Windows Desktop, Apple Laptop

I just wanted to hear from some people who use a windows based desktop but have a Mac OS based laptop. You can talk about compatability, cool things you found, how well it works out, etc. Really, i'm trying to decide between a dell xps 15 and a macbook pro 13 but I thought it would be good to hear people's experiences with this kind of set-up. I game on my desktop but I was hoping the macbook 13 would be able to handle games like CS:S or Stalker: Call of Pripyat.

Summary: Share your experiences operating between a Windows desktop and a Mac OS laptop.

 

Hi Dekabal,

I currently use a Windows Desktop and Windows Laptop, and just purchased a MacBook Pro 13" for school and portability (replaced a netbook). I wouldn't suggest you get a 13" MBP for gaming, the integrated GPU seems Ok for normal use, but I imagine that games will run quite slow. If you want to go beyond casual gaming, you would probably be better off with the Dell. The Mac is great for general productivity tasks, and my favorite feature is not needing to run an Anti-Virus software. When I need to sit down and do school work, with my Mac I can sit down, turn it on and go to work. With my Windows netbook I had to usually let it at least virus scan and sometimes wait while it installed patches. The Mac just makes it easier. When it comes to gaming, I head back to my Windows boxes. Hope this helps!

Rich S.

 

I have a Win7 desktop and MacBook Pro 15". I'd recommend downloading "BetterTouchTool" for the MacBook as that tool alone is worth the price of admission on Apple. You can customize trackpad gestures to do any hotkey you want. With only my trackpad hand, I could:
open/close tabs
go back/forward
refresh
close window, application
volume up/down

Just having all that available means never having to move your hand around that much or using your other hand to look for some keyboard combination.

Other than the trackpad, I have to say the MBP isn't worth it. I just got a Lenovo x120e and undervolted so that the fan is off 90-95% of the time. Complete silence. Battery goes 7 hours or so. 3.2lbs. 1366x768 stinks, but it's on a sub 12" screen.

Point is, if you have a desktop (I'm at 1920x1200) then you don't need that much power from your laptop. Your requirements change. Mine became light, quiet and long battery. YMMV. If you want to stick with Apple, I'd wait for the new Airs.

 

I run Windows and Mac desktops and laptops. Im going to agree with both above posts. the IGP in the MBP's is between the the old Nvidia 9400 and 9600. great for portability but I tend to leave it there.

Call of Pripyat recomended the Nvidia 9800/ Radeon 4850 or higher in a desktop card so forget decent res on the intel mobile IGP.

set it to scan when the system is not in use, and optmize the schedulers.

agreed itsa fantastic tool to have installed.

im OLD hence a keyboard junkie I tend to PREFER keyboard shotcuts to speed me up an is actually one point I do NOT like about OSX is the ability to remap and set shortcuts without extra apps.

going to now reluctantly agree fully now. I went with the X220 and ove the 10-14 hour battery life, but can not undervolt it yet with the new SB processors. and yes 768 stinks but every system has it sacrifices.

but to the OP im still going to say depending on the res and detail you want and the size of the games the 13" is by far not the most ideal solution, the 15 and 17 arent bad though. but in the end its all personal preferences

 

That's because you are (or at least were) using Windows as your primary OS on your MBP. Driver support, even from third parties, is not that great under Windows for Apple hardware. The whole point behind getting any Mac is to have Apple's design along with Mac OS X. There is no point in paying a higher price to buy Apple hardware if you are just going to run Windows the majority of the time as there are other Windows based notebooks that have similar designs, similar build quality, have better Windows driver support, and cost less.

That is why the general rule of thumb is to only go with a Mac if you want/need to run Mac OS X most of the time. Apple has always been about the hardware and software integration. Taking out half of their equation just leaves you with a fancy notebook with sub-par Windows driver support.

 

In terms of compatibility (not exactly sure what the OP meant by that) but most of the same software is on both platforms. In terms of maintenance you will find the Mac OS to be a LOT less to deal with, you can turn it on and get work done. I will say this, if you're going to make the effort to use/buy the Mac equivalents or Mac versions of the same Windows software you use so you can maintain compatibility then by all means get a Mac notebook to compliment your Windows desktop. But if you're going to be using it to play a lot of games that aren't even available for Mac then you'd have to pay extra for a Windows license and that point just buy a decent Windows laptop.

Just as you buy a Windows machine to run Windows, buy a Mac to run Mac OS.

 

Oh, some things I forgot to mention. Presumably, you'd want file sharing between computers. For whatever reason, file sharing is very slow on the network between platforms. I don't know which OS is to blame, but it's just slow. Whenever I was transferring large files it was very annoying.

Once you have your shares up, say that your MBP is set to create network shares on startup, the shares won't start hidden. They will popup each time you login and you have to manually close them.

Another gripe is that you don't need a password to access your Win7 share. It's bizarre. It's also Microsoft's fault for having bad security and maybe there's a rationale to the bad security design decision.

 

Speaking of sharing...take a look at the icon for the SMB share in OSX

 

thats not really a great idea, since there is malware out there (just like MacDefender which hit a lot of people)... Sophos Mac version for home use is free and doesn't take much overhead.

 

There are also a lot of phishing scams as of late--not that an antivirus will really protect you from those as they come out, but just something to watch out for.

 

Yeah, Apple has finally hit critical mass where it's now worth it to target them for scams. People think that Mac OS was built with superior security, but the truth is that it just didn't have enough people using it to make it worth it.

But because Apple users tend to be more affluent and because so many users believe themselves to be immune to malware and other threats, it makes them the perfect targets.

 

Eh, I don't believe so--at least not yet. Mac users still form a small, albeit growing, minority in the PC market--I don't think they're even up to 10% in the US yet, and it's much much smaller overseas. As much as we'd like to believe we're some sort of niche market, the reality is we're simply a very small minority of PC users

Even discounted by some sort of availability heuristic or any particular vulnerabilities in OSX or Safari, I don't think there are enough Mac users to justify the returns for any rational actor...yet.

I mean look at that MacDefender exploit. Sure it's received a lot of press--among Apple fans only--but how much money could they really have made? Keeping in mind that they would have stolen CC numbers, so the affluence of the target market is less relevant (to the extent that anyone who honestly believes he has been infected, whether on a Mac or PC, will be willing to pay to fix it, and to the extent that people holding your CC number with ulterior motives will be willing to use it to buy anything they want regardless of credit limits). The economics simply don't make sense--not much money to be made that way. Aim wide, and you'd have a lot more CC numbers to play with

I'm not too concerned about OSX really. What IS surprising to me is that some enterprising entrepreneur hasn't figured out a way to exploit iOS or Android significantly yet. THAT's a market ripe for the picking.

 

Shameful, talk about stereotyping people. I know a lot of Mac users that saved up to buy one. You do not know the financial situation of most Mac users so that's ridiculous.

 

I would be curious to hear whether Sophos was of any value in protecting those who would have been otherwise afflicted with the MacDefender Trojan?

Sure, I'm sure there are anecdotes from users saying, "I have Sophos, and I never got it". But there are also many more who can also say that they don't have an AV, and were also never faced with the problem.

Have you heard of anyone saying that Sophos actually intervened and would not permit the user to run the software, even though they set Safari to automatically download it, and subsequently gave permission for the app to run? From what I understand, that was the typical means of infection.

 

Well...are there any testimonials of anyone who's had any wild infection that targets OSX detected and removed by any OSX AV?

I mean there are a ton of OSX AV out there actually--all the major brands have one, and there are a number of OSX-exclusive names too. But who really knows how effective any of them are compared to one another?

Wouldn't it be nice to have a few actual outbreaks, just to see how the competition in the OSX AV market is doing? Some market data at last!

 

I know what you mean, Taelrak.

I keep hearing the "better safe than sorry" argument in favor of this AV, or that. But never have I heard of any specifics, except that some Mac AV programs, by virtue of their duplication of a Windows product, help protect OTHER people's (WIN) systems.

I suppose the real question is... Do these programs utilize some form of heuristics to actually prevent a program with malicious intent from making changes to the system, whether they be authorized by a novice user, or not.

I'm just seeing information onto which to base a rational decision. I don't use a Mac AV, and have thus far seen no reason to do so. I am extremely open to change in that regard, but am not willing to just follow the herd.

 

Good answer!

 

well I never fell for it, but I went ahead and tried to install it on purpose, and Sophos does have protection for it, so yes it can prevent that one... but its always possible someone can get hit before a Sophos update comes out.

 

I have a Windows Desktop and a Macbook Pro 13.

What I enjoy doing is connecting to my desktop remotely from the Macbook to stream content over there, or move files back and forth.

I honestly think it's the best of both worlds. Windows based desktops are far more versatile than iMacs but Macbook Pros are the best built laptops for the money in my opinion.

All in all, if I could only use one OS for the rest of my life, I will trade in my Macbook Pro without even thinking about it. I'm just more comfortable with Windows 7.

 

How do you stream like that between OS's and can you download files from one computer to another?

 

Does anyone do any programming between their macbooks and desktops like java, c sharp, or anything related to web development?