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Paul Thurrott bought a new MacBook ... to run Windows. Why?
Paul Thurrott's Supersite for Windows ^ | 06/16/2008 | Paul Thurrott

Posted on 06/16/2008 11:08:41 PM PDT by Swordmaker

Through a long and circuitous route, I ended up at the Apple Store in Braintree, Massachusetts yesterday, and bought a MacBook. The where, what, and why of this transaction may be of interest.

(Or it may not. I will at least point out that among my blogging pet peeves are the incessant morons out there who agonize over a PC purchase via a dialog with blog readers. Fear not, I've done it too. At least this time I'm just providing a post-mortem.)

Why? Though I have a steady stream of PCs coming through here, I buy my own hardware, if only for continuity's sake. We're doing our third straight home swap this summer (this time in Dublin, Ireland instead of Paris, France), so I am facing a multi-week trip away from home and need something reliable. Last year, we were gone for four weeks, and my computing environment in Paris basically consisted of a loaner ThinkPad T61 (highly recommended, by the way) and my 2006-era first-generation MacBook, which dual-booted between OS X and Vista.

About that MacBook, btw: I purchased it in June 2006, exactly two years ago. As many of you know, I like to keep a foot in the Apple world so I can at least keep up with what's going on there. The original MacBook was the first Intel-based Mac laptop, so it could dual-boot between Windows and OS X with Boot Camp. On the minus side, the first-gen version utilizes a Core Duo processor, not Core 2 Duo and can be expanded to just 2 GB of RAM. I had the 2 GHz white model.

Over the past two years, the MacBook has proven to be an excellent travelling companion. It's a great size and weight. It runs Vista comfortably, despite the RAM ceiling. As loaner machines have come and gone, I've returned again and again to the MacBook. From a reliability perspective, it's been good, I guess: I've had to replace both the DVD writer and the hard drive, but because I purchased AppleCare (expensive at $300), these fixes were free. Apple's in-store support is excellent, and notably so. (I also had to get the case repaired because of the red-brown smudging that afflicted many first-gen MacBooks. This required a bit of complaining on my part until a random Apple executive saw a blog post on the Nexus and intervened. It still gets really dirty, but whatever, it's white.

Why now? (When) As mentioned previously, we're going away this summer and its time for an upgrade. I'm also going away for all of next week, to Sonoma, with the wife and two friends, and need to be able to work from the road. I was going to bring the MacBook (with Vista), but in a weird coincidence, the hard drive came up lame about a week ago. I messed around with it a bit and then brought it to the Apple Store this past Saturday. I didn't make an appointment, and despite some silliness about walking me over to a Mac to make one for 5 minutes later, I was pretty happy with the treatment. They agreed it was probably the hard drive (apparently, the big gray "X" at startup is an obvious signal) and told me they'd look at it and get back to me.

I had been researching laptops for a while now. I looked at various ThinkPads (R, T, and X), of course, and some Dells (XPS 1330/1530). Based on my experiences with various HP notebooks and Tablet PCs recently, I ruled them out. I've always had a strange fascination with Sony notebooks, but ... eh. I hate pulling the trigger on something like this.

Given that it's been about two years since I purchased the first MacBook, I figured I was due for a new Mac. (So is my wife, come to think of it: She's stuck on a PowerPC-based Mac mini still, if you can believe that.) I discussed the upcoming notebook purchase(s) with her and arrived at what I thought might make sense: Instead of purchasing a $1200 PC and a $1500 next-gen MacBook (whenever they shipped), I could actually "save money" (I know, I know) by purchasing a 15-inch MacBook Pro for about $2000. My wife actually bought this argument, not because she's an idiot (she's not) but because I think she long ago gave up when it comes to anything I can even remotely justify as being work-related. I was going to buy it online, but because of the timing, I decided to wait until we got back from Sonoma.

Where... Sunday morning, the Apple Store called: The hard drive was replaced and the MacBook was ready. After getting my Firefox 3 review posted, I headed over there to pick it up. While there, I figured, what the heck, I'll look over the notebooks. Looking at the MacBook Pro, I was struck by how old the design was (and how much like the old 12-inch G4-based PowerBook I used to own). I was also struck by the heft (size/weight), which despite being good for a 15-inch design, was still bigger than I was used to.

Turning past the MacBook Air (not powerful enough, not expandable enough), I looked at the MacBook. I really like the form factor. I really like the size/weight. The new ones can go to 4 GB of RAM and handle 64-bit Windows if needed. Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz on the higher-end black model.

And here's the thing: I know they're getting upgraded. But instead of making me want to wait, that fact had been making me nervous. I like this machine: What if they screw it up with a larger touch-enabled trackpad or whatever? These might not be around soon. In fact, looked at the right way these things are mature and as good as they're going to get ... right now.

"Looking to buy a MacBook?" the guy asked. Yes, yes I am.

So I walked out of there with 2 MacBooks, the old one and the new one. The system had a 250 GB hard drive, not the 200 GB hard drive advertised in the store (I think I had read about this happening), so I booted it up at home, used Boot Camp to squeeze Leopard into a sad little 32 GB partition, and gave Windows about 200 GB. Installed Vista Ultimate and got to work with my apps.

So I guess I save some money there, sort of. I've always preferred the black color, and its a nice looking machine. It runs Windows wonderfully, and 4 GB of RAM is on the way from Crucial. (BTW: $103 for 4 GB of RAM? We live in a time of plenty, people.)

So a couple of closing points.

You can get a ThinkPad T61 for about the same price as the MacBook. You can get a ThinkPad R-series for less. The Mac runs both OS X and Windows, however. It's a bit smaller than the T-series.

Apple support is excellent. It just is. That I've had to use it as often as I have, however, is somewhat troubling. I'd just point out that notebooks get beaten up and then having support in place (RE: AppleCare in this case) is required.

I wonder if my old white MacBook batteries will work in this new black MacBook? Hm.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Computers/Internet
KEYWORDS: applebasher; applebashers; applebashing; applehaters; smartmove
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To: IncPen
I rather think that the fix that MS finds itself in is because exactly because it tried to own a market-- not for the good of the customer-- but for its own good. The two are not mutually exclusive.

Didn't Rockefeller do the Standard Oil monopoly so he could provide cheaper petroleum products to the people?

41 posted on 06/18/2008 12:50:51 PM PDT by antiRepublicrat
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To: antiRepublicrat
Every car manufacturer makes its own hardware, and the development is doing fine. Although just like Apple there's a lot of trading of parts and partnerships going on.

How many people do you know who've built their own car?

42 posted on 06/18/2008 1:09:29 PM PDT by tacticalogic ("Oh bother!" said Pooh, as he chambered his last round.)
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To: tacticalogic
How many people do you know who've built their own car?

A few. But that doesn't have anything to do with the subject. People building their own rarely advances development in the automobile industry these days. Individual manufacturers with their vertical markets do most of the advancement.

43 posted on 06/18/2008 2:13:52 PM PDT by antiRepublicrat
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To: antiRepublicrat
A few. But that doesn't have anything to do with the subject. People building their own rarely advances development in the automobile industry these days. Individual manufacturers with their vertical markets do most of the advancement.

We're comparing one market to another. It's easy to say you're comparing apples to apples if all the differences are irrelevant.

Computers are not automobiles. It's pretty well impossible to build a car so that nobody else can manufacture parts to fit it. You can design an OS to keep it from recognizing anyone else's hardware, and you can build a processor/motherboard that won't work with anyone else's OS.

44 posted on 06/18/2008 2:22:14 PM PDT by tacticalogic ("Oh bother!" said Pooh, as he chambered his last round.)
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To: tacticalogic

I though the point was having a vertical market on your product not pushing innovation.

I can see that either method would push innovation, except you couldn’t have very many CPU and GPU producers, as those are too expensive. Of course in cars companies share each others’ engines too.


45 posted on 06/18/2008 2:34:36 PM PDT by antiRepublicrat
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To: antiRepublicrat
I can see that either method would push innovation, except you couldn’t have very many CPU and GPU producers, as those are too expensive. Of course in cars companies share each others’ engines too.

If Microsoft would start following Apple's example, and start building their own computers, designed so that they would only run Windows, and writing Windows so that it would only run on those computers and a specific set of peripherals what happens to all the other PC and MB manufacturers?

About the only market they'll have is linux.

46 posted on 06/18/2008 2:52:50 PM PDT by tacticalogic ("Oh bother!" said Pooh, as he chambered his last round.)
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To: tacticalogic

I’m not sure what would happen in your case. Microsoft’s business model, even the initial success of Microsoft, is dependent on the current structure, and I don’t think they could ever go the Apple way. All the manufacturers would vie for the supply contracts, creating a lot of competition (and associated technological advancement) to get them.


47 posted on 06/18/2008 3:03:33 PM PDT by antiRepublicrat
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To: antiRepublicrat
I’m not sure what would happen in your case. Microsoft’s business model, even the initial success of Microsoft, is dependent on the current structure, and I don’t think they could ever go the Apple way. All the manufacturers would vie for the supply contracts, creating a lot of competition (and associated technological advancement) to get them.

I don't see having only two possible buyers for computer OEM hardware, and virtually no direct retail market for the manufacturers being a formula for increasing technological advancement in the market.

If Apple's approach really is better, and Microsoft has been doing it all wrong then Microsoft needs to do what Apple's been doing. What are the consequences going to be if they do?

48 posted on 06/18/2008 3:17:58 PM PDT by tacticalogic ("Oh bother!" said Pooh, as he chambered his last round.)
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To: tacticalogic

The marketplace has room for both business approaches. It’s worked well for Microsoft, it’s working well for Apple. Each has its advantages and disadvantages.


49 posted on 06/18/2008 3:40:05 PM PDT by antiRepublicrat
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To: antiRepublicrat
The marketplace has room for both business approaches. It’s worked well for Microsoft, it’s working well for Apple. Each has its advantages and disadvantages.

That I can agree with. I just don't agree that Apple is doing everything right, and MS is doing everything wrong. There is room for both approaches, and while it's just my opinion, I believe that Apple and the linux community have benefitted from Microsoft's approach.

Nearly all of the linux installations out there, and development work that's been done (and I think Apple has benefitted from a lot of that) is on machines that were originally shipped with Windows. If MS had taken Apples approach 15 years ago, finding a machine to install a linux distro on would be virtually impossible for the average person today - they would simply refuse to install and work with anything but Windows.

50 posted on 06/18/2008 3:52:11 PM PDT by tacticalogic ("Oh bother!" said Pooh, as he chambered his last round.)
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To: tacticalogic
There is room for both approaches, and while it's just my opinion, I believe that Apple and the linux community have benefitted from Microsoft's approach.

Microsoft's approach really helped computers become ubiquitous and everyone benefitted, but IMHO that was at a slower level of advancement. Such a mass market creates inertia that is hard to change to advance the technology. Do you think 90%+ of computers would still be using BIOS if Microsoft had supported EFI or another advanced firmware years ago? They had a real chicken and egg problem.

Vertical companies like Sun, SGI, Apple and others pushed the envelope with advanced technology. It's easier for them to advance, as seen in Apple's complete phased abandonment of their old OS. That is something necessary for Microsoft, but they are wisely afraid to do it given their market.

51 posted on 06/18/2008 4:01:30 PM PDT by antiRepublicrat
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To: antiRepublicrat
That is something necessary for Microsoft, but they are wisely afraid to do it given their market.

If that's what they need to do, then we can pretty well kiss general-purpose, OS agnostic computers goodbye as a commodity. Future OS development will be pretty well limited to the commercial OS vendors who have access to the proprietary hardware specs, and hardware development will be pretty well confined to the vendors that have a relationship with those vendors.

52 posted on 06/18/2008 4:09:30 PM PDT by tacticalogic ("Oh bother!" said Pooh, as he chambered his last round.)
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To: antiRepublicrat
Didn't Rockefeller do the Standard Oil monopoly so he could provide cheaper petroleum products to the people?

There's an air of government fixism in the air today as the dems announce plans to nationalize oil.

Always a bad idea to get government into the markets.

53 posted on 06/18/2008 4:32:39 PM PDT by IncPen (We are but a moment's sunlight, fading in the grass ...)
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