the_grip on 11/5/2008 at 19:23
Hey all,
i'm looking at ditching my fairly new HP laptop and seeing if HP will give me my money back (ordered last October). It's all souped up and has Vista x64, but damn if this thing isn't slow as shit (plus it appears the video adapter is dying already).
Anyways, i'm looking at getting an iMac, but i'm curious as to how to handle those times when i will (undoubtedly) need to boot into Windows.
The three options are Parallels, Boot Camp, and Fusion. Fusion seems the most attractive at a glance and Boot Camp the most cumbersome (since it does make the machine dual-boot instead of virtual, correct?).
Can anyone comment here? My main reason for possibly keeping Windows XP around is b/c of the statistical functionality that Excel has (that Numbers does not) and that i do have a copy of Visual Studio 2005 (although i use it at work all the time, i RARELY need it at home, so i don't know if it is really a factor). Another need for Windows would simply be that some websites i use have charting controls and the like that don't work in Mac yet. Lastly, of course, i've got all my old games for the PC...
Any comments are appreciated.
the_grip on 11/5/2008 at 19:25
Also, on a different note, if anyone can comment on iWork vs. Office 2008 for Macintosh, i'd appreciate it.
David on 11/5/2008 at 19:57
I've gone the Parallels route which I use on a daily basis, mainly because it was out first, but I don't regret it. However, I only use it for work for Visual Studio. In my day to day life there is not a single Windows program that I need, all have Mac equivalents.
You can also set both Parallels and Fusion to work with Boot Camp, so you can have the best of both worlds should you feel like firing up a game.
I also use iWork rather than Office, mainly because of the price, but also because it does what I want and I have a Office at work should I require it.
Fusion, Parallels and iWork all have demos so you could try them out.
the_grip on 11/5/2008 at 20:22
Thanks for the response David.
Do you need Boot Camp to run games, or can you just run them in Parallels or Fusion?
Also, few more questions:
1. Do you use any kind of personal finance software like Quicken, and, if so, which one?
2. Does Numbers in iWork perform well as a spreadsheet application?
3. Will a souped-up iMac be good for Mac development? i use Visual Studio at work, but i would like to learn to develop for Macs as well (if i owned one).
i don't have an Apple yet, but i definitely will try out the demos.
David on 11/5/2008 at 21:25
I don't play games on my Mac, as I have a have a MacBook Pro, and I have a PC and 360 for that. If you plan to play games on your iMac you should definitely use Boot Camp. Emulated acceleration is in it's infancy and performance and compatibility is pretty sketchy. You can always use your Boot Camp partition in Fusion or Parallels as well.
1) No, sorry.
2) Yes, I think it does, but I am not a heavy spreadsheet user. A few column references and the odd chart is all I need.
3) Yes, but it doesn't need to be really souped up. Any iMac will do. They take 4GB of RAM, and RAM is pretty cheap at the moment so buy it with the standard amount and fit the extra yourself (it's just normal RAM, Crucial.com has a tool for selecting the correct RAM).
Fitting it is a case of undoing two screws that hold the RAM door closed.
the_grip on 11/5/2008 at 22:28
Thanks again, two more questions (you have been very helpful!):
1. RE: Boot Camp... do i need Parallels or Fusion for that? What would the advantage be to have either Parallels or Fusion with Boot Camp (instead of just Boot Camp)?
2. RE: RAM... i'm not a hardware expert, but can you mix two RAM manufacturers if their speed is the same (i.e. will there be conflicts)? When i was into building my own PCs, i always bought RAM from the same manufacturer and usually all at the same time.
Zerker on 12/5/2008 at 01:06
1. No, you can use Boot Camp on its own, provided you have your Windows CD. Parallels and Fusion let you run the Windows while you do stuff on the Mac-side of things. It saves you the reboot, and lets you keep using your Mac programs at the same time. I have Parallels that I use for the odd thing that I need to just fire up, and Boot Camp to actually play anything. Parallels support for games has been pretty poor for what I've tried, so it's not recommended (as mentioned), though it does run Thief...
David on 12/5/2008 at 14:25
As Zerker said, Using Parallels or Fusion saves you the reboot, however there is also the benefit of using Coherence (Parallels) or Unity (Fusion) which are both methods of making the Windows apps appear to be on the Mac Desktop s you can use your Windows apps without losing the use of your Mac apps (like Mail)
Like so (this is actually my desktop as of right now)
Inline Image:
http://www.ttlg.com/dave/para.jpgYou can mix and match RAM quite happily, as long as the speeds are right. The laptop I'm typing this out on has a stick of Crucial and a stick of Kingston. It's just standard RAM, nothing special about it.
the_grip on 16/5/2008 at 16:53
Thanks guys, i really appreciate the help.
So far HP's not giving me a refund, so i may need to wait on the iMac. Damn i wish i wouldn't have bit on the less money bait.
Roland Deschain on 18/5/2008 at 23:29
If your HP laptop is slow as hell, it's not Vista that's the problem, for the record :) Not likely to be hardware, either.
I don't own a Mac and have no plans on ever buying one, but I do tech support for a company that has an online database that requires Internet Explorer 6 or 7 to work properly; i.e., you have to run Windows. In my support experience, I'd say go for the more robust (imo) Boot Camp. I don't run into Mac users very often of course, (OS X is sitting at around 6% market share) but twice I've seen someone having issues with Parallel that Boot Camp worked fine with. (never any vice-versa issues)
