[XTTX]

Alright, well I'm about to start college, and I'm in the market for a notebook. I am and always have been a PC enthusiast; from Dells to custom builds (by the way, I've come to hate Dells ). Anyways, I'm currently deciding between investing in a MBP or a PC notebook. I'm almost at the point of deciding to go for the MBP, but I want your opinions.
Some of the things I'll be using it for (in no specific order):
Gaming
Word Processing
Online Chatting (AIM, Google Talk)
Surfing the web
Watching movies
Watching videos (AVI, x264, DivX, etc.)
Music
Graphics Design (Photoshop)
Web Design/Programming
Local Web Server (Probably using XAMPP)

I have a few other questions too... Can I run Boot Camp and Parallels (or VMWare) at the same time; meaning, is it possible to run Parallels on an existing partition made from Boot Camp? Also, when using Boot Camp are documents/files cross-accessible: I know when running Linux and Windows on the same machine, you run into problems with FAT32 and NTFS conflicts, does the same happen with Mac and Windows? Also on that note, how's the crosscompatability between generic Microsoft files and Mac applications; for example, .docx and .doc versus iWorks file format, or would i have to purchase Office 2008 for Mac OS X?

[OreoCookie]

Boot Camp and Parallels are two entirely different animals: Boot Camp allows you to natively boot your favorite flavor of Windows, your ProBook is nothing but a Windows notebook at this point.

Parallels allows you to run Windows from within OS X. You don't `run Parallels from a partition', but a system image. You can run your Windows installation which resides on another partition via Parallels. So this means, you can use the same Windows install for booting into Windows and running it from within OS X. (I think this is what you want, right?) Obviously you should boot into Windows when you want to play games or run cpu-intensive apps.

I'm not quite sure what the problems are between Linux and NTFS partitions. Out of the box, OS X can just read from NTFS partitions, although you can download (free) drivers that offer read/write support. They are deemed experimental, although I haven't really heard of problems.

Regarding office, for optimum compatibility, you should buy Office 2008. An alternative for a pure word processor is Nisus Writer Pro/Express (get the pro version). It uses Microsoft's rtf format and thus ensures 100 % compatibility. Importing Word documents is ok, but there may be subtle changes to the layout.

[XTTX]

Originally Posted by OreoCookie 

I'm not quite sure what the problems are between Linux and NTFS partitions. Out of the box, OS X can just read from NTFS partitions, although you can download (free) drivers that offer read/write support. They are deemed experimental, although I haven't really heard of problems.

So do you mean that out of the box, you can't write to NTFS partitions? So, in that case it wouldn't be possible to have a 5GB NTFS partition for XP and a 10 GB HFS+ partition for OS X, and then a 235GB partition for shared data between the OS's? That's what how ideal partitioning split up would have looked. In that case, how does Parrallels interchange files from OS X to XP, does it need the partition to be FAT32? BTW, you did answer the question I was asking about the Parallels and Boot Camp running from the same install.

[OreoCookie]

Originally Posted by XTTX 

So do you mean that out of the box, you can't write to NTFS partitions?

Yes, but installing write drivers takes a minute or so to install.

Originally Posted by XTTX 

So, in that case it wouldn't be possible to have a 5GB NTFS partition for XP and a 10 GB HFS+ partition for OS X, and then a 235GB partition for shared data between the OS's?

I strongly advise against such a solution. When OS X writes onto non-HFS+ filesystems, it writes its metadata into separate files. Those files are hidden under OS X, but if you use Windows Explorer, you have `twice as many files'. While this doesn't do anything bad, some people think they're a nuisance. When you move stuff, for instance, Windows does not update the metadata. This will just cause you pains and things simply won't work as smoothly. I know you're hesitant to move to OS X full time, but you should give OS X as your primary OS a try. Keep in mind that at any point, you can go to back and use your ProBook as a full Windows machine. I don't see any big risk for you at this point.

You can access your files from Parallels for instance via network shares. I assume you just boot into Windows for games, so this will give you easy and painless access to your files via Windows. If that doesn't suffice, you can install HFS+ drivers for Windows (which are not free, unfortunately) and allow you to access your OS X disk as if it were just a regular partition.

Originally Posted by XTTX 

That's what how ideal partitioning split up would have looked. In that case, how does Parrallels interchange files from OS X to XP, does it need the partition to be FAT32?

No, Windows is Windows. Parallels basically simulates some hardware for Windows, you can (and should) use NTFS.

Originally Posted by XTTX 

BTW, you did answer the question I was asking about the Parallels and Boot Camp running from the same install.

Great

Edit: I hope you don't mind that I've deleted your reply to the spammer, you've kept the links intact, so I had no choice

[XTTX]

Originally Posted by OreoCookie 

Yes, but installing write drivers takes a minute or so to install.

I strongly advise against such a solution. When OS X writes onto non-HFS+ filesystems, it writes its metadata into separate files. Those files are hidden under OS X, but if you use Windows Explorer, you have `twice as many files'. While this doesn't do anything bad, some people think they're a nuisance. When you move stuff, for instance, Windows does not update the metadata. This will just cause you pains and things simply won't work as smoothly. I know you're hesitant to move to OS X full time, but you should give OS X as your primary OS a try. Keep in mind that at any point, you can go to back and use your ProBook as a full Windows machine. I don't see any big risk for you at this point.

You can access your files from Parallels for instance via network shares. I assume you just boot into Windows for games, so this will give you easy and painless access to your files via Windows. If that doesn't suffice, you can install HFS+ drivers for Windows (which are not free, unfortunately) and allow you to access your OS X disk as if it were just a regular partition.

No, Windows is Windows. Parallels basically simulates some hardware for Windows, you can (and should) use NTFS.

Great

Edit: I hope you don't mind that I've deleted your reply to the spammer, you've kept the links intact, so I had no choice

Thanks a lot for the help! . If I had a cookie, I would give it to you. So, now I'm just deciding between a Macbook and a Macbook Pro; I'm going to head to my friends house later this week to check out his new MB and then head down to the local apple store again to look around at the choices.

Edit: BTW, do you think that if I went down to the Apple store, that a sales rep would be able to lower the price below student discount? If so, I'm thinking about splurging for the MBP, otherwise, I'll probably stick with the MB. Because let's be honest, is $1498 a justifiable price for a 17" glossy display + 200 extra MHz on the CPU? On that note actually, do Macs allow for overclocking?

[OreoCookie]

You can get a discount at the online Edu Store or at your university's computer store (although not every university has one). So in either case, you'd get a discount. The MacBook is good if you don't need a fast GPU, but if you are half-way serious into games, go for Pro

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by XTTX 

I have a few other questions too... Can I run Boot Camp and Parallels (or VMWare) at the same time; meaning, is it possible to run Parallels on an existing partition made from Boot Camp?

It works with VMware Fusion, I have done it.

The only drawback: suspension mode doesn't work. You need to start up and shut down Windows every time.

-t

[tinkered]

Originally Posted by XTTX 

On that note actually, do Macs allow for overclocking?

Nope, no easy way to overclock the CPU on a mac notebook. Although I am hard pressed to think of any mainstream notebook that supports over clocking.

I have a 17" MBP and I like it a lot. It is a good desktop replacement. I boot to XP using boot camp for gaming, as Mac gaming is still very limited. Otherwise, I use OS X for most everything else. I actually don't use Parallels or Fusion as I never need a windows program that doesn't require hardware acceleration, such as games or DRM HD video.

My one piece of advice is that when looking for software don't always assume that worked best in windows is the best app in the Mac OS world. There is a lot of great apps that are Mac only and a lot of Windows apps that were migrated to the Mac poorly.

[TravisReynolds]

lol, here's the post just for you

What Apple NoteBook is Best For You? | Travis Reynolds

If you are like me, and have a love for the Macbook Series than you are really going to like this post. I am currently on a 2 GHz intel core DUO Macbook (Black) with 1GB of ram. I am going to go over the 3 notebooks so you can decide which one is best for you.

MacBook Air
The MacBook air, probably one of the slickest designs ever. Coming in at only 3 pounds, 3 quarters of an inch, and a beautiful 13.3″ display. Lets not forget the price tag of $1800! Geez Apple Products are expensive!

If you use your NoteBooks for business, Video/Photo editing, storing music and photos… I would strongly recommend on not considering this. You only get 80GB to work with, so lets do some simple addition. You got 10 - 20 GB for Applications. That gives you lets say 65GB left, lets say you want to put some videos and some photos and some music. Thats about 30 GB. Documents, thats about another 2 GB. So you got about 25 GB left of free room. My MacBook is 120GB and thats still not enough.

This machine doesn’t even have an optical drive, so you cannot put in your CD’S and DVD’s in unless you use Apples cool software that lets you “share” another computers optical drive. Now, why do i say don’t get this for photo/video editing. Mainly because of the processor speed. Yeah I did forget to mention that you have 2GB of ram, but thats the max you can have, and programs like aperture and Final Cut Pro require a lot out of a computer, and the MacBook air just isn’t going to get it.

Now, I talked about the bad stuff about the MacBook Air, so surely there is Goods. Well Just look at it, and you will see for yourself. This machine is beautiful, I guarantee you, that about 90% of you have a bigger keyboard bigger than this. The portability is also a huge on the plus side. You can carry it pretty much everywhere and not have a pain in the butt in carrying this thing.

Now if your just somebody who already has a main computer, and needs a portable notebook just for simple Web Browsing, Email, and Talking then I would suggest getting this notebook if it is in your budget.

Macbook
The Macbook just recently got a update, they get bigger processor speeds and a brand new multi-touch trackpad. I have got one of the older versions, so sadly I don’t get to talk about their new track pad =[

The Macbook Is a really amazing computer at such a cheap price. This one coming in at $1100. Funny huh? A way more powerful computer for $700 cheaper. I have had this computer for about 2 1/2 years now and I absolutely love it. I got no problems, i did download windows XP with apples Bootcamp software, but realized that I was using Mac OSX way more, so I decided to take XP off. So anyways, lets talk Macbook.

From my experience, this is just the downgraded version of the Macbook Pro, I’ve done photo editing, video editing and have everything on here. Did I mention this is my main computer? Now, of course your not going to get the same results when handling these huge tasks, it will be a workload for your processor and ram compared to Macbook Pro or a Mac Pro, but it gets the job done. So let’s say your burning a Movie to your Macbook, it will take about 2 hours, compared to a MacBook Pro which can get done in just under an hour. Apple just upgraded their processors for the Macbook so I’m sure you can get better results now.

Some things I do notice that I do not like are a few things, the battery. For about a year now my battery has gone bad. I know I should get a new one but I just never got around to it. My battery only last about an hour on full charger. It will be saying I got 45 minutes left, and within 10 minutes all the juice be sucked out.

So who do I recommend this notebook for? Pretty Much anyone, its great for any business person. The only people I would not recommend this for is Video/Photo editors because of the demand of power the software and person need. And in my opinion, if you do decide to go with the Macbook, do not go black. Yeah I love the color, but I do not like how the grease shows up on the keys and trackpad, and plus you have to pay a lot more money just for a different color.

Macbook Pro
The MacBook Pro is in my opinion the most powerful notebook out there! It has it all, heck I bet it is faster than some desktops that people are running on. The MacBook Pro is the next notebook that I plan on purchasing once I get enough money to sell my current MacBook and upgrade to the MacBook pro.

So what’s so great about the MacBook Pro? Well, you can get amazing processor speeds, 2.6GHz Core 2 Duo, which is the max processor you can have, which is amazing for a notebook. It’s great for editing videos and photos. You as well have the option to upgrade to 4GB of ram with a 300GB HD This is why I want one, I like to edit videos and this would help tremendously.

The backlit keyboard is great, it looks really good when typing at night. You as well get a bigger display, you have the options with 15″ and 17″ models. The aluminum casing looks really good too. One reason why the MacBook pro is better than all the other Notebooks… the ports!!! You have way more ports than you do on the macbook and like 100 times more than the macbook air. You have more options and the ability to hook up the computer to a 30″ Apple Cinema Display

Other Thoughts
I’ve been a mac user for about 10 years now, and I love it. Apple is by far way better than Windows, there’s less viruses and way more friendly user interface. If there’s some advice you’d like on purchasing an Apple NoteBook. DO NOT upgrade your ram. Apple is known for their simplicity and the ability to make everything easier for the user. So this means that instead of spending $400 for their ram, you can buy $100 of extra ram and upgrade it yourself, which can also be kinda fun. Mac Sales is probably one of the best apple retail sites on the net, they make it extremely easy to buy products for you mac.

So what apple Notebook do you have? Do you enjoy it, or do you not enjoy it? Got any other thoughts that you would like to add?