Good price for MacBook Pro

[JDay]

[QUOTE=xrMike;6835022]
Kevin pretty much told us what you guys said above. You can either 1) partition the drive and boot into Win or Apple at startup. Or (2), you can buy VMware and run Win virtually.{/QUOTE]

If you decide to virtualize it you do not need to buy VMWare, VirtualBox does the same thing and is free.

http://www.virtualbox.org/

Haven't decided which way to go yet... Disadvantage of (1) is that you HAVE to cut the drive in half; Apple doesn't give a choice there. Seems like a waste to have so much drive space dedicated to a Win partition that won't see much use. The Advantage of (1) is that her system will run Windows faster that way, since there's less performance overhead associated with partitioned systems (versus VMware).

There's really not much of a performance hit going the virtual machine route, especially since that machine has 4GB of RAM. I have similar specs to that machine and have no problem running several VMs at a time. She should have no problem running business apps in a VM.

I'm wondering if there's a 3rd way to go also. Please tell me if this would work --> buying a dedicated external hard drive and installing windows on that. If/when she needs to run Win apps, she plugs in the external drive and boots from that. ??? Is that do-able?

I don't think you can install Windows on an external drive without doing some trickery.

Another question: Is it better to buy Apple's Microsoft Office suite (Word, Excel, etc) or use Apple's equivalent products (forget what they're called). The Apple products are cheaper and output files that are compatible with the Microsoft apps, but I'm thinking probably better to spend more and get MS Office...

The Apple version of MS Office likely will not be the edition her classes require.

Lastly, we get a free upgrade to the new "Lion" version of their OS. I may wait awhile to do that though, to let them work out any bugs. Right now her machine has "Snow Leapord" installed on it. I couldn't stop laughing when Kevin was explaining the OS names to me. Only Apple would come up with such corny OS version names...

With the issues some people have been having I would wait until a few updates have been out and tested. As for the release names, you should see what some Linux releases are called.

[Librarian]

The Apple version of MS Office likely will not be the edition her classes require.

What an odd thing to suggest.

Visual Basic is not supported in Office/mac 2008; it appears to be supported in Office/mac 2011, but I don't use VB so I can't say how well that works.

But I never had a business student come to me (I was a lab assistant for 3 years) and ask or complain about anything Office-ish as related to something imposed by course requirements.

I do know for certain a number of Excel extensions DO work on Mac, and a number do not. And Access has never been supported by OS/X, but Access is an unusual business class requirement.

The issue may be that some courseware is Windows-centric, but not, so far as I am aware, anything to do with Office.

[AR15Kimo]

good for price for a apple computer? unheard of

[JDay]

Whatever you do, don't buy Chinese Lenovo crap, they tried to make our business school buy them because they got a good deal.. 1/2 of the class had major issues with many buying a second laptop to get through the two years. Sadly, Lenovo is not IBM and has ruined the thinkpad (which used to be awesome). I got through with a macbook pro with no problem, and eventually deleted my windows copy off it for lack of need. 2 years later, its still the best laptop I've ever owned (I did order and use a Lenovo for 1 month, it was slow and huge and nasty). If you get a lower end apple, the price difference is small spec for spec, the the UI and form factor can't be beat. I just watched The Pacific off my laptop driving a 52 inch LCD...looked great, and my macbook is 2 years old; battery still holds charge well too!

And just what major issues were these? I have had zero issues with my T510, it is a very solidly built system. There were a few minor issues with the first couple runs of Lenovo ThinkPads, but the issues have since been worked out. Everytime a new ThinkPad comes out people always find something to complain about (i.e. screen aspect ratio changes). Were the Lenovo machines your school used even ThinkPads?

[Packy14]

And just what major issues were these? I have had zero issues with my T510, it is a very solidly built system. There were a few minor issues with the first couple runs of Lenovo ThinkPads, but the issues have since been worked out. Everytime a new ThinkPad comes out people always find something to complain about (i.e. screen aspect ratio changes). Were the Lenovo machines your school used even ThinkPads?

Yes, they were Thinkpads, my business school had a contract with Lenovo(which was cancelled after that year due to the many problems). Several batteries were defective and wouldn't hold charge, 2 caught fire, several monitor bezels cracked, screens had lines through them, and I think >10 had catastrophic hard drive failures within the first year. These were top of the line Thinkpads through corporate contract, directly sent from Lenovo. Its unfortunate, I loved the old thinkpads, they were build like tanks. It's always possible they have improved their QA by now, but personally I'd never pay 1 cent for one. My macbook has been rock solid for 2.5 years (I have one of the first generation metal macbooks, now known as 13 inch macbook pro). It looks as good as the day I bought it, and still holds a good charge (the current batteries are way better than mine though).

[jonzer77]

My gf has a 5 year old macbook with a 2ghz core 2duo processor that she has never reformatted and re installed the os and it still works fast. I used to be a pc guy all the way but I got tired of re installing windows all the time so now I like macs. I still have my pc that I built to make "backups" of my blu rays and encode them to smaller files but I don't use it much for anything else. Macs are great because you don't have to worry about them and your daughter will love it.

[JDay]

Yes, they were Thinkpads, my business school had a contract with Lenovo(which was cancelled after that year due to the many problems). Several batteries were defective and wouldn't hold charge, 2 caught fire, several monitor bezels cracked, screens had lines through them, and I think >10 had catastrophic hard drive failures within the first year. These were top of the line Thinkpads through corporate contract, directly sent from Lenovo. Its unfortunate, I loved the old thinkpads, they were build like tanks. It's always possible they have improved their QA by now, but personally I'd never pay 1 cent for one. My macbook has been rock solid for 2.5 years (I have one of the first generation metal macbooks, now known as 13 inch macbook pro). It looks as good as the day I bought it, and still holds a good charge (the current batteries are way better than mine though).

To be fair the fire and battery issues were due to Sony quality control issues at their battery factory in Japan (they make batteries for quite a few laptop brands). They had quite a few bad batches of batteries out around that time. In fact their batteries even caused MacBooks to catch fire/explode. I'm also willing to bet that the hard drives that failed were manufactured by Seagate. ThinkPads almost always come with Hitachi hard drives in them now, they're as rock solid as WD. ThinkPads are still built like tanks too. Many of the last IBM branded ThinkPads were made by Lenovo too. Lenovo has even made several improvements to the ThinkPad line since they acquired it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThinkPad#Lenovo_purchase

And here is the page with the details on the recall of Sony manufactured batteries. They're easy to identify since they say "Made in Japan" on them.

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/si...id=batt-lenovo.

On September 28, 2006, Lenovo and IBM Corporation, in cooperation with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and other regulatory agencies, announced the voluntary recall of 526,000 lithium-ion batteries manufactured by Sony Corporation.

I would still like to know what model ThinkPads these were If they were the T42/T42p or the T60/T60p you should know that those models are considered some of the best ever made, and they were all made by Lenovo.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that Thinkpads are the only laptop currently certified for and in use aboard the International Space Station.

T61 on the ISS.

[JDay]

My gf has a 5 year old macbook with a 2ghz core 2duo processor that she has never reformatted and re installed the os and it still works fast. I used to be a pc guy all the way but I got tired of re installing windows all the time so now I like macs.

If you have to reinstall Windows all the time you are doing something wrong. Windows hasn't required periodic reinstalls since XP came out.

[jonzer77]

If you have to reinstall Windows all the time you are doing something wrong. Windows hasn't required periodic reinstalls since XP came out.

Not doing anything wrong but windows machines slow down and need to be re installed now and then.

[JDay]

Not doing anything wrong but windows machines slow down and need to be re installed now and then.

I haven't had that issue since XP came out. I have had to fix that issue on other peoples computers many times though, and it has always been due to junk apps that people install. It is easy to fix without a reinstall and Macs are not immune to this.

[Packy14]

To be fair the fire and battery issues were due to Sony quality control issues at their battery factory in Japan (they make batteries for quite a few laptop brands). They had quite a few bad batches of batteries out around that time. In fact their batteries even caused MacBooks to catch fire/explode. I'm also willing to bet that the hard drives that failed were manufactured by Seagate. ThinkPads almost always come with Hitachi hard drives in them now, they're as rock solid as WD. ThinkPads are still built like tanks too. Many of the last IBM branded ThinkPads were made by Lenovo too. Lenovo has even made several improvements to the ThinkPad line since they acquired it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThinkPad#Lenovo_purchase

And here is the page with the details on the recall of Sony manufactured batteries. They're easy to identify since they say "Made in Japan" on them.

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/si...id=batt-lenovo.



I would still like to know what model ThinkPads these were If they were the T42/T42p or the T60/T60p you should know that those models are considered some of the best ever made, and they were all made by Lenovo.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that Thinkpads are the only laptop currently certified for and in use aboard the International Space Station.

T61 on the ISS.

I was trying to remember what model, I believe it was t42p that most people got, some got tablets (many screens cracked with those). The funny thing is, my apple was cheaper than the 500$ off corporate deal we had. I am happy with my choice 2.5 years later.