Mac book pro with vista???

I was seriously thinking about buying a Macbook Pro but its just such a premium for the software and the hardware in a windows machine is way cheaper... it's just thats its kinda hard for me to justify paying the premium as a full time student. My gf has a Macbook and I've used it heavily,heck I'm using it to type this but I've also used my sisters laptop with vista and vista is definitely not as great looking or intuitive as OS X but I've also learned that the problems with vista aren't as huge as people made them out to be...at least for my uses and I think with some service packets it'll be fine. I also agree with Sam that Linux does have the best chance of taking a serious chunk out of Windows if it plays it's cards right. Lastly I wish Apple would price they're laptops more competitively.

 

Well, at launch their laptops are not too much more costly than other manufacturers... problem is instead of lowering price they keep it the same and just upgrade once in a while.

They seem to treat their notebooks like average consumer electronics (iPods, video players, etc...) instead of the way other places treat notebooks as... well, as notebooks lol.

 

One other note as to why Mac's are a bit costlier than PC's: Bloatware & Crapware.

When you get a new Dell or HP or Gateway machine, it comes preloaded with a bunch of (mostly) useless software. Furthermore, you don't get a clean Windows XP or Vista installation disk. You get a master disc that contains the same bloatware that your computer came with. Its one way that PC manufacturers make money. Selling just the hardware doesn't give them enough $$ to make ends meet so they resort to that trick.

Apple on the other hand does not do such a thing. You get a clean OS installation disc, but because Apple has no 3rd party crapware preloaded they have to increase the price to make it somewhat profitable for them. The price difference in hardware can probably be the same between an iMac and PC, but its the cost of a clean operating system that (somewhat) levels the playing field cost-wise.

 

you can daisy chain ESata, from what?

 

Vista on the Macbook Pro is fast. Just as fast and snappy as leopard. Although, I would say a little faster due to the choppyness of dashboard, the dock, and spaces in leopard right now, but I feel the update coming out soon will add new graphics drivers (I hope). However, you will see your MBP warm up much quicker and stay about 10-15 degrees (F) hotter than the mac side. I know the fans in the MBP are hardware controlled and independent of software, but I swear they seem to come on speraticly in Vista, or they just stay on all the time. Also, if you are going to run Vista on your MBP make sure to pickup InputRemapper, because the ambient light sensors on either side of the keyboard don't work that well in windows. From my experience they can only tell if the room is really bright, or really dark. InputRemapper lets you control the screen and keyboard, along with all the other F1-12 controls manually.

Good luck running Vista on it, but I really think such a beautifully designed machine deserves an equally beautiful operating system and while Vista is pretty, Leopard is just worlds ahead.


Just a little something I decided to add here... if you do end up getting one, look into buying something like that ThermalTake Coolpad, Rain Design iLap, or something of the sort. These things, while "screamers", get really hot while gaming.