can work Safari and Google, you'll be able to do everything. Once you've done this a couple of times, and clicked with the way things work, you'll be able to work most things out yourself, very easily. It's very intuitive.

I'm never going back, and I decided that within the first day.

 

[frenchtony]

It's nowhere near as painful as you imagine.

As long as you can work Safari and Google, you'll be able to do everything. Once you've done this a couple of times, and clicked with the way things work, you'll be able to work most things out yourself, very easily. It's very intuitive.

I'm never going back, and I decided that within the first day.

You are certainly right, but I've been using Windows 10 hours a day for 5/6 years so I'm sure I'll have certain muscle memory reflexes to overcome

 

[Spikeywan]

I've been using it all day since Windows 3.11. I remember having to add the line "win.exe" to my autoexec.bat file, so it would start automatically. I also remember Windows 3.1 coming on 4 floppy disks.

The main difference is pressing the Command key, instead of the Ctrl key.

Cut, copy, and paste are on Command x, c and v, and the @ is on the 2 and the " is where the @ should be. Once you've got those down, you're laughing.

 

[frenchtony]

Blog

I've started writing a blog to report my findings for this year ahead in which I'm going to make the switch to Mac.

It's there: http://www.switch-to-mac.com

 

[tillsbury]

You'll find it easier than you think. Finder is rubbish, but other than that you shouldn't find too many problems. Read up on all the keyboard shortcuts -- there are dozens hidden away. I still have my Windows 3.0 Beta RC floppies, but didn't really find an issue I couldn't solve. Better still, networking actually works. Now to get a Mac Mini to replace my ageing media server, and then the last step will be a crummy Air or similar for the boy (or perhaps this year upgrade the missus's 2012 Air and give him the old one...)

 

[Daniel L]

Tony, I purchased a Lenovo notebook to use because I thought I'd be using Windows applications for my schoolwork. The screen was so bad that I ended up getting rid of it 3 days after I purchased it. I got the rMBP and it runs Windows better than the Lenovo did. (It performs Windows updates just fine when the Lenovo would have errors updating due to all the bloatware they added) However, I found that OS X supported everything I needed to do so I never use Windows now except to print wirelessly through the school printer (handled by Parallels) and for some games that perform better through Windows (through Boot Camp).

If your Windows tasks aren't demanding, I'd run them through Parallels as you'll have better trackpad behavior / file compatibility plus instantaneous switching between OS X and Windows.

IMO, head to the trackpad settings as soon as you get your computer and set it to your preference. I'd turn on tap to click and three finger swipe between pages. I don't know why that isn't set to default.

 

[frenchtony]

Tony, I purchased a Lenovo notebook to use because I thought I'd be using Windows applications for my schoolwork. The screen was so bad that I ended up getting rid of it 3 days after I purchased it. I got the rMBP and it runs Windows better than the Lenovo did. (It performs Windows updates just fine when the Lenovo would have errors updating due to all the bloatware they added) However, I found that OS X supported everything I needed to do so I never use Windows now except to print wirelessly through the school printer (handled by Parallels) and for some games that perform better through Windows (through Boot Camp).

If your Windows tasks aren't demanding, I'd run them through Parallels as you'll have better trackpad behavior / file compatibility plus instantaneous switching between OS X and Windows.

IMO, head to the trackpad settings as soon as you get your computer and set it to your preference. I'd turn on tap to click and three finger swipe between pages. I don't know why that isn't set to default.

Hi Daniel, I indeed found out about that tap to click setting, and I'll definitely do that first thing when I get my MBP in a few hours. UPS should be delivering soon...

I'll definitely try out Parallel as well.

I had a Lenovo before (a T500), and indeed the screen was absolute rubish. A lot worse that the Lenovo I had before that (T43 I think).

 

[walkie]

All right, I made the jump.

I ordered a rMBP this weekend (due to be delivered early next week).
I took the 2.6 GHz, 16 GB, 512 GB, 15" retina.

I'm now decided on making the effort of really using OSX, and I'll see how it goes, I give myself a year to really decide if I'm sticking to it or if I revert back to a PC.

I made the switch several years ago, I think it was worth the change due to quality of Apple products and the beautiful user interface MacOSX has, a little time ago I tried to switch back and I have to say I missed MacOSX, so I'm still using MacOSX and I won't turn around anymore...

 

[frenchtony]

It's arrived!

After a bit of confusion with UPS, the machine was delivered yesterday evening.

It's so far an amazing experience (Apple DOES know how to do a proper package), and the machine is beautiful.

I've installed Dropbox, Alfred, VLC and Chrome so far, loaded my 100GB+ dropbox data, and it's working like a charm (although loading Dropbox and doing a few other things like loading pictures in Picasa got the machine quite hot and noisy, but I'm hoping this is a one off).

I've posted some pictures of the unpacking on my blog, and will post more today on the software installation bit.

 

[leo.andres.21]

I was playing games constantly on my old PC laptop, I would go way out to overclock it, rig the CPU to lower voltages, did all stupid things with it. I also used windows my whole life, when I did use a Mac in school, the old Apple mouse really bugged me, turns me off Mac.
But once I bought a MBP last year, I thought I would constantly switch over to windows to play games and do this or that, I found myself never leaving OS X, it just does everything I need, gaming is not one of them. I don't feel the need to overclock anything because it's too slow. Though I would want an SSD (or two in RAID 0).
I think it's great that you go Mac, I doubt there's any reason to go back at all.

 

[Radiating]

Bonjour everybody,

I'm a software developer, long-time PC user and I'm trying to find the best laptop to buy.
I've got my eyes on the retina Macbook Pro, but I have a few questions:

- As of today, can we now have the graphic card switching in Windows? (I read on older posts that it wasn't possible, I wonder if it has been fixed...)
- If you are running Windows (7/8) on it, what is your experience? Are you happy or do you think you should have bought something else?
- If you had to buy a MBP to use with Windows today, would you still buy the retina or the "regular" model?

Thanks!

I'm a very happy PC rMBP user. It is the best laptop you can buy hands down.

Yes graphics switching works, and I get 70% more battery life than I did with my limited edition special order HP Envy 15". Which ran me $4,000 2 years ago. RMBP was $2700 with tax by comparison.

Here are some tips if you plan to go this route:


#1. Get the 512GB version at the least, OS X takes up around 100gb, you don't want less than 100 GB for windows.


#2. Run the laptop at 2304x1440 resolution (custom resolution using nVidia control pannel).

Some applications disable windows scaling so they will appear extremely tiny at native resolution. Steam and all Adobe products come to mind, and many others.

Other applications will scale but appear extremely blury as they are going to be rendered at the scaled resolution and then upsized.

So run it at 2304x1440 and set the scaling to "150% XP style scaling" in custom resolution. This is a limited type of scaling that prevents upressing.

All google applications use upressing so chrome for example will look completely blured with non-xp style scaling.

This configuration allows for all possible content to be displayed at it's best regardless of how it's set up.

This resolution is also exactly 4/5ths native resolution, meaning that every 5x5 pixel block is displaying 4x4 pixels. The end result is that this setup results in the absolute least amount of moire, with little or no artifacts. It's much better than 3/5ths 3/4ths 5/6ths 6/7ths etc.

#3. The default speakers will sound like complete trash with the default configuration. You need to go into the settings, and change them to "quadrophonic" so that all 4 speakers are working, and make sure full range is checked off or you will have no bass, it is NOT set to full range by default. Finally turn on the "speaker fill" effect to fix the lack of bass and set the frequency to 96000khz - 16Bit.


If you figure out how to instal a Steinberg VST based virtual equalizer (I'm still working on that, found a few but they are either unstable or don't save your settings on reboot). Set it to the following:

You'll need Virtual Audio Cable 96000 as a starter with, 16 bit, 2/2 channel, 15 ms, cable range, volume control, S/PDIF

DDMF Color EQ - 13 Db low shelf, 7001 hz, Q: 0.3 | 1.6db 68hz, Q: 0.5 50% | -13db levels

#4. Macs lack a few keys that most PC users are used to like print screen and delete, download autohotkey and set a few shortcuts to fix that. Mine are Alt + Plus sign = Print Screen, Shift + Backspace = delete.


#5. The SD card reader that comes with the rMBP is broken and does not recognize sandisk SDHC cards for some reason. Download this driver to fix that:

Broadcom_Card_Reader_15.0.6.2

You need to instal the 32 bit driver, even on 64 bit windows for some reason. The 64 bit driver does not work at all.

-

#6. The trackpad driver for windows is a beta driver, meaning it's broken. The tap to click feature is just simply put broken. It is way too sensetive and it will go off even when you're hoving your fingers a full centimeter from the trackpad. Your mouse will constantly randomly click. I've tried this one 3 seperate rMBP's will wildly different configurationsa and build dates, and it's a known issue dating back several years.

If you plan to use windows get used to the idea of pressing down the left and right lower corners (if tap to click is disabled then two finger right click is also disabled) to click.

I actually like pressing down the trackpad now, it took some getting used to, but it has a satifying but light click to both the left and right mouse button.

#7. I would recommend switching the command and control keys using keytweak (authotkey will cause errors). This mirrors the mac configuration and gives you both left and right control keys which is more useful than just a left control key, and two windows buttons.

Once past the initial hurdle I can definitly say this is the best windows laptop I have ever used by a huge margin.

The Mac OS is also a really good tool for backing up the windows instalation

 

[Strafe]

I'm a very happy PC rMBP user. It is the best laptop you can buy hands down.

Yes graphics switching works, and I get 70% more battery life than I did with my limited edition special order HP Envy 15".

Radiating - first, thanks for this post. As a new Windows 8 rMBP user myself, it is extremely helpful. However, are you sure about graphics switching. As far as I can tell it's not working on mine and your experience is counter to all other posts I've read.

 

[snaky69]

Radiating - first, thanks for this post. As a new Windows 8 rMBP user myself, it is extremely helpful. However, are you sure about graphics switching. As far as I can tell it's not working on mine and your experience is counter to all other posts I've read.

It does not work. It only works under OS X.

 

[Radiating]

Radiating - first, thanks for this post. As a new Windows 8 rMBP user myself, it is extremely helpful. However, are you sure about graphics switching. As far as I can tell it's not working on mine and your experience is counter to all other posts I've read.

Oh that's right, you have that 100% right. I remember doing some very indepth research into this issue earlier this year. And concluded that while graphics switching doesn't work, it doesn't matter.

Here's what I figured out.

So the purpose of graphics switching is to improve battery life. There is no other benefit whatsoever.

The thing is that a lot of other factors go into efficiency than just graphics switching. The profit on a typical laptop from say HP is around $30-$70 due to extreme competition, so using anything but the most absolute dirt cheap components makes no sense. This means there are some sacrifices to be made.

One of those sacrafices that all normal laptop manufacturers make is in taking quality away from literally anywhere where the consumer won't notice it, such as the voltage converters, main board, efficiency of the battery cells themselves, chipset, controllers, screen and literally everything. Apple has a remarkably different philosophy - they actually put the some of the highest quality components in their devices even behind the sceens where you can't see them. The best example of this is that the fans on my HP Envy 15 actually drew 566% more power than the ones on the MacBook Pro, and they are rated for one third the service lifetime.

Anyways I beleive PC magazine did a test that compared a windows 7 MacBook Pro 15 against a windows 7 laptop from HP with IDENTICAL specs, and even without graphics switching, the MacBook had more battery life.

So people raise this huge fuss about how terrible Apple is for not enabling this feature, when literally any other option on the market has issues with poor implementation in hundreds of other small areas that result in a much bigger problem. Yet nobody complains about these issues because they are hidden from consumers.

 

[snaky69]

Oh that's right, you have that 100% right. I remember doing some very indepth research into this issue earlier this year. And concluded that while graphics switching doesn't work, it doesn't matter.

Here's what I figured out.

So the purpose of graphics switching is to improve battery life. There is no other benefit whatsoever.

The thing is that a lot of other factors go into efficiency than just graphics switching. The profit on a typical laptop from say HP is around $30-$70 due to extreme competition, so using anything but the most absolute dirt cheap components makes no sense. This means there are some sacrifices to be made.

One of those sacrafices that all normal laptop manufacturers make is in taking quality away from literally anywhere where the consumer won't notice it, such as the voltage converters, main board, efficiency of the battery cells themselves, chipset, controllers, screen and literally everything. Apple has a remarkably different philosophy - they actually put the some of the highest quality components in their devices even behind the sceens where you can't see them. The best example of this is that the fans on my HP Envy 15 actually drew 566% more power than the ones on the MacBook Pro, and they are rated for one third the service lifetime.

Anyways I beleive PC magazine did a test that compared a windows 7 MacBook Pro 15 against a windows 7 laptop from HP with IDENTICAL specs, and even without graphics switching, the MacBook had more battery life.

So people raise this huge fuss about how terrible Apple is for not enabling this feature, when literally any other option on the market has issues with poor implementation in hundreds of other small areas that result in a much bigger problem. Yet nobody complains about these issues because they are hidden from consumers.

Cutting the graphics card power consumption in half or more, makes a computer that runs cooler and also improves battery life.

Sure the MBP has a good battery life, but if graphics switching worked, it would simply have even more.

Under OS X, I can get roughly 7 to 8 hours of light usage out of my MBP. On windows, I'll be lucky to get 4 hours with the same usage. With the same settings, bluetooth off, on wifi, no peripherals plugged in, same brightness, etc. the lack of graphics switching has reduced the computer's battery life by 3 hours at the very least.

I think we are indeed entitled to complain, that's a 42% difference.

 

[throAU]

If you can handle running Windows in a VM, you can force the GPU switching to integrated with gfxcardstatus before running VMware. As far as the guest OS is concerned all it sees is the VMware display adapter whatever GPU you are using, but you can save battery by doing this.

Not sure if this would help?

 

[Radiating]

Cutting the graphics card power consumption in half or more, makes a computer that runs cooler and also improves battery life.

Sure the MBP has a good battery life, but if graphics switching worked, it would simply have even more.

Under OS X, I can get roughly 7 to 8 hours of light usage out of my MBP. On windows, I'll be lucky to get 4 hours with the same usage. With the same settings, bluetooth off, on wifi, no peripherals plugged in, same brightness, etc. the lack of graphics switching has reduced the computer's battery life by 3 hours at the very least.

I think we are indeed entitled to complain, that's a 42% difference.

Nonsene. The reason OS X gets 7-8 hours of battery life and windows gets 4 is because the fundamental architechture of the OS is different. Windows is a huge resource hog. It's the most bloated peices of software ever made by humanity.

The 650GT used in modern MacBooks is a VERY efficient GPU and it doesn't need graphics switching. During normal non-gaming load it only runs at 25% capacity because it has a constantly variable clockspeed. The 650GT is an extremely efficient card on top of that, it's not a top preformer that sacrifices all efficiency, but has a very good balance.

Either way I just tested the power draw with graphics switching enabled and disabled on my envy 15 which has a 650GT as well, while under heavy load you would at best see a 23.76% increase in battery life, and at idle you'd see a 7.56% increase in battery life.

This translates to about a 10% increase in battery life in the real world based on my usage habits (medium load, photoshop work, watching youtube videos), though this is a rough approximation based only on a quick 20 minute benchmark.

Either way the range of the gain you would see clearly indicates this is a waste of time to be concerned with. People like to blow the graphics switching issue way out of proportion based on outdated views of it's performance benefit. It used to give gains closer to 50%, but that is simply nolonger the case.


Again going back to the envy 15 vs MacBook pro comparison, do you know how much the lost efficiency the cheap components HP uses are responsible for? 29%, and that's real world measuring battery mah discharge at identical clock speed running the same application with an identical processor (3720) and GPU (650gt) and similar ram (16gb) and SSD sizes and speeds (512gb) with the screen turned off.

Meaning that the HP took 129% more power to run the processor and video card at a given clock speed test under windows 7.

The point of this discussion is that the OP is apprehensive to buy a Mac because he preceives they are inferior to PCs in the area of battery saving features. When in fact regular notebooks do incredibly poorly in the area of efficiency and Macs are much better.

I can understand how it would be great to have 10% more battery life, but in the end I can also understand why Apple has no interest in addressing this issue. It's trivial and there are many much more pressing issues.