What type of battery life does rMBP 15 have with Windows 7?

Hello all. I am in the process of buying a new lappie mostly for internet browsing/document manipulation/some software development work.

I am a long time windows user so that interface is much more familiar to me so I will be using Win 7 on it full time.But I would just like to know, what type of battery life does it have? Do the 7 hour battery life claims really hold up, especially with win 7 running? I want a laptop that can stay away from mains power the whole work day.

How do the two different SKUs [the 2199 one and the 2799] compare in terms of battery life? Also, can you use the full resolution on windows?

Thanks guys!

 

According to KCETech1, running Windows 7 on the rMBP drops down the battery life by 45%, so you'd be looking at just over three hours of battery life when running Windows.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/wha...88537-sony-z3-apple-rmbp-running-windows.html

 

ON top of that because you're forced to using the GT 650m it gets pretty hot at least compared to running OSX

 

Then buy a Windows notebook. Macs are meant to run OS X. Windows support is offered as a courtesy.

 

I have to agree with this as well. You'll get better Windows support from a computer that's explicitly designed to run Windows. If you fill out the sticky ( http://forum.notebookreview.com/wha...ould-i-buy-form-must-read-before-posting.html) and post it in the WNBSIB thread, we can recommend a more ideal laptop for you than the rMBP

 

The Touchpad on windows makes me very sad, beacuse it's so Lovely on MAC OSX that when using it on Windows gives it no justice. Completely love that touchpad...

 

Thanks for the replies guys! Well apple gear still has some advantages for Windows users, namely the cool factor [this is a big one for me since I am going back to school this semester and I want to fit in XD] and the resale value. And I can't really afford not using windows, though, since SQL Server Mangement Studio and Visual Studio is a staple for me.

With that said, though, rMBP is still the first apple notebook I have seriously considered buying because of the unreal screen, powerful hardware in a svelte package and the good selection of ports. But 3 hours battery life is pretty worrying :/

This is the closest Windows equivalent I can find but the fact that its within a 100 dollars of the rMBP makes redundant one of the main reasons to go for non-Apple - the price!

Amazon.com: ASUS UX51Vz-DH71 15.6-Inch Laptop: Computers & Accessories

Do you guys know any other ultrabook-like lappies with quadcore i7s?

 

Well, I don't think that a good reason to buy a laptop is to "fit in"; about half of my campus uses MBPs and half use Latitudes or Precisions (Dell and Apple shop), and they all are pretty popular (probably because they bought them from the campus store). But most of the MBP people are liberal arts majors with no specific software needs, whereas just about all my engineering and computer science peers use Wintels (or BootCamp, oddly enough), so a computer purchase should be completely functional if you ask me. If you want to fit in, focus on just going out and meeting people when you can. That's how you really make good friends in this world .

 

That's about the worst possible reason you could give for wanting a specific computer. Needs for your studies should come first.

Only two USB ports and no Ethernet do not a good selection of ports make. And again, there's the issue of battery life plus heat generation since the discreet GPU runs all the time. That would not be the case on the Asus system you mentioned.

Edit: Another thing to take into consideration is the Retina model's near total lack of upgradability. The RAM is soldered onto the logic board, so unless you order 16 GB from the start, you're stuck. Further, while the built-in SSD can be replaced, it's a proprietary part. The only ways to change it would be for a 2nd-hand Apple one purchased on eBay or the like. The only other source is Other World Computing. In either case, both would be very costly.

 

You can run Windows applications in a virtual machine, thereby enjoying the battery life and trackpad usability advantages of OS X. If you use Parallels or VMware Fusion, your Windows apps can run side by side with OS X apps. Example here:

Setting up your Mac for .NET development | Brian Hartsock's Blog

If you're going to buy a rMBP 15, use Boot Camp for Windows games only. Stay in OS X as much as you can and use a VM for other Windows apps.

 

Your post has me worrying. You can't be serious? You want to buy a Macbook to run Windows because of the cool factor so you can "fit in"? Oy vey. Trust me on this one, the "Cool Factor" is dead on the Macbook if you plan on installing Windows and running it that way full time. Do yourself a huge favor and spend more time shopping for a dedicated Windows notebook that offers good build quality and features that you need to run your software and ditch the idea of using it to make you look good in front of the students at school.

 

The touchpad is really really really bad/grusome on windows 7. Granted I may feel this because I primarily use OSX but whenever I use windows 7 on my macbook I'm just eriked by how bad that touchpad is, between it's low-responsiveness and ticky-tacky right click, left click. Something just isn't right or is just off about it

 

I'm a long time Windows guy, first time Mac owner and I use bootcamp. I will tell you that I enjoy OSX very much and use it most of the time. However, I'm also thoroughly enjoying Bioshock Infinite right now which is windows only. I use a virtual machine running Windows 7 for programming all day for work. I play games in bootcamp when I have time which is not often. I do everything else in OSX. The trackpad works very well in virtual machines. Both Parallels and VMware do a great job of translating the smoothness of the trackpad into the virtual machine. Since I really only game in bootcamp, the trackpad isn't really a big showstopper. I use a mouse for gaming or the trusty xbox 360 controller. If you want to restore as much functionality as possible to the trackpad in Windows 7 on bootcamp, you'll want to load the bootcamp drivers and then install Trackpad++. It returns some of the functionality that is missing and gives you more settings to adjust it a bit better.

As far as battery life goes, you'll get four or five hours with the discrete graphics enabled depending on what you are doing. It could be as low as three hours. If you are just programming and doing SQL Server work, you can easily do that in a VM. I have a utility for the Mac called gfxCardStatus that lets me force the computer to stay on integrated graphics or discrete... whichever I prefer. I get pretty good battery runtime out of it even running my VM if I force it to stay on integrated. CAUTION: If you force the machine onto integrated after you have already launched the VM with discrete, it will crash. You have to put it on integrated before booting the virtual machine. After that, it runs just fine. Also, if you force it onto integrated, you can't use an external monitor. The rMBP switches to discrete for running multiple monitors.

All in all it's a great machine and it runs windows as well or better than any other laptop I've ever had but I certainly wouldn't boot directly into windows unless I had to for a specific reason and I'm out of there as soon as I'm through with whatever that is. I see no reason to run windows just for Visual Studio and SQL Server. Neither of those is particularly taxing for development. I use them both every day in a VM. XCode is great too although it is a whole other world compared to Microsoft development tools. I also have GCC installed so I can just compile in a terminal shell while editing with ViM so I don't have to bother with anybody's IDE.

If you buy a MacBook, learn OSX. It's worth the effort and you will be resentful when you have to use Windows after that.

 

I run Windows 7 on my rMBP 100% of the time and I get about 4-4.5 hours of browsing, OneNote usage and movie watching. You can play with settings to increase after you install Windows 7. As for the trackpad, once you install Boot Camp, download drivers from Power Plan Assistant and the Trackpad++ drivers and the trackpad becomes absolutely phenomenal, and includes all the multi-touch swipe gestures and responsiveness you may be used to from OSX. Without those drivers, everyone who posted above me is right, the trackpad is horrible.

The laptop does run a bit warmer than on OSX, but its not uncomfortable and usually not noticable unless you have the power settings on high performance.

 

I can barely fit 3 hours on bootcamp with some browsing (I guess I turn the brighness too high)