A Windows guy using a MacBook Pro: six months later

Last December (12/2007) I ditched my Dell D820 and made the jump over to a MacBook Pro. Its now been just over six months since I made the switch and thought I'd pass a few thoughts off to those who are considering making the switch.

First, I still love this machine. The only regret, and I'm not sure if this is really a regret, is that I went for the 15" over the 17". I do love the 15" form factor, but after seeing a few friend's 17" MBP's at the MVP summit and other events, I'm just blown away by the screen real estate. Just unsure if I'd have enough room on a plane to get some real work done with a 17". Either you go, the horsepower is impressive... this is still one of the most performant machines I've seen that doesn't ship with a portable chiropractor (only 5.4lbs for the 15" version).

I also love the peripheral story for MBP's. The power supply is tiny compared to all the other PC based laptops I've owned. What's better is that you have two cables: if you only need a short distance, just use the brick... but you can snap off the plug piece and tag on the longer 3-pronged cable for an additional 5-6 feet. When you travel overseas (which I haven't done just yet with this machine, but will later this year), you can just swap out the plug without using some massive brick converter. Spare batteries are also much smaller.

Oh... having a FireWire 800 port is great for virtual machines (2x the speed of USB 2), but I'm real tempted to snag a new 16GB SSD ExpressCard34 disk for my VMs (only one I've found that uses the PCIe connection on the ExpressCard34 slot is a Delkin at a pricy $400, but that might be worth the perf when doing presentations). Read up on this thread I started for more info on how it works...

One small complaint: if Microsoft would just hurry up and release the WHS Power Pack that includes x64 backup support... I haven't switched to Vista x64 because of this. But it's so close, I think I'll go ahead and do the triple boot (Leopard, Vista x64 & Win2k8) that Spence details on his blog when my new MPB comes in. New one? OK... let me explain...

Now for the sad story (here come the "told-ya-so" emails from the Apple haters :))... appears my MBP has been a lemon. It's been in the local Apple store (or at the repair depot) three times since March. All the sudden, the laptop's keyboard & trackpad have died... hard. The first time it happened was the day after my last presentation at the SharePoint Conference in March. The second time was the evening of the last day of my class in NYC. Those two times bit me hard because I couldn't get into my machine after that happened. Both times the top plate was replaced and I was good as new after a few days... but I lost a lot of confidence so I picked up a portable bluetooth keyboard. What a good call... because the trackpad and keyboard died again less than 1.5 hours before my last presentation at TechEd IT Pro. I was pretty pissed... and the local store took me quite seriously. So I dropped it off on a Friday night before I headed out on a week-long vacation with the family. Over the weekend I reconnected with them and they said they can't be certain what the problem is. So, after the same thing has broken 3 times (granted the fixes were different each time so it isn't like they kept replacing the same thing over and over... I'm just sparing you some details), they have ordered me a brand new machine to replace my current one. I should have it within the next 10 days. Yes... that's annoying, but it isn't like this is some widespread problem.

Even with this lemon experience (hey, everyone has a bad device roll off the floor... it's how you respond to it) I highly recommend the MBP. At this point, it will definitely be my next laptop as well. I'm just hoping the Q4 / November MBP update includes support for 8GB of RAM!

Technorati Tags: apple,macbook pro

posted on Monday, June 30, 2008 9:20 AM

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# re: A Windows guy using a MacBook Pro: six months later 6/30/2008 10:08 AM Mark Wilson

I am interested as to why you are going to bother putting Vista on there? I have my MBP dual booted with Server 2008 x64 and it works great. I can use SharePoint natively if necessary in Svr2008 or else just shut down ther services and run VMs as if I was in Vista....

# re: A Windows guy using a MacBook Pro: six months later 6/30/2008 10:45 AM AC [MVP MOSS]

Mark-
Because I don't subscribe to the thought process of running Win2k8 natively as my primary OS. It is a server OS that does not provide me the stuff I want in a workstation OS. I don't have fundamental issues with Vista and am fine with it. I recognize many disagree with this, and that's fine. I just don't agree with running Win2k8 as my primary host OS (nor do I care for HyperV... VMWare is 10x better for my uses).

# re: A Windows guy using a MacBook Pro: six months later 6/30/2008 11:33 AM Mark Wilson

Okay fair enough, I find that with server configured to run as a workstation that I get the best of both worlds, I have come across no restrictions in terms of using it as a desktop OS, even more so than Win2K3. Each to their own...

VMWare is ace! I still can't believe they have single file VHDs in Hyper-V.

# re: A Windows guy using a MacBook Pro: six months later 6/30/2008 1:37 PM Alonso Robles

I've been an Apple user at home for about 6 years now (ever since the first release of mac os x). In that time, I have only had one problem with my Apple notebooks: The hard drive went bad with a few months of buying a 17" Powerbook G4. The one thing that I do have say is that I was impressed with Apple support. While the wait for the hard drive was annoying, the experience was entirely hassle free. I still use a Dell for work purposes. But at the end of the day, my wife, kids, and I rely on Apples at home.

So... congrats on your MBP!

# re: A Windows guy using a MacBook Pro: six months later 6/30/2008 1:58 PM AC [MVP MOSS]

Alonso-
Hardware goes bad and sometimes a lemon rolls off the production line. I don't care what you're dealing with... it just happens. So I'll give Apple a pass on this. I agree with the support. I've been very pleased with the support experience. Some will probably read this post and think "they should have replaced it the second time"... well they offered that up but it would take 10 days for that to happen and I was leaving in 5 days for a 2-week business trip and they could just replace the top plate in 3 days so I elected for that. This time was the final straw. Still love the laptop!!!

# re: A Windows guy using a MacBook Pro: six months later 6/30/2008 8:48 PM Spence

you forgot to mention the inflight adaptor!!! No bulky transformer to carry - just a sweet little cable which is all you need. Awesome!

# re: A Windows guy using a MacBook Pro: six months later 6/30/2008 9:44 PM AC [MVP MOSS]

Spence-
That's cuz I don't have one *yet* :) So far I've been lucky that my flights have had the standard 2-prong power.

# re: A Windows guy using a MacBook Pro: six months later 7/1/2008 11:43 AM Chris Wasser

You might want to consider a HD bay caddy for your laptop. We initially started out using external HDD with USB connections and found that even with 7200 rpm drives with large caches, the performance was just not good enough for day-to-day development. We switched to the HD bay caddy, which goes in the slot where your DVD drive is and connects to the motherboard directly, and found significantly better results.

Just a thought for you and anyone else who reads your blog.

I agree VMWare rocks.

# re: A Windows guy using a MacBook Pro: six months later 7/1/2008 12:16 PM Sam

Thanks for writing this up man. Quite an endorsement...

Have you tried any gaming on it? Are they good for that now too?

What about the single button on the touch pad? Does that new multitouch pad make "right clicking" possible without an extra keystroke now?

# re: A Windows guy using a MacBook Pro: six months later 7/1/2008 4:57 PM AC [MVP MOSS]

Sam-
No... I don't do any gaming on it. The whole right-click is a no-brainer. Just put two fingers on the touchpad and then click... that acts as a right-click. Takes all of about 2 hours to get used to it the first time, then you have trouble on PC-style 2-button trackpads. One thing you can do: take two fingers and scroll on the trackpad and it acts like an external mouse wheel. Then there's the whole pinch to zoom in/out and rotate with the multitouch. Mine doesn't have the latter mutitouch (pinch & rotate), but hopefully the replacement will have the new mobo and include the multitouch as well!

# re: A Windows guy using a MacBook Pro: six months later 7/1/2008 4:57 PM AC [MVP MOSS]

Chris-
Doesn't apply to Mac's as there is no modular bay. Anyway, we use the FireWire 800 port which is 2x faster than the USB2 connection.

# re: A Windows guy using a MacBook Pro: six months later 7/4/2008 8:58 PM Mo Omar

Just switched to VMware, freakin' love it! I'm still hesitant about getting a MBP. Even though I DO want one, customer support out here in Jordan for Apple products is pretty much nonexistent. It sucks.

# re: A Windows guy using a MacBook Pro: six months later 7/10/2008 6:37 PM Aaron Powell

Bah, all you need is VMWare Fusion, no need to even have a native Windows install, all the joys of OS X and all the err... nessecities... of Windows

re: A Windows guy using a MacBook Pro: six months later 7/16/2008 12:23 AM Bruce Howell

I agree with Aaron--no need for Boot Camp: VMware Fusion and Spaces lets me have all of my running VM's on their own desktop--win2k8, winxp, rhel5, solaris--all at the same time.

As for the button on the trackpad, I hardly ever use it:

one-finger tap = left-click
two-finger tap = right-click

and the two-finger scroll is nothing like the mouse wheel, it's more like a trackball (side-to-side and diagonal scrolling).

coming up on 2 years with my MBP and I'm glad I went with the 17" (though it's nearly impossible to work with in coach).

# re: A Windows guy using a MacBook Pro: six months later 8/18/2008 6:45 PM Aaron Powell

Hey Andrew,

I've got a question about the keyboard/ mouse issues you've had with your MBP. I've been having problems recently with mine which manifests when I'm just normally using it and then they kb & mouse stop responding completely for varying periods of time.

Eventually it just starts working again as though nothing happened though.

Is this what was happening with yours?

# re: A Windows guy using a MacBook Pro: six months later 8/18/2008 8:28 PM AC [MVP MOSS]

Aaron-
In previous blog posts I explained the same exact thing. Both would go away and come back seconds later. After a few days it happened more and more often and eventually died completely. Do external keyboard/mice (including bluetooth) work? They tried fixing it a few times, replacing the top plate, the motherboard a logic board.. finally after three tries, they just called it a lemon and gave me a brand new machine.

# re: A Windows guy using a MacBook Pro: six months later 8/18/2008 8:35 PM Aaron Powell

Yeah my external kb/ mouse work no dramas (it's what I use when I'm at work) so I've no idea how long this has been going on for.

I'm going to have to go the a mac repair place I think :/

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