Want to sell laptop and maybe get a Mac

[dlock13]

I'm looking to sell my laptop and POSSIBLY buy a MacBook Pro. I don't know how wise this decision would be, but it seems to be a good idea. Anyway, I have a Gateway P-7811FX laptop with these specs:
2.26 GHZ C2D
4 GB DDR3 1033 MHZ
Nvidia 9800M GTS
17" 1920x1200 LCD panel
640 GB (320 x 2) 7200 RPM

The thing is, MacBook Pros are extremely expensive, and I'm more than likely not going to get the same performance or performance I'd like by purchasing one. Also, after being spoiled by a screen of that resolution, I don't know if I could go down to 1680x1050 or less. I don't care about the OS because I can easily learn OSX, and if I don't like it, I'll put Windows 7 on it, but then there's no reason to get a MacBook because I could get a cheaper PC.

Anyway, one main reason I would like a MacBook Pro is because they are quality and built to last. Sure there is degradation in them, but there's not NEARLY as much as Gateway's or most other companies'. The battery is killer, and the laptops are quite mobile. Currently, if I were to take my laptop with me, it's 10 lbs on my back/arm. A 17" MacBook Pro is a little under 8 lbs. Not a huge difference, but I'm not even looking at the 17" ones because they are way, WAY out of my price range.

Anyway, is there anyway I can get the performance/build quality/portability like a MacBook Pro with a PC? The thing is, I'm afraid that if I do get a MacBook, I'm going to get bored with it and be sad I don't have a good Windows laptop. Blah!

So I'm stuck! What should I do? Does anyone have any suggestions for me? I'm really looking for a new laptop as this one is showing it's age. I would love a laptop that will possibly last me as long as this or more.

Any help would be amazing! Thanks everyone!

 

[AndroidVageta]

Id say stick with the Gateway...gorgeous screen and Ive never seen one like it on any other laptop...hell, even all the LCD monitors Ive ever used. That and its not that slow, its actually quite powerful given what hardware it has. Have you thought about looking into getting a CPU upgrade?

Other than that, get another Windows laptop. I dont think that MacBooks are really built better...Google their issues, they are many and a plenty!

 

[dlock13]

Id say stick with the Gateway...gorgeous screen and Ive never seen one like it on any other laptop...hell, even all the LCD monitors Ive ever used. That and its not that slow, its actually quite powerful given what hardware it has. Have you thought about looking into getting a CPU upgrade?

Other than that, get another Windows laptop. I dont think that MacBooks are really built better...Google their issues, they are many and a plenty!

The thing is, I don't know what CPUs this laptop can handle, and also, it's starting to show it's age. It definitely has a good screen, but when I look at it after using my external monitor, it looks terrible. There is no brightness to the screen and the colors are washed out in comparison.

Also, as I've said previously, this laptop is 10 lbs and carrying it is a feat and a nuisance. I was looking at that Asus G73JH on Newegg for 1549$. Seems to be just as good if not a thousand times better than this one. I don't know what to do. Is that even a good laptop? I know Asus makes quality hardware, but I'm just unsure how that laptop in general performs.

 

[cbn]

I dont think that MacBooks are really built better...Google their issues, they are many and a plenty!

Can someone who purchases MacIntosh also install Windows 7 or Linux?

In an old article I saw "Triple booting" mentioned as a possibility. However, I would like to double check this on the forum.

It would seem to me being able to install windows could help reduce any pains in transitioning completely over to Apple.

 

[AndroidVageta]

You can bootcamp install Windows...if Im not mistaken its kind of like running a virtual machine?

 

[Noriaki]

I had a somewhat similar thread over here: http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2077867
The conclusion seems to be that if you want a good machine, you're going to pay for it. But there are some non-mac options worth looking at. Specifically people seem to like the HP Envy, and it's got a much better video card than the Mac. The 17" Envy is a good chunk cheaper than the MBP, but still going to be like $2000.

That's the key point that really hurts on a mac if you care about overall performance, they have crap video cards. They do have some pretty amazing batteries though.

Although the 17" macbook pro does have a 1920x1200 LCD panel, there isn't a mac laptop that exists at any price that can match a GF9800. The 17" is only about 6.6 pounds by the way, not 8. But you already said it's out of your range.


On the Bootcamp subject: Bootcamp is not much like running a virtual machine. You could also run windows in a virtual machine, but that's not what Bootcamp does. Bootcamp just lets you setup a traditional dual boot, you only have Windows running as the primary OS, not a guest with MacOSX running underneath.

The only thing Bootcamp really does is emulate bios since Macs don't have a tradition PC-compatible BIOS. The rest of the hardware in your mac is pretty run of the mill Intel PC stuff.

Triple booting is more complicated because bootcamp only wants to boot OSX + one bootcamp OS (although it doesn't actually care if that second OS is windows or linux). You can just pretend it's a normal PC at that point and install a second bootloader that knows how to deal with linux and windows once bootcamp passes over control, or you can use rEFIt.

http://refit.sourceforge.net/myths/ outlines more detail about both options and a bunch of other stuff around multibooting macs.

 

[Noriaki]

Oh yeah, one other thing, the Envy likes the 16:9 screens not the 16:10, so you get 1920x1080 not x1200, but you can get 1920x1080 on the 15.6" envy as well. I think it weighs in around 5.5 pounds. Also you might get into that for closer to $1500 depending on options.

 

[Anonemous]

Oh yeah, one other thing, the Envy likes the 16:9 screens not the 16:10, so you get 1920x1080 not x1200, but you can get 1920x1080 on the 15.6" envy as well. I think it weighs in around 5.5 pounds. Also you might get into that for closer to $1500 depending on options.

Yea sometimes there are slick deals/ hotdeals from hp.com on the envys. You can get 25% off with bing cashback (sad they are ending bing on 7/31) or $450 off coupons every few weeks. Got an envy 15 for 780 before taxes/CA waste with 1080P while others loaded it with dual 160 gig Intel G2 ssds for around 1300.

 

[alfa147x]

You can bootcamp install Windows...if Im not mistaken its kind of like running a virtual machine?

No, it's like nativly booting the OS

 

[TheStu]

You can bootcamp install Windows...if Im not mistaken its kind of like running a virtual machine?

You are mistaken actually. Bootcamp is simply a term, once the drive is partitioned you can drop your Windows disk in and go, just like any other computer.

 

[cbn]

You are mistaken actually. Bootcamp is simply a term, once the drive is partitioned you can drop your Windows disk in and go, just like any other computer.

Does this mean a person can run Windows and Snow Leopard simultaneously?

 

[Paperlantern]

No, these are separate boot instances, similar to dual booting (actually it IS dual booting), you can either boot one, or the other, not both. To do both, you need a virtual machine, the most popular virtual machine suite for Apple products is called Parallels, however VMWare also has an Apple version, as well as VirtualBox (which is free).

 

[TheStu]

As Paperlantern said, not with bootcamp. With VMWare Fusion, or Parallels then yes, you could virtualize Windows alongside OS X and have them both running simultaneously.

 

[dlock13]

Oh yeah, one other thing, the Envy likes the 16:9 screens not the 16:10, so you get 1920x1080 not x1200, but you can get 1920x1080 on the 15.6" envy as well. I think it weighs in around 5.5 pounds. Also you might get into that for closer to $1500 depending on options.

Yea sometimes there are slick deals/ hotdeals from hp.com on the envys. You can get 25% off with bing cashback (sad they are ending bing on 7/31) or $450 off coupons every few weeks. Got an envy 15 for 780 before taxes/CA waste with 1080P while others loaded it with dual 160 gig Intel G2 ssds for around 1300.

The thing is, the Envy sounds like a great deal, but with the inadequate battery life, and the fact that it's likely to run hotter than the blazes of hell thanks to that i7 and bad cooling, I don't know if I want to go that route. I would love to get a MBP, but I was going to wait a bit and see if there are any coupons out there for the Envy line. If so, I think I might sell my laptop immediately and launch fire on that order button for a decently stacked Envy 17.

I'm not worried about the dual booting. I know how to use Bootcamp already. I've set up my friend's MB before with it because she just switched to it and didn't like OSX. I'm more than capable of handling OSX. The fact is, now that Steam and Valve games are on OSX, I have no reason to count a MacBook out completely. I know I could dual boot, but I'd much prefer the main OS to be the one I am always on regardless of gaming and such. I don't want to try and keep track of two OS installs.

I'm still on the fence on what to do here. The fact is I really would love a powerful laptop that can handle games, handle programming, movie making, and photo editing and such, and I know a MacBook could. It's just it's so much money. I need to start selling everything I own or find an amazing job in my area.

 

[cbn]

Speaking of gaming, does anyone know how well Windows Games on steam would play through Mac using Parallels/Windows 7? Higher FPS than running the steam OSX ports?

 

[dlock13]

Speaking of gaming, does anyone know how well Windows Games on steam would play through Mac using Parallels/Windows 7? Higher FPS than running the steam OSX ports?

You can actually get a lot better performance if you dual boot into Windows 7 which is what a bunch of Mac users did before Steam was released. Honestly, with the way it looks now, Valve and Apple are actually teaming up to make OSX a good gaming operating system. It might just be a good time to buy a MBP.

I'm still uncertain though because I don't want to commit to one thing and then in my head and heart know that's not what I wanted. :\ I have a problem with buying something expensive and regretting it later.

 

[AndroidVageta]

If thats the case buy a badass laptop and be done with it...no use it spending upwards of a $1000 and not being happy with what you got ya know? Macs may get better down the line...but for gaming, which it seems you are definitely interested in, stick with what works...PC.

 

[Anonemous]

You can actually get a lot better performance if you dual boot into Windows 7 which is what a bunch of Mac users did before Steam was released. Honestly, with the way it looks now, Valve and Apple are actually teaming up to make OSX a good gaming operating system. It might just be a good time to buy a MBP.

I'm still uncertain though because I don't want to commit to one thing and then in my head and heart know that's not what I wanted. :\ I have a problem with buying something expensive and regretting it later.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GT-330M.22437.0.html

Well you would be downgrading your gpu from a 9800 to a 330M. Unless you don't need to game that much then get a mac to play with.

 

[Noriaki]

You can actually get a lot better performance if you dual boot into Windows 7 which is what a bunch of Mac users did before Steam was released. Honestly, with the way it looks now, Valve and Apple are actually teaming up to make OSX a good gaming operating system. It might just be a good time to buy a MBP.

I'm still uncertain though because I don't want to commit to one thing and then in my head and heart know that's not what I wanted. :\ I have a problem with buying something expensive and regretting it later.

I don't know exactly how Steam compares on OSX v. Win. My macbook pro has a GF9400M and my Windows desktop box has a Radeon 4870, thus I have little to no interest in running games on the mbp.

There is a pretty significant performance hit to running 3D games under Parallels v. Bootcamp on the same hardware though. Also, I don't think Parallels' virtual GPU supports DX10. I don't know what the relative performance difference from OSX native Steam to Parallels/Windows/Steam, but I do that Bootcamp/Windows/Stream will trounce either.

 

[Griffinhart]

I don't know exactly how Steam compares on OSX v. Win. My macbook pro has a GF9400M and my Windows desktop box has a Radeon 4870, thus I have little to no interest in running games on the mbp.

Anandtech did testing.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3759/...lf-life-2-episode-2-still-slower-than-windows

It looks like Windows has a 50% or so performance advantage over OSX on the same Macbook. This is native gaming and not under VM. I would expect that any gaming under VM would be much worse.

 

[Synaptic71]

Frames do indeed suffer when running Windows in virtual mode alongside OSX via Parallels, or the like.

Bootcamp, is a clean load of Windows separate from OSX as a few others have said previously, you would get better results going that route. This being said, the FPS gaming abilities are more limited in a MacBook than a Windows based machine.

The ASUS G73 is a great machine. Enough power for gaming if you so desire.
The nattery life however, leaves much to be desired. I know of people getting 1.5 to 3 hours of gaming time out of it during heavy gaming loads, and maybe 4 hours out of it with regular usage.