Macbook pro vs windows laptop

[vivek17290]

Hello,
I am a college student and I am into app development and web programming..I am looking for a laptop that can handle that with some multi tasking like web browsing and music..I can't handle any more crashes or freezes. I am sick of it. I owned a vaio y and it is the shittiest laptop ever. I am thinking of buying a macbook pro 13.3 core i5, the only thing that bothers me however is..I have heard people tell me apple has issues with adobe and that the flash player crashes frequently. Also I think mac applications are limited..correct me if I am wrong..I would really appreciate if you could help me out with this

 

[Pinhedd]

Macs are generally problematic for general usage. Other reasons aside, the application suite is... limited to say the least. If you're into app and web development you should get your hands on a decent Asus or Dell laptop and install VMWare Workstation (academic licence is 120 bucks, or you can get the stripped down but mostly just as powerful VMWare Player for free) and fire up your favorite Linux distro and use that for development.

 

[vivek17290]

I have been using ubuntu for quite some time now..and i find it really buggy. Like I was using ubuntu 11.04, there are a lot of hardware compatibility issues with linux distros. Although I would completely agree with u that it is good for development, but then mac os is also based on ubuntu right? I haven't really owned a mac before But i won't be a complete noob. So i think as far as ubuntu is concerned, its not that easy to use, u always need to go through a lot of forums for every small thing u need to fix. When u say macs are generally problematic for general usage..what do u exactly mean?

 

[Pinhedd]

Most of the hardware issues with Linux go away rather quickly when its placed inside a VM because virtualization platforms are very heavily developed. VMWare has an extremely good virtualization stack and as of Workstation 8.0.3 and Ubuntu 12.04 it even supports 3D rendering (which works rather decently I might add).

The core components of OSX are actually based on Darwin which is an open source and wholly POSIX complaint operating system derived from BSD and several other pieces of software that Apple acquired when they purchased NeXT Computer. As such, OSX actually has its roots in Unix System V.

All distributions of Linux are Unix-Like but no distribution has been declared to be wholly POSIX compliant. Many of the tools used in Linux distributions were designed specifically to avoid having any code in common with Unix and as such, Linux distributions have very little code in common with Darwin and subsequently very little code in common with OSX. The common part is the specification which means that applications should be easily portable between the two platforms, a feat which is most definitely not easily accomplished with Windows.

When I say that macs are problematic for general usage I mean that unless you have a compelling need for a Mac platform (such as being required to use a specific toolset, or just being generally incompetent) buying one should not be a top priority.

I advise people on purchases all the time and this includes purchases of Apple computers. Consumers who purchase macs because they know that they need and want a Mac are generally satisfied but those who purchase Macs simply because they want something different than Windows almost always come back disappointed. Most of these users simply end up installing Windows on Bootcamp or VMWare Fusion (the OSX version of Workstation) and running everything in there. They paid a 33% premium for a flashy virtual machine host. There's a reason why Microsoft has over a 90% market share in consumer desktops and it has little to do with their competitive practices.

If you want to see how well Ubuntu performs in a virtual machine you can test it out on VMWare Player on any computer that supports VTx. Virtual machines can run on platforms that do not have VTx but they are limited to 32 bit address spaces and are severely performance limited.

 

[JustAnotherNoob]

Any modern laptop should be able to handle web and app development tasks without a problem. The biggest resource hogs you might run are probably the Adobe programs.
Creative Suite runs well on a mac, the only problems you might run into are with flash PLAYER. That is because Apple does not support flash on its iOS platform and is trying to get away from it for desktop use.
Also Apple does not allow developers to push program updates to the platform themselves. Instead every update has to go through Apple's validation procedure, so updates are delayed in comparison to updates on windows.

On the other hand - who is using flash for web development these days?
13.3" is a really small screen for a development platform, personally I would prefer something that allows me to have 2 windows open side by side (code on one side, output on the other). If you do that on a 13" you end up with rather small windows (and text).
Adobe's Creative Suite programs also tend to take up a lot of room on your desktop, so you will be contantly opening and closing widgets and toolboxes to actually see your code/image/website...

With a mac you are also paying the "Apple tax", a windows machine with the same specs is usually 20-30% cheaper.

 

[vivek17290]

Thanks a lot for ur feedback guys..lol, I am not gona use flash for development, I was talking about youtube videos when i mentioned adobe issues. Anyway I have an idea of what i need now