Any Mac users?
I'm thinking about buying one of the new Macbook Airs (to be used as my primary PC) and was wondering how Spectrum emulation (and other emulation) is on the Mac.
In particular I'd like to know if Parallels is able to run the Windows version of Spectaculator at full speed.
I really don't like OSX very much but I require something small (portable to take to demos), with a fast SSD (for development purposes) and a high-res screen (for development purposes). Unfortunately, there is nothing similar on the PC side under 2000 quid (the vaio Z is the only competitor at this time and it is astronomical).
So, I'll be a reluctant Mac owner wishing I didn't have a poncy apple logo on the back of his laptop. Balls. I wish they did laptops without the poncy logos.
In particular I'd like to know if Parallels is able to run the Windows version of Spectaculator at full speed.
I really don't like OSX very much but I require something small (portable to take to demos), with a fast SSD (for development purposes) and a high-res screen (for development purposes). Unfortunately, there is nothing similar on the PC side under 2000 quid (the vaio Z is the only competitor at this time and it is astronomical).
So, I'll be a reluctant Mac owner wishing I didn't have a poncy apple logo on the back of his laptop. Balls. I wish they did laptops without the poncy logos.
Post edited by takapa on
Comments
I got a HP Envy 15 with 16GB of RAM for substantially less than the current cost of an Air, so I can't believe that shopping around won't get you a better spec PC.
Why not install windows or linux on it then?
The screen (1440x900), the CPU (32nm i5), and the best-in-class SSD are the components that I can't find on a non-Vaio notebook. A vaio specced to the same specs as a Macbook Air comes to over 2,000 pounds!!
Installing Windows is an option but Windows doesn't come cheap and the Apple shop doesn't include it as an OEM option.
Well yeah, Sony are probably the only company on Earth to charge more for the badge than Apple. Pretty much any other PC manufacturer should be cheaper by a substantial margin. The first Alienware system I picked at random on Dell's site came out with a Core i7, 1600*900 display and a 256GB SSD for just over ?1500. Pretty sure a little shopping around can beat that as Alienware are their premium brand so you're still paying a bit for the badge.
fuse is the thing I see mentioned here.
SSD is well , for muso purpose good for a boot drive, but not good for other drives like sample drives etc. is what your doing dev wise that timing critical that SSD is the only option ?
I'm developing a software middleware product that has thousands of build files and that has unit tests that take several minutes to run on a slow PC. I also have multi-megabyte data files that need to be read and written to as part of the unit tests so random-access speed and throughput are very important.
The product also performs packaging and compilation of other files itself (after its own compilation) and I need to demo this process to potential customers so the faster this happens, the better it looks.
I tried both VMWare and Parallels last year (there are free trials you can download). It runs fine on both of them. However, Parallel's GPU virtualisation is much better (you get the full 50FPS).
Jon.
There are plenty of machines that can take two HD's so run your boot of an SSD and keep the HD for bulk storage.
Your main cost isn't screen res and processor in these machines its the quality of the graphics card and the Macs have quite poor graphics so if you go for Mac equivalent graphics an i5 with 900 screen will cost you ?600 tops allowing you lots of spare cash for a far superior and larger SSD.
I'm looking for a new laptop myself and I know you can get something with a far higher spec than an Air for a lot less than less than a grand so throw in a new SSD and you should be able to do it for ?1000 easily.
I have one of the 13 inch mac book pros from last year and it's a great machine, with a separate bootcamp partition for windows7 (though I am using parallels for an XP install & ubuntu)
I spent ages looking for a good machine with a 13 inch display and I ended up with the Apple, I must admit that I was a bit of a tart and spent the extra money on the metal bodied one)
The nearest equivalent was a Sony which was more expensive.
thats the norm for music pc's, as there isn't an advantage speed wise on the data (audio drives)