Colledge laptop? PC Gaming on a Macbook Pro?

[Patsum]

Hey all, my names patrick
Im new to this forum and such and the world of macs..
Ive been a pc user all my life being the cheaper stuff then apples..but ive loved the look and creativity macs always seemed to show me and ALWAYS have wanted an ipod ever since the day i saw the ad on the TV for the 1st gen haha, now Ive got half my wish running a dell isnpiron 9200 and a black 30 gb ipod..
anyhoo
my sisters going away to Ohio state for college this coming term and she needs a Laptop!
so I thought BOOM she needs a mac, haha shes an artist and games and desighns stuff. I would reccomend a dell like mine since its pretty much maimed everything ive seen from hp's ugly notebooks to sonys expensives crackers...this has been the lightest 17 inch ive ever used. but i knew she should have a better machine then me so i thought, macs have the best support according to comsumer reports and they are small, thin, fast and lightweight
Now the thing that really got me was the fact I could easily take an xp pro cd i have, and install XP proffesional on the thing and it should be darn spanking fasst! right? so I could easily migrate all her current pc stuff to her macbook while she gets used to mac os x

but my questions are as follows: For the 15.4 inch Macbook pro (1999$)

How easy are the drivers to get for all the things a macbook has?
Does the macbook have good battery life with XP or Thermal control?
and How good is gaming on the Macbook pro on XP?
I dont know how good in general the battery on the macbook pro is?
Is the program parelells worth buying so she can switch between XP pro and os X ANYTIME?

thanks all for your time
Sincerely,
patsum
p.s. I built her a custom AMD FX machine for her college gift and now she cant use it..BAH haha owell hopefully she'll love this mac cuz im clueeless

reply here or kick me an email at admin@pcplanet.org NO spam pLEASE

 

[Philberttheduck]

Spam

hahaha "colledge"

 

[DevilsRejection]

hahaha "colledge"

makes you wonder if he's ever going to go to one

ZING

 

[Patsum]

hey mate, either help or bugger off

gee im sorry im not a great speller, im a pc user who makes about 9000 spelling errors a day using aim
so either help me
or really,
Bugger off
gee shows me how nice the mac community is

 

[DevilsRejection]

mac community, windows community, linux community, we'll all make fun of you due to your spelling and grammar mistakes.

And please
Stop
Typing a few
Words per
line

EDIT: OK here's some real advice

Any gamer with common sense will tell you, if you want to game then build yourself a super fast ocmputer to have at home, and for the internets, have a small laptop.

so why not do that ace, buy her a really fast desktop and then a really small, a la macbook, for her lighter usage.

 

[Cybix]

How easy are the drivers to get for all the things a macbook has?
Does the macbook have good battery life with XP or Thermal control?
and How good is gaming on the Macbook pro on XP?
I dont know how good in general the battery on the macbook pro is?
Is the program parelells worth buying so she can switch between XP pro and os X ANYTIME?

Drivers, generally fine and bundled with bootcamp.

Battery life is probably not quite as good when using XP opposed to OS X.

Gaming under XP on the MBP works well. I've played quake 4, doomIII and a variety of other games under XP with great results. The MBP has a pretty decent graphics system for a laptop

the battery life on a MBP is average. I average 3hrs, with constant use.

I wouldnt personally bother with parallels, I switched from PC to MAC not long ago and thought I'd still use XP a lot. I almost NEVER ever use it. I do still have it installed for dual booting, but rarely boot to XP. OS X is a far superior operating system in my opinion and is a true pleasure to use (from a functionality, reliability AND eye candy point of view)

A lot of games that are available for PC are available for MAC. Try www.aspyr.com for some example titles...

if you have any other queries give a 'search' a go, there's been a lot of conversation re XP, OS X, MBP's, etc.

 

[Patsum]

If One was Made Of Money?

well for space reasons she’s just getting a laptop and plus mate Im not made out of money being a sophomore in high-school just TRYING to get help on what computer she should buy herself to not screw it up, im only asking since she plays doom 3 and unreal 04 sometimes.
Now my Apologies about being rude to the forum people here, just when someone needs help it’s better to receive bad advice then a smart cheap remark about the Inquisitor's Grammar when you could really put your time to better use im sure then finding forum posts to go lay upon your sense of humor when im positive there is another time and place for that or if you like, Another forum.

 

[Patsum]

Thanks for the reply

Thanks Cybix for the good help!
Godbless

 

[Kace]

whats ur budget mate?

only issue with bootcamp + a macbook or a MBP is trackpad. this however, can be easily solved using a external mouse or 3rd party software (2 finger right click does not work under bootcamp..yet).

other than that everything seems to work just fine.

on a macbook - i dont know how well the game performance would be since the mackbook uses integrated graphics.

i say go all out and buy her a 17" MBP.

 

[Shadow]

How easy are the drivers to get for all the things a macbook has?
Does the macbook have good battery life with XP or Thermal control?
and How good is gaming on the Macbook pro on XP?
I dont know how good in general the battery on the macbook pro is?
Is the program parelells worth buying so she can switch between XP pro and os X ANYTIME?

Hey Patsum,
The drivers are included with a program called Boot Camp, which you need to dual-boot XP with OS X on an Intel Mac. Everything except for the iSight, CTRL-Click and something else are NOT provided-check out the Boot Camp website.
The MacBook generally gives about 3~4 (maybe 6) hours battery life depending on what you are doing-the batterly life is slightly worse under XP then OS X. I think termal control is the same (but not entirely sure).
Gaming on a MBP under XP is fine-not the best-but fine. Search for threads-there are plenty on MacRumors.
The battery life on the MacBook Pro is roughly the same as the MacBook-3~4 hours, depending on use.
Parallels is fine for web-browsing, email, office stuff, ect. For heavy-duty stuff (gaming, CAD-essentially anything 3D) id use Boot Camp-Parallels doesnt have very good 3D accelleration.