Mac or Windows?

L

lancerzwarrior

New Member
i am about to enter my freshman year as a college student. i was wondering as a computer science major, if a macbook pro or a windows based notebook would be a better bet? thanks.
 
CS major = i'd definitely go with Windows.
I wouldn't do a Mac unless you were going into graphic design or something artsy with computers.
If you're going to be programming with C++ and such, it wouldn't be worth the trouble to get Visual Studio running on a mac (if that's even possible).
 
VISTA WOO HOO !!!!!!!!!!!!! well not really with laptops - XP for Laptops , but build ur own desktop and make it vista capable if u want (just a thought) WOOHOO !!!!!!!!!!!!
 
get a mac book pro, it can run any OS, so you can use anything and everything. My macbook pro runs 4 OSes and it is very nice, comes with any feature you'd ever want built in.
 
i have a fear though, that if i use boot camp to run both windows and OS X, that it will drastically slow down my computer. does boot camp cause your computer to slow down, or do i have nothing to worry about? also i like to play games, and seeing as though windows has the best selection of video games on their operating system, will vista being run on mac via bootcamp run smoothly for my games?
 
Last edited:
lancerzwarrior said:
i have a fear though, that if i use boot camp to run both windows and OS X, that it will drastically slow down my computer. does boot camp cause your computer to slow down, or do i have nothing to worry about? also i like to play games, and seeing as though windows has the best selection of video games on their operating system, will vista being run on mac via bootcamp run smoothly for my games?
Click to expand...

No, my macbook pro runs windows fast, and it runs it better than a lot of the PC laptops I have used with similar specs. You can also run a virtual machine of windows, that you can't really game on but you can do just about anything else. Especially since parallels 3.0 has full on DX9 support, which is very nice for a virtual machine to have. You will need preferably 2 gigs of ram to run virtual machines on your laptop though.

Windows runs natively on the mac, so there is no difference, are you getting a laptop or a desktop?
 
as long as steve jobbs doesn't hunt you down in his prius, you could run osx86 on a pc laptop, as well

and "windows vs. mac" is only 1/2 the battle, there's lots and lots of different brands and equipment available if you get a PC rather than a MAC, you could easily find something that far outperforms a macbook if you really wanted to.

Macs are ideal for people who are bad at shopping.*** If you're bad at shopping (and you know if you are) get a mac. If you have the patience to go through endless possibilites and get a machine that's perfect for you, go PC.

***If you use this as your new slogan, you owe me royalties, Jobbs.
 
i will be getting a laptop. instead of running a virtual machine though, is it possible to just boot the macbook in windows and use that play my software on that. from my understanding, with leopard being released in october, macs now will have many of the windows based drivers.
 
heyman421 said:
as long as steve jobbs doesn't hunt you down in his prius, you could run osx86 on a pc laptop, as well

and "windows vs. mac" is only 1/2 the battle, there's lots and lots of different brands and equipment available if you get a PC rather than a MAC, you could easily find something that far outperforms a macbook if you really wanted to.

Macs are ideal for people who are bad at shopping.*** If you're bad at shopping (and you know if you are) get a mac. If you have the patience to go through endless possibilites and get a machine that's perfect for you, go PC.

***If you use this as your new slogan, you owe me royalties, Jobbs.
Click to expand...

This statement is so loaded with biased opinions and very little facts. The truth is you can't really compare them because there is no PC that can do what a Mac can out of the box. It's a tireless argument that people just don't understand and spit out misinformation like this post.

i will be getting a laptop. instead of running a virtual machine though, is it possible to just boot the macbook in windows and use that play my software on that. from my understanding, with leopard being released in october, macs now will have many of the windows based drivers.
Click to expand...

Yes I have windows xp SP 2 installed on my macbook pro on its own NTFS partition. I also just deployed 25 intel imacs at my work that dual booth both windows xp pro and OS X 10.4. If it runs windows you can run any windows application you want. Also, the new line of macbooks have options for both nvidia and ATI cards so you ae no longer stuck getting an ATI only.

You also have the option of running parallels virtual machines or vmware. Virtual machines let you use windows while inside OS X with out rebooting. This is handy for many basic and some intermidiate things, gaming however you will want to boot into windows.

There is also a set of APIs from a program called Crossover, and it lets you run windows applications natively in OS X. It is of course not quite as stable as actually running in windows because of several factors but it is getting better and better reach release. For example I have IE 6.5 SP2 installed in OS X using crossover so I can view websites that are heavy coded in active X.

I'll tell you right now, been using computers for a long time now, and have been working IT professionally since 1999, and all I can say is that the Macbook Pro is the best damned laptop I have ever owned hands down. I currently have a business class HP nc4200 which is nice, but my macbook pro eats it for breakfast.

Also, with all the benefits of having a mac you will be able to do tons of things no PC can do out of the box. Edit videos, edit and record music, master a DVD, sync your cell phone with your contacts, calendar, etc, send music and data to your cell phone via bluetooth manager, firewire 800, built in isight camera for video conferencing, run any OS you want to. I mean you can't compare a PC laptop to mac fairly because there is no such thing as a low end mac. Plus the mac is way more secure, and OS X is fast and stable as hell!

If you are still skeptical ask around I am sure you know someone who has one and see if you can play around with it.
 
how does the performance of booting windows on a mac differ than windows on a pc. is there any noticeable slow down, or is it the performance just about the same on the two platforms with similar specs?
 
lancerzwarrior said:
how does the performance of booting windows on a mac differ than windows on a pc. is there any noticeable slow down, or is it the performance just about the same on the two platforms with similar specs?
Click to expand...

its a core 2 duo processor and 1 gig of ram, and whatever video card you put on, it performs the same and in some cases better.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top