“If you want a trifecta, get an Apple. Big money, yes, but you can have virtual Windows AND Linux systems on the Apple...”
I run Windows 7 in a VM (Parallels 8) on my Mac.
It’s a Mac Mini and very reasonably priced. An entry level Mac Mini runs $599 - $509 when you find one at the Apple Refurb store. I purchased mine at B&H Photo and they threw in Parallels 8 for free.
I post this to you as many, I feel, are unaware of the reasonable price point of the Mac Mini.
I, like you, am not an Apple fanboy. I needed to replace my 8 year old XP laptop which could not keep up with my needs. All that was available at the time were computers offering Windows 8. PHEW!
I was thinking of getting a MacBook Pro but balked at the $1,200 price.
I needed to do something clever and the Mac Mini was an easy route and reasonably priced. I had two monitors, a mouse and keyboard so all I needed was a computer.
Since then I’ve added a 16” USB monitor and I have travelled with the Mac Mini and it fits in my old laptop case - I did buy a 15’ AC cord to keep me plugged in.
Thought you might appreciate the heads up...
PS - it’s the single easiest machine to upgrade RAM on - flip it over and unscrew the base - like a peanut butter jar - POP! out come the RAM and in goes 16 GB of RAM upgrade. And you can add a second HD with a disk doubler kit. It’s a very useful machine if you are into setting up VM machines.
I do development, so I need a lot of raw POWER for quick compiles on my virtual guests.
I know somebody who recently bought an Apple for over $2800 to get the processing power I get in my $1200 system. He needs to do development for Apple, too, so he had to buy the Apple hardware, because Apple does not sell their OS to run as virtual guests on any other hardware. Fascist pigs. :)