Any advice for purchasing a Macbook Pro?

[Grant Holland]

I'm considering a Macbook Pro. Any advice from the Mac folks...?

My usage: Software and app dev., general office stuff. I do very little
high-end graphics.

Specific questions:
-Is the Mac Pro the clear choice for a laptop?
-Is the 15" the clear choice over the 13"? - for the $600 difference?
-If I go 15", which processor:
     - i5 2.4 GH - (base $1799)?
     - i5 2.53 GH - (base $1999)?
     - i7 2.66 GH - (base $2199)?
-Is 4GB enough mem for most folks?
-Is the MacPro "the one to get" - or is there something else I should know?
-Any other advice?

Thanks for the benefits of your collective wisdom!

Grant

--
Grant Holland
VP, Product Development and Software Engineering
NuTech Solutions
404.427.4759


============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[Gillian Densmore]

Hi grant
 I've just been through the same question on purchasing a desktop
system and I went with something future proof
the macbook series is generally fairly well built from a mechanicly
perspective. I used to use one as a main computer for years.
I'd go with the middle speed processors and get more ram. my tower has
the i5 and I it runs video games just fine so I'd imagine it'd run
office stuff well. As for something windows based the loveno is
solidly built and has good support. the extra two inches is negligable
on a laptop because consider that one of the fun things about a 13
inch is you'll get something a little easier to cary.

On Tue, Jan 11, 2011 at 11:36 AM, Grant Holland
<[hidden email]> wrote:

> I'm considering a Macbook Pro. Any advice from the Mac folks...?
>
> My usage: Software and app dev., general office stuff. I do very little
> high-end graphics.
>
> Specific questions:
> -Is the Mac Pro the clear choice for a laptop?
> -Is the 15" the clear choice over the 13"? - for the $600 difference?
> -If I go 15", which processor:
>    - i5 2.4 GH - (base $1799)?
>    - i5 2.53 GH - (base $1999)?
>    - i7 2.66 GH - (base $2199)?
> -Is 4GB enough mem for most folks?
> -Is the MacPro "the one to get" - or is there something else I should know?
> -Any other advice?
>
> Thanks for the benefits of your collective wisdom!
>
> Grant
>
> --
> Grant Holland
> VP, Product Development and Software Engineering
> NuTech Solutions
> 404.427.4759
>
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
>

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[Steve Smith]

Grant -

I went to a 13" MacBook Pro from a 15" PowerBook  8 months ago and
generally am very happy.  I never max out speed but am tempted to max
memory... or at least boost it.  I have 4G on my dual 2.4Ghz and am
almost always happy with it.  It performs less well under saturated
memory than my 15" 2.1 with 4GB did ... I'm not sure of the difference.

The 13 is definitely easier to carry.. and has a much longer battery life.

- Steve

> Hi grant
>   I've just been through the same question on purchasing a desktop
> system and I went with something future proof
> the macbook series is generally fairly well built from a mechanicly
> perspective. I used to use one as a main computer for years.
> I'd go with the middle speed processors and get more ram. my tower has
> the i5 and I it runs video games just fine so I'd imagine it'd run
> office stuff well. As for something windows based the loveno is
> solidly built and has good support. the extra two inches is negligable
> on a laptop because consider that one of the fun things about a 13
> inch is you'll get something a little easier to cary.
>
> On Tue, Jan 11, 2011 at 11:36 AM, Grant Holland
> <[hidden email]>  wrote:
>> I'm considering a Macbook Pro. Any advice from the Mac folks...?
>>
>> My usage: Software and app dev., general office stuff. I do very little
>> high-end graphics.
>>
>> Specific questions:
>> -Is the Mac Pro the clear choice for a laptop?
>> -Is the 15" the clear choice over the 13"? - for the $600 difference?
>> -If I go 15", which processor:
>>     - i5 2.4 GH - (base $1799)?
>>     - i5 2.53 GH - (base $1999)?
>>     - i7 2.66 GH - (base $2199)?
>> -Is 4GB enough mem for most folks?
>> -Is the MacPro "the one to get" - or is there something else I should know?
>> -Any other advice?
>>
>> Thanks for the benefits of your collective wisdom!
>>
>> Grant
>>
>> --
>> Grant Holland
>> VP, Product Development and Software Engineering
>> NuTech Solutions
>> 404.427.4759
>>
>>
>> ============================================================
>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
>> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
>>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[Parks, Raymond]

Depends upon the type of software and app development you perform.  If
you're writing Objective C, C++, or C code, then you need to compile and
you'll want a strong processor with lots of memory.  If you're doing web
development, you might want to run multiple VMs, which works better with
memory maxed and as many cores in your processor as you can get.  If
you're doing Cuda development, you probably should consider a 17" so you
can run the code on the nVidia processor and your display on the Intel
processor.

Ray Parks                   [hidden email]
Consilient Heuristician     Voice: 505-844-4024
ATA Department              Mobile: [phone]
http://www.sandia.gov/scada Fax: [phone]
http://www.sandia.gov/idart Pager:505-951-6084

On 1/11/11 11:36 AM, Grant Holland wrote:

> I'm considering a Macbook Pro. Any advice from the Mac folks...?
>
> My usage: Software and app dev., general office stuff. I do very little
> high-end graphics.
>
> Specific questions:
> -Is the Mac Pro the clear choice for a laptop?
> -Is the 15" the clear choice over the 13"? - for the $600 difference?
> -If I go 15", which processor:
>      - i5 2.4 GH - (base $1799)?
>      - i5 2.53 GH - (base $1999)?
>      - i7 2.66 GH - (base $2199)?
> -Is 4GB enough mem for most folks?
> -Is the MacPro "the one to get" - or is there something else I should know?
> -Any other advice?
>
> Thanks for the benefits of your collective wisdom!
>
> Grant
>

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[Darryl Ackley]

Having moved from PC to Mac a couple month ago, and having become a fan boy overnight, I thought I'd chime in quick.  I went with the 17" i7 MacBook Pro with 8Gb of RAM.  I do quite a bit of development, graph-algorithm calculations, and work with virtual machines, hence the maxed-out specs.  A few observations:

• The machine is lightning fast, and compared to my now retired windows laptop incredibly stable.  The nVidia/Intel graphics switching works very well, especially when plugged into an external monitor.
• It seems bourgeois, but the backlit keyboard is ridiculously nice (especially if you spend a lot of time on planes, working at night, etc.)  The 'spaces' function lets you have multiple desktops a la Linux.  If you install xCode, you can pretty much compile any of the open-source software without too much heartburn.
  
• As rumored in various forums, the i7 does run a little hot when you're stressing it -- nothing worse than comparable windows laptops that I've used, but enough to be uncomfortable after a half hour or so without something under it (especially I think with the aluminum body).
  
• The battery life is moderate -- anywhere from 2-4 hours depending on how conservative I am with it.  Being able to have multiple batteries and carry spares is the only thing I miss about my old windows machine.
• Suspend works like it's supposed to.  I don't know what other people's experiences with Windows are, but I never had a windows box that could survive a week on the road of constant suspends and hibernations.  I've never once had a problem with the Mac.  I don't feel like I'm always fighting with the hardware and/or the drivers to keep the thing from crashing.
  
• I've yet to find a tool that I had in Windows or Linux that I couldn't replace or find and install/compile for Mac (e.g. Tor, nmap, VNC, PhpAdmin, Chrome, Dropbox, Blackberry Desktop).  MS Office Mac 2008 is alright once you get used to it, though it can be glitchy when saving files across Windows SAMBA mounts (mainly because it seems that Microsoft chose to write their own application-level network stack into Office, as opposed to using the Mac native ones). 
  
• The 17" is a little bulky to travel with, but as a matter of personal preference I'd rather have screen real-estate over small footprint.

In short, I'm completely impressed -- I'm a computer scientist that had gotten sick of using computers.  The MacBook Pro made me a fan.

Darryl

On 1/11/11 1:51 PM, Parks, Raymond wrote:

Depends upon the type of software and app development you perform.  If
you're writing Objective C, C++, or C code, then you need to compile and
you'll want a strong processor with lots of memory.  If you're doing web
development, you might want to run multiple VMs, which works better with
memory maxed and as many cores in your processor as you can get.  If
you're doing Cuda development, you probably should consider a 17" so you
can run the code on the nVidia processor and your display on the Intel
processor.

Ray Parks                   [hidden email]
Consilient Heuristician     Voice: 505-844-4024
ATA Department              Mobile: [phone]
http://www.sandia.gov/scada Fax: [phone]
http://www.sandia.gov/idart Pager:505-951-6084

On 1/11/11 11:36 AM, Grant Holland wrote:

I'm considering a Macbook Pro. Any advice from the Mac folks...?

My usage: Software and app dev., general office stuff. I do very little 
high-end graphics.

Specific questions:
-Is the Mac Pro the clear choice for a laptop?
-Is the 15" the clear choice over the 13"? - for the $600 difference?
-If I go 15", which processor:
     - i5 2.4 GH - (base $1799)?
     - i5 2.53 GH - (base $1999)?
     - i7 2.66 GH - (base $2199)?
-Is 4GB enough mem for most folks?
-Is the MacPro "the one to get" - or is there something else I should know?
-Any other advice?

Thanks for the benefits of your collective wisdom!

Grant

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org