What type of work do you do on the laptop?


Here, I found one for you that will outlast that expectation tenfold.

[Link: store.apple.com]

You won't need a 17" with that retina display.

I can't believe that Lenovo is holding onto that archaic eraser mouse left over from the IBM era!

no reason to use anything other than a Lenovo or an older IBM T series...they work plain and simple. When you need parts (such as power supplies) and want to have duplicates (home/wk) you will find IBM T series power supplies are $10 ebay, Dell...direct from them and $99. I could go on and on, but their is a reason why the majority of the fortune 500 companies use Lenovo/IBM.

I like apples products but this Lenovo is a much better buy.
[Link: shop.lenovo.com]

Well...maybe. By the time you outfit the Lenovo to match the specs of the new macbook pro its darn near the same price...and with 50% less resolution. Don't forget when you need support with apple, unless you live in the boonies, you just stroll on down to the nearest store and in many cases the support is free even after warranty.

I was holding out for a 15" macbook air but since that didn't happen the new macbook pro with retina is my next purchase.

All these votes for Lenovo....


After my HP went belly up due to the power connection failed (it was a known problem that HP denied existed), I bought a Lenovo R series.


The motherboard failed within 6 months and it took 2 months to get it fixed under warranty.

It's worked fine since, but I wouldn't buy another....

I have a Macbook Pro 17 that is about 3.5 years old. Runs like a tank and has only recently started to show signs of slowing down with 4-6 hours of daily use. I have never re-installed OSX or Windows in it. Ordering a new HD today, and and will be performing a clean install of both operating systems. After having about 5 PC laptops that were all pretty much useless after 18 mounts, the MBP is a winner.

It's simply the best laptop mouse there is.
I can't believe anyone is okay with sliding their finger, say, left to right, running out of space, doing it again and again, then going too far and backing up... I put my finger on the nice little eraser and lean a bit to the right; the cursor goes as far as I want it to without me having to move my hand around or back up. And I never run out to the edge of the moving space because I'm "pushing" the cursor instead of having the cursor follow the amount of inches that my finger moves on the pad.

When I move the cursor to the right and end up going too low, I can put a bit of upward pressure on the eraser and move it upward; sometimes I sort of circle in on the target. It is VERY PRECISE because of the settings I use.

To me, use of the pad you like closely resembles the way a circus horse "counts" with his foot. Very crude.

edit: fixed stupid typo.

Ernie with new technology (shaking head)

I never run out of space on the pad and the precision is perfect for my needs. I'm not doing detailed CAD drawings on the thing. One swipe goes full left to right and up and down; there is no back and forth. I can scroll a page with 2 fingers on the pad. I can click and right click without thinking about it on the pad. I can swipe left/right to scroll thru pages. I can rotate an image on the pad. I can zoom on the pad. What can your little eraser do? Move around. That's archaic. You then need to search around the device to use hot keys, the trackpad and trackpad buttons. Spend some time with one that is actually setup for you before judging.

Dont get me wrong, my dream laptop is a 15" Macbook Air too. The worst thing about carrying a laptop is Carrying a Laptop.

And to the guy eho bought the lenovo....only buy the T or W series.

Stupid question....

Can we use Apple for programming?  

CCP
ProControl
etc?

I'm seriously considering moving to Apple, but I'd have to re-do every bit of software I run.  Quickbooks, Adobe CS4, blah, blah, blah...

By the time I switched over, I'm $5000 into a laptop.  

On the other hand, I can't continue to go through the crap I go through with these POS laptops I've been buying.  I even try to take my time and buy laptops that have decent reviews.  

Unfortunately, they only run on Windows. I get by this with either Bootcamp or Parallels. Currently I am enjoying Parallels now that I spent $80 and upgraded my ram to 16gb. I can run my crestron software and all other programming software just like it's another mac window. I think I paid $50 for parallels.

I used to prefer bootcamp before upgrading the ram. It just boots into Windows 7 instead of running it as a virtual machine, just as if you were working on a real Windows laptop.

Not a stupid question at all. You have 3 choices with a macbook and programming for our industry.

1. Bootcamp running Windows (Bootcamp is free and comes with the Mac OS). Basically when in this mode you are running a 100% Windows machine...with far better hardware and reliability I might add.

2. VMWare Fusion running Windows. This is what I use. When in this mode you have both the Windows and Mac OS running at the same time and can swap between the two and even drag files from one to the other. I run Crestron, Lutron, URC CCP and the old school editors, RTI ID, ProntoEdit, and a host of other things on this such as Middle Atlantic designer and product specific software such as that comes with Audio Authority and the like.

3. Parallels running Windows. Essentially the same as above and I know several programmer who use this with all of the above listed software suites.

I'm not sure what ProControl is but I'd bet my next owners draw that it will work just fine.



Yes and no and not necessarily. You can keep what you want on Windows if you wish such as QuickBooks, Adobe CS4, and all the other blah blah blahs if you don't want to reinvest for Mac versions. I will mention that if you are using QuickBooks with Windows to stick with that and not the Mac version.



Doubtful it would be that much, but even if it were it's 5k now for a setup that will last you easily 5-6 years or more; or 1500 to 2k now and every 8-16 months. Do the math...


I've said it once and I've said it a thousand times. My Macs are the BEST windows machines I've ever had. Even if you had to live in a Windows only environment 100% of the time via Bootcamp you'd be far better off with that investment in my opinion.

I use a 13" Macbook pro with bootcamp win 7 all day, it's miles above the pos HP that it replaced.

I've got a small dell xps1340 I use on job sites. It's over two years old and chock full of drywall dust, been dropped and otherwise thoroughly abused.

I also have an Asus s78 (I think) for one year with zero issues. I use the Asus for commandfusion, autocad, estimating and the dell for on site programming (RA, HWQS, russound ect)

I use a dell latitude using a SSD and 8 GB ram. It runs as fast as any apple and works with all of my existing and future software. Its been running for over 2yrs perfectly.
If you switch to an apple you will spend 5k on the laptop and the education to use it properly.
Anyone that says that is easier is simply full of it. There is a learning curve and a reason that very few if any fortune 500 companies actually use it. Its really smoke and mirrors in regaurds to being any better.
Hell if companies like amazon don't embrace it for their day to day operations, why would you?