Question about Boot Camp, a new MBP, and a few others.

[Leudast]

Heya everyone. Couple questions here, as I'm coming from a PC and have never owned a mac.

I understand how bootcamp works, and will install Win8 on a new rMBP 13 when it's refreshed. My question is about the multitouch drivers. I've actually played around with Win multitouch, and it works adequately, will the hardware of the mac + bootcamp + windows give me multitouch options/gestures?

Is bootcamp a virtual machine? Will Windows chug? Or is it more of an application that lets you natively boot into your chosen OS?

Keyboards. I have played around with thinkpads mostly, and I know their keyboards are held in the highest regards. Does anyone have input or experience between thinkpads and the rMBP? How's it feel?

I thought I had more questions but apparently I don't. Thanks all! I'm excited!

 

[Stetrain]

Heya everyone. Couple questions here, as I'm coming from a PC and have never owned a mac.

I understand how bootcamp works, and will install Win8 on a new rMBP 13 when it's refreshed. My question is about the multitouch drivers. I've actually played around with Win multitouch, and it works adequately, will the hardware of the mac + bootcamp + windows give me multitouch options/gestures?

I haven't tried it on the newer Macbooks that support the latest version of the bootcamp drivers, but on my 2008 model you're just using Apple's trackpad drivers so you don't seem to get the Windows 8 edge gestures. Apple's control panel gives you options regarding things like right click, tap-to-click, and scrolling gestures.

Is bootcamp a virtual machine? Will Windows chug?

No.

Or is it more of an application that lets you natively boot into your chosen OS?

Yes. Once you install Windows through bootcamp it runs completely natively.

Keyboards. I have played around with thinkpads mostly, and I know their keyboards are held in the highest regards. Does anyone have input or experience between thinkpads and the rMBP? How's it feel?

I thought I had more questions but apparently I don't. Thanks all! I'm excited!

I mainly use Macbooks and Thinkpads, and find them to both be about the same as far as keyboard quality goes. Apple's trackpads and keyboards are generally regarded as best-in-class, the only real advantage of the Thinkpads is the Trackpoint if that is your preference.

 

[Leudast]

Nifty. Thanks!

 

[Quackers]

How resource intensive is your Windows programme? That could have quite a bearing on how you install Windows.

 

[Leudast]

How resource intensive is your Windows programme? That could have quite a bearing on how you install Windows.

Can you elaborate? Windows will be my primary OS. I'll only give OSX the room it needs + a few gigs just to mess around with it. Is there a better option than bootcamp then?

Right now I could probably push upwards of 8 gigs of RAM, the wishful 16 is for future proofing a few years down the line.

 

[Stetrain]

Can you elaborate? Windows will be my primary OS. I'll only give OSX the room it needs + a few gigs just to mess around with it. Is there a better option than bootcamp then?

Right now I could probably push upwards of 8 gigs of RAM, the wishful 16 is for future proofing a few years down the line.

If you were wanting to use OSX primarily except for a couple of low-power apps (ie Office), then installing Windows as a virtual machine would be more convenient.

With Bootcamp you have to reboot your machine to switch back and forth, but in your case that seems like the right way to go.

 

[ScholarsInk]

Can you elaborate? Windows will be my primary OS. I'll only give OSX the room it needs + a few gigs just to mess around with it. Is there a better option than bootcamp then?

Right now I could probably push upwards of 8 gigs of RAM, the wishful 16 is for future proofing a few years down the line.

Given that you plan to primarily use Windows, wouldn't the new Dell XPS models be worth considering? They have HiDPI displays, have a similar weight to the Retina, and are advertised as having great battery life. As native Windows machines, they should have the baked-in support for Windows 8 conveniences that you're looking for.

(Boot Camp battery life is far lower than OS X, even on systems with only integrated cards.)

 

[raptor402]

Windows will be my primary OS. I'll only give OSX the room it needs + a few gigs just to mess around with it. Is there a better option than bootcamp then?

You might want to consider getting a Windows Laptop rather than running Windows on Boot Camp in Mac. The main reason would be battery life: it will be horrible in Windows.

Boot Camp is basically a set of drivers for Windows. The trackpad drivers aren't so refined and multitouch is non-existent (other than two-finger tap for right click and two-finger scrolling). There are third party multitouch enhancers, but they're not so great either.

Other than that, Boot Camp works great. I have never tried it on a rMBP before, but my brother claimed that there were no issues. You can crank up the DPI setting to 200% or lower.

As for the keyboard, if you like ThinkPad keyboards, you'll be at home with a Mac. I came to Mac from the pre-chiclet style ThinkPad keyboards. Despite the relatively shorter keystroke, I don't miss the old keyboards at all. If you're more up to date with your Thinkpads, then you're already using a keyboard quite a lot like a Mac keyboard, so no worries.

I wish you best of luck on your purchase, be it a Mac or a PC.

Regards
Raptor

UPDATE: I concur with ScholarsInk. Didn't notice his post.

Also, should you wind up with the rMBP, and if your windows needs aren't too demanding, you can run Windows on a Virtual Machine inside OS X. Furthermore, using either VM Ware Fusion or Parallels, you can even make your Boot Camp installation a Virtual Machine and boot from that. But if your requirements are even slightly CPU / GPU demanding, you would be better off with booting Windows natively or buying a Windows laptop (such as the new XPS models as ScholarsInk recommended).