Question for the Mac Users on the board

[Korvan]

In the interest of full disclose I want to state for the record that I am a long time PC user. My current situation is on returning to school and getting accepted into a research group to pursue a PhD in chemistry, I have just found out from my new supervisor that the groups presentations are all done in Keynote and a Mac laptop will be required.

Now, I don't know a whole lot about Macs as my forte has been desktop PC gaming. I do hold the opinion that Macs are a bit overpriced due to the premium associated with the brand, but I will set aside my prejudices as it seems getting a Mac is in my future (and they do look pretty nifty).

I've also never owned a laptop, but I feel in this case, a desktop would be too unwieldy to transport and I cannot adequately secure it in the lab. I will be using the computer for creating Keynote presentations, thesis work (word processing and some light image editing) as well as web access. I've narrowed my choices down to three options.

1. Mac Book Air, 2. Mac Book Pro, 3. iPad for keynote plus a lower priced windows based laptop

Right now, though option 3 would come in around the same price as the first two, it seems that Keynote for iOS still has some compatibility and font issues with the full version and this could prove to be a headache I don't need. Plus prying my wife away from the iPad so I could use it would also be an issue.

I'm leaning towards the first option as I don't think I need the horsepower of the Mac Book pro. This laptop will be for school and research and I don't plan on any serious gaming on it.

I welcome any suggestions, and comments and I could use any advice on whether or not RAM or diskspace upgrades are worth it. For instance with the Mac Book Air, should I go with 8Gigs or will 4 be adequate.

Thanks in advance,

Korvan

[atg]

If the supervisor demands a Mac/Keynote be used (which is a bit retarded in my opinion) would doing a Hackintoshbe an option?

[DaveJB]

If you do decide to buy a Mac, I'd go with one of the new "Haswell" Core i5-based Macbook Airs, since they have excellent battery life, almost on par with an iPad, and should be powerful enough for most situations you're likely to run into.

[Gandalf]

From what I understand, the Air has some overheating issues. So if you intend on doing a lot of processing, it might be worth the Pro upgrade.

[madd0ct0r]

I have an air, and it can run quite hot.
its very light and portable, but I do end up lugging the power cable around with me too, since the battery ain't all that.

[fgalkin]

Get a Macbook Pro, then install Windows on it via bootcamp and voila. You get a top of the line PC that is also a Mac.

Only issue is that Windows (Win 7, at least) has a problem with the super-high resolution of the Retina display, so a cheaper, non-Retina model might be a better choice.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Melchior]

SNOBBERY
They should be using the latex beamer class, not keynote, that's unbecoming of a scientist.
/SNOBBERY

I have a high-spec 15-inch retina macbook pro, so you know that I like to pay the Apple tax, but you should only build an hackintosh if you really don't value your time.
Get an Air with 8gb of ram, dual boot windows (it's true that it's annoying to use windows 7/8 on retina macs).

EDIT: This is assuming that any serious calculations that you might need for research are going to be performed on a server farm somewhere, that you don't need GPGPU, etc.

[Admiral Valdemar]

I've not had any issues with using Boot Camp to run a copy of Windows 7 from my 2011 MacBook Pro 13". It has more than enough power for casual gaming and, of course, working from Office 2011 (though I only got that as it was less than a tenner from work).

My brother has a 13" 2012 Air and it never seems to get that hot, though he doesn't seem to run half that much intensive stuff on his than I run on mine (I have a USB powered cooling tray for it when playing KSP or WoT). He does get easily 7 hours of use, and this is before OS 10.9 comes out with better power management.

Additionally, a Pro has the benefit of doing after market additions. I got 8 gigs of RAM and a Samsung 830 SSD put in after a while, but the Retina and Air models are all in-house deals, so you have to pay the hilarious mark ups for Apple RAM or SSDs for the benefit of a smaller form factor. Unless you're lugging the thing about all day, and even then, a non-Retina Pro may be the better option.

[Starglider]

Only issue is that Windows (Win 7, at least) has a problem with the super-high resolution of the Retina display, so a cheaper, non-Retina model might be a better choice.

I don't see why, desktop monitors of that resolution have been mainstream (ish) since 2007 (general release of the Dell 3007WFP). Do you mean the UI elements can't be scaled up enough?

[Melchior]

I don't see why, desktop monitors of that resolution have been mainstream (ish) since 2007 (general release of the Dell 3007WFP). Do you mean the UI elements can't be scaled up enough?

Scaling is a mess. Windows worked even on those quasi-4K IBM monitors circa 2001, but those were big and didn't need scaling. Some UI elements get scaled, some don't - Chrome is basically unusable, for example.

[Admiral Valdemar]

I thought Chrome had sorted that stuff out, at least on OS X, not a month after the rMBP came out. So they just ignored the Windows version, despite the likes of the Chromebook Pixel needing such scaling too?

[Korvan]

Thanks everyone for all of your comments. I ended up going with the 13" Mac book Air with the cheapest options (128G SSD and 4 Gigs ram). I figured that since I'll be using it for mostly word processing, email, and some light graphics work I really didn't need to spend any extra $ to upgrade it.

Final cost was $1048 (saved 50$ due to academic discount) with a $100 app store gift card thrown in. Its funny how I complain about the Apple tax when in the past I would happily plunk down $3000 on a custom built PC loaded with premium parts.

First time I've owned a laptop, shied away from them as I remember they used to cost a small fortune when compared to even a highend desktop. I could also never use the old touch pads, they just would not work at all for me, cursor would jump all over the place. I also hated the ones with the little rubber nub used to move the cursor. I'm happy to say, the multi-touch pad is working great, I'll probably won't even get an axillary mouse.

[Admiral Valdemar]

If there's one thing Apple excel at, it's input. The chiclet keyboard with backlight and the multitouch trackpad are probably the best I've used on any computer. I remember trying to get my old Synaptics keypad to work well in Windows 7 and Ubuntu, and that was something supposedly made with the OS in mind as well. But then my last laptop was a Packard Bell with awful build quality, though reasonably cheap for a desktop replacement sized machine. The trackpad was about half the size (and sensitivity or usefulness) of the MBP's and the keyboard? Well, no gaps between keys on something that also had a numpad makes for amazingly slow typing even for a touch typist.

[Melchior]

I thought Chrome had sorted that stuff out, at least on OS X, not a month after the rMBP came out. So they just ignored the Windows version, despite the likes of the Chromebook Pixel needing such scaling too?

The only problem that Chrome had in HiDPI mode on OS X at release was bad font rendering which was fixed very quickly, but in Windows 8 scaling is still terrible as far as I know (I haven't tried in a while).

[fordlltwm]

If there's one thing Apple excel at, it's input. The chiclet keyboard with backlight and the multitouch trackpad are probably the best I've used on any computer. I remember trying to get my old Synaptics keypad to work well in Windows 7 and Ubuntu, and that was something supposedly made with the OS in mind as well. But then my last laptop was a Packard Bell with awful build quality, though reasonably cheap for a desktop replacement sized machine. The trackpad was about half the size (and sensitivity or usefulness) of the MBP's and the keyboard? Well, no gaps between keys on something that also had a numpad makes for amazingly slow typing even for a touch typist.

Stock settings on a Synaptics touchpads are quite slovenly, but if you tweak / personalise them they come to life, but may become unusable for anyone else, but on a single user machine definitely worth doing.