PC User Switching to MBP - Need Consolation ;)

[TheSith]

Hi all,

I'm heading to college in the Fall and am in dire need of a laptop. Of course, I won't be giving up my gaming habits (WoW, Empire at War, etc.) and would like a laptop that is speedy and able to handle things. I've "chosen" the MBP and would like some advice.

I've had my Dell for two years (maybe more). Specs are: 3.2GHZ P4, 1GB RAM (DDR 400, PC3200), 120GB HD, 128MB ATI Radeon 9800 Pro, etc.

While I am looking forward to the switch, I am also looking forward to being able to run Windows natively on the MBP. As for the questions:

Is there a PC laptop that compares to the MBP (2.16, 256MB vid card)?
And when running Win XP on the MBP, it's just as fast?
Is there any way to compare the MBP to my current computer (speed-wise - general, not specifics)?
Are there any "downsides" (not counting losing some HD space.. don't care about that part) to using Boot Camp and partitioning the HD for XP?

Sorry if the questions seem obvious but I just don't want to make a mistake in this purchase. Thank you for your patience and time.

 

[h0e0h]

XP should run just as smooth, don't get side tracked by parallels.

 

[Chundles]

There is no speed hit for running XP on a Mac after using Boot Camp.

All Boot Camp is is a collection of drivers and boot loaders allowing XP to talk to the EFI based firmware of the new Intel Macs. Once Boot Camp is run and XP installed, Boot Camp is not used ever again. Windows will run as fast as it should on the Mac hardware, there's no emulation, no virtualisation, what you have is a Windows computer that looks all the world like a Mac on the outside. As far as XP is concerned it could be a Dell, or a HP or a Compaq - it's just another PC and Windows works as it should.

The MBP should be "quicker" ( I'm kind of getting sick of that term) than your current PC by quite a substantial margin - if you can I'd recommend the 7200rpm HDD just to eek the best performance from your system.

There are PC laptops with similar specs and probably cheaper but when you own a Mac, regular PC laptops are no longer options, they aren't even considered. That's one thing a lot of PC owners don't understand, when we talk about Macs they say "but this PC is cheaper and has the same features!" - they don't understand that we don't care what the PC can do, if it's not a Mac, it's not an option.

 

[TheSith]

There is no speed hit for running XP on a Mac after using Boot Camp.

Thank you for the input, both of you. The above was especially comforting to hear.

I will probably wait until the last possible minute to get one - as agonizing as it is, I want to get the fastest one I can. Opting for the 7200RPM HD sounds like a good idea as well.

 

[MACDRIVE]

There are PC laptops with similar specs and probably cheaper but when you own a Mac, regular PC laptops are no longer options, they aren't even considered. That's one thing a lot of PC owners don't understand, when we talk about Macs they say "but this PC is cheaper and has the same features!" - they don't understand that we don't care what the PC can do, if it's not a Mac, it's not an option.

Ahmen to that brother!