Thinking of buying mac again but with some questions

So i am thinking of getting the low end 15inch macbook pro. I will mainly be doing game development with a focus on android and iphone apps. And some small 3d modeling and major notetaking in school.

1: hows the battery life on this model? Will it last me a good 7-8 hours? If its slighlty less thats fine.

2: I play alot of starcraft 2 on my machine. Will the 6490 be enough to handle the game itself?

3: How are the games from steam on this machine?

I am not a heavy pc gamer. I just like the simplicity of OSX compared to windows and the battery life on macs is amazing. I also plan on using programs like Maya, photoshop and video editing like final cut pro. Will this model fair okay?

 

I just got it 3 weeks ago. =D Battery life is about 6-7 of wireless surfing, but without the aiport turned on, it might even last up to 8 hours.

Starcraft 2 plays with no lag at all in 1280x800, all high setting. Black ops runs fine with 1280x800, AAx2, and all settings enabled. Left4Dead 2 runs fine with similar res, and all other settings maxed out.

Photoshop is great in this mac. Never tried the final cut though. Hope this could be of help.

 

1: it varies too much on what apps you are running, what you have turned on, screen brightnes etc. I find I get 3.5 - 5.75 dependng on what im doing. ( screen at 75%, wifi/BT ) in OSX 2- 3.5 hrs in wndows. granted im not just using basic web browsing without flash and word here. but have never personally gotten more than 6

2: it should be fine. may not get to enable all the AA eye candy though.

3: for the ones available they seem to be OK, I still find myself dropping into bootcamp mostly though

for MAYA what all are you rendering? and are you using an external rendering app? for photoshop how diehard are you and are you working with very large RAW files and color calibrations? again in FCP how heavy of video and are you using an external rendering/processing app?

 

1: battery life is good

2: SC2 runs OK, but it runs way better in windows. You may want to have windows ready.

3: Same as #2, except most games are windows only. Even for games that are available, the performance is just considerably higher in windows.

 

For Maya i wont be rendering anything super high res. The most advanced modeling i will probalby be doing is a model for an iphone game. As for photoshop i work in lots of layers with many filters and layer effect on for texturing and soft shadows. As far as fcp, a simple trailer here and there but nothing high def or anything. And for the AA in games, i dont care much for the effect. I hardly notice anything really but thats just me.