The perfect setup
Published by Marian on Friday, August 18, 2006 12:30 AM
I want to share here the perfect system that I have in mind .... and how I got there.
1. HARDWARE
Between a desktop and a notebook, of course I would go for the notebook. It's portable, and you can just plug it in a monitor and have the desktop system. I am not looking for the ultimate computer powered by quad xeons ( :-d ) so core 2 duo is enough.
1.1 Manufacturer
This is the easy one. Apple. Why? Well ... let's take Dell. They are trying to cheat you and on top of that they have problems with their batteries. Yeah it's cheap, but you get what you pay for. And you can double that for Sony. Except maybe for the cheap part.
Moving next, it's Toshiba. They had a really really bad design in the past. They changed it now in the new (Quasimodo) Qosmio line, and also Sattelite line looks a little better. But they lost my trust. I had one Toshiba laptop, and I was not very impressed. Just mediocre. Ans also I have friends that had Toshiba and with that a lot of trouble. Fujitsu I guess are ok, but a little expensive for the medium cathegory I am placing them into. Nothing extraordinary, but you can get more for the same money. Acer has a great offer, but I am no fan of their keyboards. And the keyboard in a notebook is very important. And I end here with (IBM) Lenovo Thinkpad. I currently have one (Tankpad) Thinkpad and I am more than pleased with it. It's great. I love the design, I love the keyboard, I love that I had no problems with it. So in the final we have Apple and Lenovo. But Apple has some advantages. You can run one extra OS on it, and it's more "sleek". Maybe it's not so robust, but it looks better. Also, I am a little dissapointed how the new Thinkpads turned out to be. The gray color and the new keyboard layout... it's just not IBM anymore I guess.
1.2 MBP vs MB
13 > 15 ?
Now it really depends. On many things. I, for one, think that 13.3" are enough. But if you think that "Size Does Matter" than you should go for the MBP. Also, I do belive that professional photographers, for example, need more space on their desktop. So the increased resolution of MBP is a blessing. I for one am no professional photographer, so I would go for the MB.
ATI vs Intel
Here we might have a problem. I am no gamer, but I do play from time to time. Mainly "oldie but goldie" games. So I would say GMA950 is enough. But what do you know, Heroes 3 has a new brother... Heroes 5 that is, which is more 3D than ever and need a good video card. It may run on GMA950 (I have no idea), but probably on 800x600 with very low detail. I don't know if that would be enough. What's more important, I want my video card to be DirectX 10 ready. I've seen some of the things DirectX10 brings, and I want them. Also, I want to be (aqua) aero compatible. From what I understand, GMA950 runs aero. So in the end, I would say GMA950 would pass at the limit, event without DX10 support and with the low gaming performance. Like I said, I rarely play a 3D game. I do however hope that GMA3000X is not the fiasco I read it is and those hw shaders do bring some improvemnets, Because it's clear that this is the next MB videocard.
Plastic vs Aluminium
Well... I am just going to say that MB can be "assorted" with an iPod (and maybe with a future iPhone). And I like the keyboard also in the MB (I did not say I don't like the one in MBP).
Conclusion
It's definetely a Macbook (with Core 2 Duo :-d), but if in the near future we have a GMA3000X with good performance, it's worth waiting for it.
1.3 White vs Black
Well, I have to say that I'm biased. As I currently have a Thinkpad, black is my color. I would also go for a black iPod. With white, I always have that feeling "be careful... do not get it dirty...". White in MB is just too.... white.
2. SOFTWARE
Here I got it all figured it out, because of my previous experiences with Linux and Windows.
As my hardware (1.) permits it, I would go for Mac OS X as my primary OS (don't ask me if it works on my Thinkpad... you know the answer to that. YES it's FULLY supported! wireless, QE, you name it!).
Now I would have, of course, multiple virtual desktops. With that nice cube rotating when you switch them. I would use Mac OS for music (iTunes), photos (iPhoto), movies (frontrow), chatting + some fun (YM, iChat, photobooth), mail (Mail.app). These are all fantastic applications. But summing it up I am not too pleased with Mac OS X. Finder and the Dock are not for me. So one of my virtual desktops would run a full-screen virtual machine with Ubuntu. That's because I love Gnome. It's so.... productive. I hope for some 3D support in the virtualization, so I would have XGL's expose in the VM. Why is Gnome so great? Well... it's best at what I hate more about Mac OS: it has a very customizable "dock" and also I find Nautilus very nice, with the built-in search and the little things (for example, one feature that is also present in Leopard is renaming a file, when it is selected only the filename, and not the extension).
Let's not forget Microsoft. True, Windows sucks - internet explorer, media player are really bad. But they have nice things. Microsoft Office is one of them. Have you seen Office 2007? Really cool. I can't wait for the UB. Or it that turns out bad, I hope for a good wine/crossover office. And of course Windows might still be handy for those cases when virtualization is no solution and wine does not work. Mac OS X would be primary, used daily for entertainment and such, Ubuntu for work and Windows for gaming.
To sum all up:
Mac OS X (+iLife) dual boot with XP(Vista maybe) and a Ubuntu VM shared between those two. All on a Macbook. Black.
1. HARDWARE
Between a desktop and a notebook, of course I would go for the notebook. It's portable, and you can just plug it in a monitor and have the desktop system. I am not looking for the ultimate computer powered by quad xeons ( :-d ) so core 2 duo is enough.
1.1 Manufacturer
This is the easy one. Apple. Why? Well ... let's take Dell. They are trying to cheat you and on top of that they have problems with their batteries. Yeah it's cheap, but you get what you pay for. And you can double that for Sony. Except maybe for the cheap part.
Moving next, it's Toshiba. They had a really really bad design in the past. They changed it now in the new (Quasimodo) Qosmio line, and also Sattelite line looks a little better. But they lost my trust. I had one Toshiba laptop, and I was not very impressed. Just mediocre. Ans also I have friends that had Toshiba and with that a lot of trouble. Fujitsu I guess are ok, but a little expensive for the medium cathegory I am placing them into. Nothing extraordinary, but you can get more for the same money. Acer has a great offer, but I am no fan of their keyboards. And the keyboard in a notebook is very important. And I end here with (IBM) Lenovo Thinkpad. I currently have one (Tankpad) Thinkpad and I am more than pleased with it. It's great. I love the design, I love the keyboard, I love that I had no problems with it. So in the final we have Apple and Lenovo. But Apple has some advantages. You can run one extra OS on it, and it's more "sleek". Maybe it's not so robust, but it looks better. Also, I am a little dissapointed how the new Thinkpads turned out to be. The gray color and the new keyboard layout... it's just not IBM anymore I guess.
1.2 MBP vs MB
13 > 15 ?
Now it really depends. On many things. I, for one, think that 13.3" are enough. But if you think that "Size Does Matter" than you should go for the MBP. Also, I do belive that professional photographers, for example, need more space on their desktop. So the increased resolution of MBP is a blessing. I for one am no professional photographer, so I would go for the MB.
ATI vs Intel
Here we might have a problem. I am no gamer, but I do play from time to time. Mainly "oldie but goldie" games. So I would say GMA950 is enough. But what do you know, Heroes 3 has a new brother... Heroes 5 that is, which is more 3D than ever and need a good video card. It may run on GMA950 (I have no idea), but probably on 800x600 with very low detail. I don't know if that would be enough. What's more important, I want my video card to be DirectX 10 ready. I've seen some of the things DirectX10 brings, and I want them. Also, I want to be (aqua) aero compatible. From what I understand, GMA950 runs aero. So in the end, I would say GMA950 would pass at the limit, event without DX10 support and with the low gaming performance. Like I said, I rarely play a 3D game. I do however hope that GMA3000X is not the fiasco I read it is and those hw shaders do bring some improvemnets, Because it's clear that this is the next MB videocard.
Plastic vs Aluminium
Well... I am just going to say that MB can be "assorted" with an iPod (and maybe with a future iPhone). And I like the keyboard also in the MB (I did not say I don't like the one in MBP).
Conclusion
It's definetely a Macbook (with Core 2 Duo :-d), but if in the near future we have a GMA3000X with good performance, it's worth waiting for it.
1.3 White vs Black
Well, I have to say that I'm biased. As I currently have a Thinkpad, black is my color. I would also go for a black iPod. With white, I always have that feeling "be careful... do not get it dirty...". White in MB is just too.... white.
2. SOFTWARE
Here I got it all figured it out, because of my previous experiences with Linux and Windows.
As my hardware (1.) permits it, I would go for Mac OS X as my primary OS (don't ask me if it works on my Thinkpad... you know the answer to that. YES it's FULLY supported! wireless, QE, you name it!).
Now I would have, of course, multiple virtual desktops. With that nice cube rotating when you switch them. I would use Mac OS for music (iTunes), photos (iPhoto), movies (frontrow), chatting + some fun (YM, iChat, photobooth), mail (Mail.app). These are all fantastic applications. But summing it up I am not too pleased with Mac OS X. Finder and the Dock are not for me. So one of my virtual desktops would run a full-screen virtual machine with Ubuntu. That's because I love Gnome. It's so.... productive. I hope for some 3D support in the virtualization, so I would have XGL's expose in the VM. Why is Gnome so great? Well... it's best at what I hate more about Mac OS: it has a very customizable "dock" and also I find Nautilus very nice, with the built-in search and the little things (for example, one feature that is also present in Leopard is renaming a file, when it is selected only the filename, and not the extension).
Let's not forget Microsoft. True, Windows sucks - internet explorer, media player are really bad. But they have nice things. Microsoft Office is one of them. Have you seen Office 2007? Really cool. I can't wait for the UB. Or it that turns out bad, I hope for a good wine/crossover office. And of course Windows might still be handy for those cases when virtualization is no solution and wine does not work. Mac OS X would be primary, used daily for entertainment and such, Ubuntu for work and Windows for gaming.
To sum all up:
Mac OS X (+iLife) dual boot with XP(Vista maybe) and a Ubuntu VM shared between those two. All on a Macbook. Black.
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