Laptop Advice

I have a Thinkpad R60 running Windows 2000. Its about 5 years old and been totally reliable and versitile. It has, however developed a fault in the screen display (vertical stripes and bands) so will need  a replacement screen. Meanwhile I use an external monitor. I would buy a new Thinkpad tomorrow if IBM were still managing production.

Mrs D has a MacBook Pro 13" about 1 year old and simply loves it. Even I think its easy to use, totally reliable and has a beautiful screen display. She uses it for browsing, e-mails, photographs and skype. It has a basic version of Office which works fine, but no other significant programmes. The first machine developed a keyboard fault within a week. Apple replaced with a new machine - no more problems.

Miss D has a MacBook Pro 17" about 4 years old and is every bit as good as her mum's. She is an architect and runs AutoCad, ArchCad, Photoshop, Office and God knows what else. Again, totally reliable.

If I was absolutely certain that any "essential" programme could be run on the Mac, that's what I would buy. Otherwise it would be another ThinkPad with the "essential" programme. I haven't been convinced by anything in this thread that Sage will rum on a Mac. If someone can conclusively confirm that it will run, and outline the necessary configuration, then I would be inclined towards the Mac.

Cheers

Don

In the words of Bart Simpson...doh!!!

I had done some reading last night on alternative manufacturers of Laptop as mentioned (Novotech etc), it would seem that I could get a very high spec machine for a budget of £1400. I need to explore this further, again reluctantly.

I must confess to still be "leaning" towards a Mac, if only for a change. I will speak to Sage/Solidworks on Monday to see if they have any plans on joining Mac platform and thoughts on running parallel on a Mac ( any reason why the program's would not run). One other concern is the budget starts to add up, £1700 for the Mac, £56 ish for Paralllel programme and £100 ish for a copy of Windows 7 for user licence. 

As has been discussed is that I could buy the Mac and "run" it and I have the two weeks to try it out and return if for any reason there are some compatibility issues. The other thing I'm not sure about is whether to get the new slim retina model minus CD drive, which gives a nice 15" display or go for slightly heavier version with CD drive etc. What troubles me is that this becomes less "portable" due to size and weight. This I need to "sleep on", which would be nice as we have a two week old new born daughter, hence being up at this time of day!!!!!!!!

Once again thank you for all your thoughts, it is most helpful to me on this journey.

Dusty,

As SolidWorks is migrating to the Catia kernel shortly a Mac version maybe more likely, although the transition from Parasolid to Catia will be an interesting one.

Jono

I looked up Sage on the Codeweavers site ... crossover runs Windows stuff on a Mac without the need to buy a licence from Microsoft ... It say for Sage - known not to work.  Parallels should overcome this, but you need to check. Programs that access removable devices usually are the most problematic. 

Dusty

Novatech have a large store just outside of Reading on a small industial estate just off the A4,you can park right outside their front door,thats where i bought our 2 laptops. Worth a look.

Mista h

Dusty,

There are quality build Windows-based laptops to be found. My son has an Alienware one and the build, key board and high-spec components etc justifies the £1000+ price-tag.  As you might guess, he uses it for gaming and he says it works really well for those applications.   But it still runs the, in my view, crappy Windows operating system and all the software related hassle you and others have mentioned.  Believe me, once you get used to scrolling and flicking between screens on an Apple - and it does take some getting used to - the Windows and Microsoft software feels so so crude. 

A main reason why Windows is dominant in the business world is that they care about backwards compatibility. Enterprise level systems are too expensive and critical to be subject to the Apple policy of all change every few years. I can still run systems on my Windows 7 machine I wrote over 20 years ago in DOS . There are good reasons why Windows seems bloated - it is designed for serious work. There is a vast selection of laptops than run Windows - my research unit has run an average of a dozen Windows machines for 20 plus years. In that time we have had 2 hard disc failures and zero viruses. I find my 4 year old HP Pavilion laptop absolutely fine - if you choose a decent brand you can equal or better Apple's build quality.

I would choose Windows over Apple every time unless I was looking for a nicely designed over priced under specified toy. I have used Apple Lisas, Apples IIs, original Macintosh, Newtons (based a 7 figure rehabilitation research project on that platform, then it was arbitrarily pulled ). I still own an iPod touch but it can't run the latest Nstream, I used an iPad for a month in May - nice enough but I spent my own money on an Android tablet that is better in important ways and cost half the price. Apples are fine for some people but you need to be sure you only want to do what they want to let you do!

I think nowadays both Mac Os and  Windows are fine, except that you need to reboot your Windows laptop now and then as it gets slower over time, viruses are also big hassles. Apple owners do worry about viruses as well as Mac Os is getting more and more popular. So comparing pluses and minuses of OSes is little pointless, all you need to do is to see which one you like better, like Linn vs. Naim.

For me, the main reasons that I go for Macbook are built quality and after-sale service, and since I am  a software engineer by profession, I know how to get, fix up, and tweak the system so that everything would work exactly the way I want, and I can imagine that this can be challenging for some non-tech users.

PS: Linux laptops are good as well, and they are cheap, but the user interface is kind of primitive.

BTW, all google engineers (including the founders) that I have met use Macbook! that explains something?

Thanks gents.

Wee update. Solidworks don't support on a Mac in any shape or form. They could not give me a time frame of when this might happen. 

I had intended on sleeping on this over Saturday night.Well here we are on Thursday, and still no further forward. I've kind of gone off the boil. I have enjoyed the "free time" of an evening enjoying my son and three week old daughter. I wonder if work would mind me using Laptop budget on more music!!!!!!

I guess I'll get a Windows machine soon, and a Mac one day. 

Cheers Mista H, I have spoke to the shop you mentioned, and they have quoted a hi end Laptop. I need to go in and discuss further.

Suffice to say I'm rather enjoying typing this on the ipad. Even if i have to "hit" buttons several times on this site, which i suspect is not the fault of the ipad 

Nice! I am envious.