Should I sell Sony SR for MBP 13"?

I bought a Sony Vaio SR-190 CTO 2.4ghz/4GB/320HD/ATI 3470 (paid $1,700) and get only 3 1/2 battery life on low settings surfing the web. Before getting the SR last august I wanted a Macbook, but I wasn't willing to wait till December to get the new unibody as I needed a laptop for college. I was going to buy an iMac to supplement my Vaio SR (since I do music recording and Mac has great music programs) but figured that it would be better to sell my Vaio, buy the new MBP. (having everything I need in 1 machine)

I have a few questions before doing that "trade"?
1)I am running a 2.4ghz processor on the Vaio, so I'm not sure whether to get the 2.53 or 2.2 on the MBP. (I wouldn't want to feel like I sacrificed speed)?

2)I like my XBRITE-ECO screen alot (washy from certain angles-->Z-series screen is better). I heard the MBP's screen is as amazing (except the glossyness), has anyone owned both machines or compared screens?

3)I've been reading about the SATA I SATA II speed restrictions (whatever its called) And was planning on upgrading the hard drive to a 500 GB Seagate 7200rpms. Will the SATA I problem make the 7200 HD not be as fast as it could be?

4)How does the Ati 3470 on my SR compare to the NVIDIA 9400M? Can I run the Sims 3 and the Sims 2 as flawlessly as I can on my SR?

5)What works better with bootcamp XP or Vista/7? I would only use Windows for Microsoft office/the sims 3 (if it wasn't good on OSX)

6)Anyone connect a HD Sony Camera to a Mac? Can iMovie read the sony format AVCHD? One of the problems my Vaio has is that I need a special program to decode Sony's AVCHD and that takes forever. (Hence my wanting to move to Mac, not to mention how many problems with Vista)

Thank You, I soon hope to be a fellow Mac convert. (I already own an Iphone since it came out and started loving apple's simplicity since then)

**Does anyone know how much I could sell my Sony Vaio SR-190CTO for? I have no idea and wouldn't want to overprice it.
It looks new (no scratches)/ ATI 3470/2.4ghz/4GB RAM/320GB HD

 

If you're planning to run Windows through bootcamp, the battery life will likely be worse than your sony laptop.

 

Why is that?

 

The Windows drivers for Mac are not very good.

 

I've been running Vista 64 for about a month and half now on my mbp, and while I wouldn't recommend buying a mac to exclusively run windows, the only two issues that I've run into are a) poorer battery life than OS X and b) the fact that it runs hotter in Vista as opposed to OS X. If they could fix those two key issues, for me, there would not be any significant difference between running Vista on a PC or on a Mac.

 

HA! Thats a good one. When man walks on the moon maybe?

Oh they did already? And that was 40 year ago?

So what is Job's and Gate's problem then? Are they the two issues?

 

Gates doesn't care about apple. He's already retired a year ago. LOL

1 Part of the problem might be that Apple wants to make money and purposely made the Windows driver crappy to demote Windows (pretty good strategy if you look at the money making and advertising point of view).
It could also be that Mac really has issue supporting Windows.
It could also be that the people who writes the drivers for mac for Windows doesn't know how to write proper Windows driver.

My bet would be on the 1st guess.

 

I don't really buy this argument though I've read it before. It seems to me that if someone buys a mac and needs to use windows, and their experience is poor, they'll be more likely to buy a pc next time around.

Also, I've never heard of a company releasing software that is intended to sabotage your experience. I can't imagine how that meeting would go with the engineers. I mean sure I guess they could purposefully underfund that division, or have limited numbers of people working on it, but to me it makes more sense that they would want to make the best windows machine possible (that is assuming they think OS X is the superior OS). They obviously haven't done that yet, but why wouldn't that be their ultimate goal? I seem to remember them being pretty happy about the first intel based machines being characterized as the best windows machines.

Anyway windows on the Mac isnt perfect...the reason why is simple speculation at this point...and I'm speculating that it will improve.

 

do you have to use Apple sourced drivers or can generic drivers be used? Such as drivers directly from Nvidia, etc...

 

I'm assuming you've never seen Microsoft Office 2007 (Windows) vs. Microsoft Office 2008 (Mac)? Microsoft purposely made the Mac version suck and the Windows version awesome to get people to stay on Windows. Sure, MS makes money on the Mac version but that's not their intent, they want people to stay on Windows.

 

Yeah, for whatever reason, MS Office for Mac is apparently worse than it is for Windows (I dunno, I've never used it). Again, whether its because there is some directive from on high that it should suck, or they have less engineers, less time and less resources, is just speculation.

Your example actually supports the main point I'm trying to make. If someone buys a Mac and finds Office 2008 to be completely useless on it (and they need it), there's a higher likelihood of them going back to a PC. If someone who buys a Mac and finds Windows to be completely useless on it (and they need it), there's a higher likelihood of them going back to the PC.

Its in Apple's best interest to make the Mac the best Windows machine possible again assuming they believe (and that their users will agree) that their OS is superior to MS's. Think they've said as much on one or two occasions.

 

Can someone show me a link says that apple thyself are making drivers for Mac OS or Windows?

 

No, he still cares - at least enough to not allow his family to get/buy/use any Apple products (including the iPod and iPhone).

 

sony still has a better screen (viewing angle wise) than the 13" mbp, i would even go further to say sony has better on 15"

 

that's too much isn't it? consider MS has noncontrolling shares of apple(or were they sold already?)

 

If you want to run Office 2007 on your new MBP, I'd suggest doing it via Parallels or Fusion. I'd only set up a windows partition via bootcamp if I were gaming.

You can probably get virtualization software for cheap with a student discount. You will need a licensed copy of windows, though. That goes for either method of running Windows. You can get away with the RC of Windows 7, but that won't last forever.

If you don't have a Windows install disk and need to buy one, then it's probably time to consider whether Office for Windows is *that* necessary. Yes, it's better than Office 08. But for the average user who isn't heavy into macros/programming (most college students) and doesn't need MS Access, Office 08 will suffice.

 

Microsoft didn't purposely made the Mac version suck. Microsoft Office for Windows and Microsoft Office for Mac aren't even made by the same group of developers. That's why there's so much difference between the mac and Windows version. They're essentailly two different software.

My educated guess is that Microsoft doesn't really care about about Mac user that much. After all, most of the sales of Microsoft Office suite goes towards corporate users which do not use Mac, at least 99.99% of the time. Software development cost money and MS wants to earn a lot of money, so they obviously took the smarter route; spending tonnes of money on the Windows version where it matters the most. Since the Mac user base is so small, spending tonnes of money on mac software development is pretty much a waste of money.

 

mac os internet share is about 10% of total internet users,which,by resent report,is about a billion people...so mac os users are ~ 100 000 000 people...since when it is considered a small amount?

 

I believe it is roughly 10% in North america and Europe, I believe it is much lower in India ad asia so probabally closer to 50 million which is still significant

Update: after a quick look it was said at the WWDC that they estimate 75M Mac users

 

it is worldwide average AFAIK.

 

I saw a statistic showing India at 3.4% and China at approx 2% .... but hey who believes the numbers guys

 

http://marketshare.hitslink.com/os-market-share.aspx?qprid=9

 

What about in corporate/government scenarios. I bet more than 99% of the user base are "PC". That's also where MS makes the bulk of their income.

 

I disagree! Lots of writers,designers,students,developers,video,audio editors use Macs...

 

1)I am running a 2.4ghz processor on the Vaio, so I'm not sure whether to get the 2.53 or 2.2 on the MBP. (I wouldn't want to feel like I sacrificed speed)?

You won't notice a difference either way

3)I've been reading about the SATA I SATA II speed restrictions (whatever its called) And was planning on upgrading the hard drive to a 500 GB Seagate 7200rpms. Will the SATA I problem make the 7200 HD not be as fast as it could be?

SATA I won't be a problem unless you plan on using a fast SSD. Though I'm pretty sure Apple will fix the problem soon through a firmware update.

4)How does the Ati 3470 on my SR compare to the NVIDIA 9400M? Can I run the Sims 3 and the Sims 2 as flawlessly as I can on my SR?

Without actually looking up the benchmarks, probably the same. I don't think you'll have trouble running The Sims on either card.

6)Anyone connect a HD Sony Camera to a Mac? Can iMovie read the sony format AVCHD? One of the problems my Vaio has is that I need a special program to decode Sony's AVCHD and that takes forever. (Hence my wanting to move to Mac, not to mention how many problems with Vista)
If you need a special program to decode the format then you probably won't be able to run it natively in iMovie. You'll probably need to dual boot Windows or virtualize it in Mac OS.

Really? I highly prefer the Mac version; there's so many more features.

 

I don't want to hijack the thread, so I'll let that fastball go by

Sticking strictly to Office 08 - I am curious to know if one of those features is compatibility with spaces. Office 08's screwy behavior with spaces is one of my biggest pet peeves with the software.

Apologies to OP for the digression...

 

1) The difference is insignificant.

2) The screen on the MBP is supposed to be really good from what I have read, it seems that among those who don't really like it, they simply don't like glossy screens.

3) The 1.5 SATA connection won't matter with a non-SSD hard drive.

4) If The Sims runs fine on Mac, yeah you can. The 9400M is about 10% faster than the HD3470.

5) If you're not an engineering student, I would consider getting the less powerful Mac version of Microsoft Office. It is likely you won't need the additional features of the Windows Version. For a full Windows installation, I would recommend Vista. XP will soon no longer be getting any security updates or support from Microsoft.

6) Mac's come with ton's of hardware drivers, if it is a recent camera, it very likely will work.

 

Thanks! Your answers were just what i needed. I will prob get my mac soon and do a review side by side with the sr.

 

You're welcome. I'm thinking of selling my SR to get a MBP as well, so I'll be glad to hear what you think of the MBP when you switch.