Questions from a brand new Mac user

i got the low end 15" and I do play sc2. I happen to put everything on high not just medium. Also, if you do happen to have windows 7, try sc2 on bootcamp. It runs uber smooth on high! Snow leopard definelty can run on high, but there's small hiccups thats all.

 

First, the machine you reference doesn't exist. There is no such thing as 2.66 2011 Sandy Bridge MBP. You most likely have the 2010 model.

As for your specific questions:

1. This has nothing to do with a Mac, but in general as complexity increases in an Open Office document, the probability that it will not format exactly the same in Office increases. I've not run into any cases where it' won't open at all. For most basic things like school document, office documents, etc it works fine. Complex graphics and page layouts will likely encounter differences in formatting. This is true of any Open Office document regardless of whether it is create on OSX, Windows or Linux.

2. I don't play, can't help.

3. Temps depend on what is running. As a baseline I would say just having email, an im client, and a web browser running (not open to a page with flash) should have you in the 40-50c range. Without knowing exactly what is running, and exactly what it is doing, nobody can say. I will say that for games in general the temp you quote for starcraft seems typical.

4. After using your Mac exclusively for 1 month, force yourself to use only your PC for 1 week. If that doesn't convince you, nothing will.

 

Feel stupid now to have hated mac for no reason?

 

In terms of SC2, since you have the quad core 2.0 and the 6490m is decent, I recommend you going HIGH settings on anything PURELY CPU related. Which includes, lighting, physics, some other things if you mouse over. Then leave medium shaders/shadows for your graphics. 1440x900 resolution full screen as well. But going MEDIUM across the board is fine too and you'll be guaranteed to have a solid experience.

Also google the framerate cap, should be two lines to toss in your variables.txt to keep your gpu from overworking in the GUI menus. I also cap my FPS in SC2 at 60FPS along with the 60FPS gui although I don't hit 60fps much. I could probably cap it at 30FPS to keep the GPU not working as hard.

 

my cpu is 70 degrees according to istat pro widget and im just running a couple of apps like itunes, firefox.