Mac Windows compatibility

I am new to macs and I am currently looking at various lappies after being screwed by Dell. Waited for 45 days for my laptop only for it to be canceled yesterday, due to a Dell screwup.

I am very interested in the new Mac Book Pro but I will be installing windows on it. I do a lot of coding and windows is a requirement for me. My issues are

a) If I install windows do all of the macbook components work ? like cameras, wireless etc ? I might install vista or XP

b) How easy is it to upgrade various components like Hard disk and RAM ?

c)I am looking at the 2.2 GHZ version with 128 mb NVIDIA 8600GT GPU, How good is the graphics on this system, I will be watching a lot of video and may be some video editing. But little or no gaming.

d) I need a laptop which can handle lot of multitasking and also handle my coding requirements. Like running Visual Studio and all. If windows is successfully installed on the laptop then would all windows apps work ? technically they should but wanted to make sure.

Though Macbook is a bit costly compared with Dell I want to see if this is a good option performance wise.

Thanks for your replies.

 

I also got nailed by Dell's ridiculous shipping delays and order screw ups. Hence why I got my 2nd choice, the MacBook Pro. Here are answers to your questions:

A) Yes, the camera works, wireless, keyboard, dvd-burner, bluetooth work. The only thing that is not yet supported in Windows is the tap-click on the touchpad and the light sensor on the MBP where it will light up the keyboard in low light conditions and dim/brighten the screen automatically. Hopefully these will be worked out in the next release of Boot Camp.

For the mouse, I recommend using a two-button mouse to plug-in when using Windows, as the tap functionality makes using the touchpad a bit tedious.

B) While it is possible to upgrade the hard-drive yourself, there are two reasons not to do it yourself: firstly, it voids your warranty and secondly, its not as easy to do as on traditional PC laptops. You have to unscrew a lot of parts just to get to the harddrive. If you want to upgrade your hard-drive, you'll need to send it in to Apple or take it to an Apple retail store.

Upgrading the RAM is a different story though, as that is easily accessible and does not void the warranty if you do it yourself. I do not recommend buying the memory directly from Apple, as that is very costly.

C) The graphics on the system are very good. I've ran World Of Warcraft on full-settings and it ran beautifully. I expect that your video editing needs will be full-filled with this laptop.

D) Like you, I also needed to do my development stuff in Visual Studio and in Windows XP/Vista. With Boot Camp, you can install Windows XP/Vista and it provides you the necessary drivers in its wizard. Visual Studio 2005 runs perfectly in the Windows XP setup I got on mine. If you get VMWare Fusion, you can even use that to get to the Boot Camp partition while you are in the Mac OSX operating system.

Just be forwarned, the keyboard layout on the MacBook Pro is a bit different from what you'd get in a traditional PC laptop, so some adjustments will need to be done. I'm transitioning myself pretty well to it, but there are some bumps in the road. Some old habits die hard.

 

A) Everything works in Boot Camp except double tapping on the touchpad <strike>and the backlit keyboard</strike> on the MBP. That will probably be sorted out in future releases of Boot Camp.

B) Upgrading RAM is pretty easy. Upgrading the hard drive will void the warranty unless you get it upgraded by an Apple certified technician.

C) Watching video and most video editing will not really use the graphics card, they're more CPU intensive, so yes, those tasks will be fine on the MBP and MacBook as well.

D) Yes, in Boot Camp basically anything you can run on Windows you can run on your Mac.

EDIT: Thank you SumitBahl for the correction .

 

Its already sorted out in the latest version of bootcamp 1.4.

http://www.apple.com/macosx/bootcamp/

 

Oh, nice. Thanks for the heads-up, SumitBahl! I appreciate it .

 

The one thing that's important is to make sure you are getting your money's worth. What I mean is for someone that is new to Macs you never once asked about the Mac system, you only asked about running Windows on it. What I mean about getting your money's worth is that you mentioned that the MBP is quite costly so if you have no intention on using OS X since it's actually a physical Macintosh and not a physical PC you will be paying soley for the hardware that's not truly designed to be anything but a Mac OS X notebook.
Be prepared that some things on the Mac are not going to work while using Windows so if you have concerns about that and price then you are better off with a physical Windows PC.
You can find notebooks in Asus and Sony with very a compelling fit and finish against the MBP.

 

No worries.

 

I wonder whether this Windows compatibility business is a deliberate plan to destroy the Macintosh and render Apple Inc. a "cool" electronic gadgets company alone, or an ingenious move to expand the Mac hardware market, and have MacOs conquer the Windows platforms "from within", as it were.

Sadly, I think it's the former.

 

I think its just another incentive to get a Mac for those who've always admired OS X but couldn't get away from Windows because of work or their tons of software for Windows. With Boot Camp and Parallels/VMware Fusion, people can finally use OS X and still be able to use that same laptop for work or gaming or the software they have on Windows.

The strategy surely is working; Macs are selling at record numbers and OS X market share is increasing rapidly.

 

Sam, I could not agree with you more. I am held ransom by Windows only software, but want to use OS X for everything else because of the reliability and excitement factor.

 

Thanks for all your replies. As someone mentioned I didnt ask about Mac OSX...I have always admired Mac for its form factor however i have never been able to go Mac way because I am tied up with windows and cant have two laptops.

However since windows can be installed on Mac and when I can have the best of the both worlds then why not have them and if in course of things if I like OSX better than windows then I would start using Mac more than windows.

I feel this is a win-win for apple by getting people like me who would never have tried a mac, if not for the boot camp, try it and get introduced to Mac OSX.

One question is Nvidia 8600t in Mac has DDR3 vs DDR2 in dell, does this make a major difference ? though dell has 256MB and MBP has 128mb (2.2ghz edition).

 

I would say Apple created CRIPPLED bootcamp for a reason.
Lots of people (like myself) bought Mac's just to run Windows.
So apple thought - lets make those people to be discomforted by windows.
So they created dodgy ACPI driver, which keeps fans spinning at 1000 rpm instead of 2000 rpm as default in OSX. That way it heats up sooner..
Then they created touchpad driver which does not allow tapping (though driver itself recongnizes tapping perfectly - because it allows two fingers down + mouse click to immitate right click). Also that touchpad is not made by apple - it is probably synaptics or alps - so apple had windows driver from them - and they still chose to disable some functions to make it more annoying.
Apple just wants to have monopoly - so you would use apple hardware, apple software, apple phone - and if you choose to use something else - then they make it uncomfortable. I have iPhone and MBP - will never buy anything from Apple again...

 

Please stop this, alenas.

Apple did not cripple Boot Camp. Its in Beta. So many people forget that point. As a beta tester, you're actually supposed to expect crashes and bugs all the time. Do you actually get that? No, Boot Camp is amazingly stable and a great product for a beta.

Why are some features missing? Its not a released product yet, that's why!

Oh, and by the way you talk about Apple all the time, I'm surprised you ever bought anything Apple.

 

1) Yes
2) RAM easy, HDD not easy
3) For what you specified, yes
4)Yes all the apps should work, even bluetooth syncing - however I seem to have a problem with shutdown (not clearing paging file or something).

 

Funny, the OS that YOU support you've conveniently forgotten that the company behind it has monopolized, that's why so many people are forced to use it.
LOL, everywhere you look it's Microsoft, Windows, Xbox, Office, touch screen table. Well at least I can say I have fallen for none of the above unlike you Alenas who talks smack about Apple but you fell right into their trap of the iPhone and MBP.

P.S You'll buy another Apple again, you just bought 2 when there is so many other choices.
Poor Alenas, she truly loves the Mac OS.