I’ve used a laptop on a daily basis for years and rarely use the trackpad, far quicker and easier to use a mouse.

I use the trackpad when I don’t have the mouse, what exactly does a mac trackpad do for you, does it tickle you back?

The mouse just travels with me because it’s much better than any track pad can be for what I do.
Anyway the number pad will be a deal breaker for molgrips as it will be hard work entering all those random numbers without one.

+1

I also use trackpad, often I am sitting in a hotel room on the bed, or I’m just grabbing my laptop and heading to a meeting room, maybe presenting on a lectern or something.

Having said that I get on fine with most, not sure what a Mac trackpad would offer?

what exactly does a mac trackpad do for you,

works better. more responsive, recognises gestures better, nicer click action. it’s not a mac fanboy thing, in many ways I prefer my thinkpad but with the trackpad and keyboard there is a clear winner.

I’ve used a laptop on a daily basis for years and rarely use the trackpad, far quicker and easier to use a mouse.

i use a laptop on a daily basis and always use the trackpad (set up so you dont even click it just 1/2 finger taps)
or a wacom tablet when at home. i haven’t owned/used a mouse for 10 years.

I’ve used both, just wondered whaT i was missing, seems like it doesn’t do anything nice if you drop your balls on it so it’s probably not worth the $$. Anyway the mouse is king 🙂

I also use trackpad, often I am sitting in a hotel room on the bed, or I’m just grabbing my laptop and heading to a meeting room, maybe presenting on a lectern or something.

1) Decent business hotel rooms have tables.
2) Meeting rooms have tables.
3) Presentations – irrelevant really as it’s not like you use the actual trackpad to any major degree.

No number pad is a bigger deal breaker for me than a slightly worse trackpad.

Maybe the deal breaker is whether you’d prefer the Yanks or the Chinese knowing what filth you look at in your hotel room 😆

Decent business hotel rooms have tables.

You sit at the table to surf stw? And yes I do use the trackpad in presentations, I demonstrate things.

But thanks for trying to tell me what I do and don’t do 🙂

Not only do I doubt that, but it’s moot because we get a new machine every 4 years anyway, and an instant replacement if it breaks in the mean time.

If that is an upside…..

This Thinkpad has done brilliantly, despite being battered about, so I’m happy to keep using them.

Just get the Thinkpad.

But there are two flaws with the thinkpad, not physically but in use. One is having to use PGP for windows, which causes issues, and the alternative OS, Ubuntu, doesn’t support external monitors well on the Thinkpad.

That’s the only reason I am consdering Mac – it will work better, probably. Until I find something that doesn’t work well on that for work and then I’ll be annoyed 🙂

it’s not a mac fanboy thing, in many ways I prefer my thinkpad but with the trackpad and keyboard there is a clear winner.

The trackpad is definitely better, but the keyboard is a POS when you’re used to a Windows keyboard – it’s missing the begin/end keys which is a right pain for selecting text, as well as the right-button menu key. And no number pad. The backlighting’s nice, but hardly Mac only.

as well as the right-button menu key

Macs have right click, you just have to enable it…

yes I do use the trackpad in presentations, I demonstrate things.

Have you considered some form of remote? Might be a bit more professional than hunkering over a keyboard. (Genuine suggestion, not being an arse.)

There’s no home and end on a Mac? ❗

Have you considered some form of remote?

Like what? I’m demoing products usually, so I have to operate the computer and talk through it. Don’t worry, I do face my audience 🙂

If you use Mac and Keynote you can control the presentation from your iPhone and preview the next slide

On this machine, W520, that cuts my battery life from 6 hours to about 3.5…

Ah it’s a non-issue for me, because the reason I’m using a portable workstation is, well, i need a portable workstation. Nothing compute intensive is going to last 6 hours on any laptop.

And if you’re not using it for “proper work”* then why do you need 32Gb? Dropping that requirement opens up a world of “nicer” machines

missing the begin/end keys which is a right pain for selecting text,

fn+left/right, various other keyboard shortcuts for previous word/line/page etc. I actually prefer how text selection works on my macs.

Those saying what’s special about mac trackpads presumably haven’t used them much/at all? They’re generally much larger and far more responsive. The only PC one I’ve seen that comes close is on the HP Spectre.

That’s the only reason I am consdering Mac – it will work better, probably. Until I find something that doesn’t work well on that for work and then I’ll be annoyed

If the requirement is “linux” nearly everything you can do there works fine on a mac, it’s a proper *nix after all, unless you’ve got particular stuff that’s distributed binary only. In which case a VM maybe? The awkward possible exception could be a VPN client if not available for mac (most are, though corporate support may be an issue).

Sounds like the monitors and battery life matter more to you than the OS per-se and the power, so a 16Gb 15″ macbook pro sounds like a good option? Nice high res screen and pretty good battery life.

*;-)

Ubuntu, doesn’t support external monitors well on the Thinkpad.

Might be better on the W541 as it has a ‘real’ video card, but I draw the line at formatting it to find out for you 🙂 (NVIDIA Quadro K2100M on mine)

Though the interaction with the HD graphics might introduce new and interesting problems for you too post about..

Macs have right click, you just have to enable it…

I mean on the keyboard. There’s a dedicated key for it, between Alt and Ctrl to the right of the spacebar. Not the old canard about no right click with a mac mouse/trackpad.

That video card uses nvidia optimus, that’s the issue – it’s a low power graphics card (an intel one) with an nvidia bolted on the back for 3D duties. The output of the Intel card is connected to the display, and the output of the 3D card is piped through the Intel card. All fine and dandy, except that for some unexplained reason the external monitor outputs are connected to the nVidia card, not the Intel one.. There’d better be a sound technical reason why they can’t be connected to the Intel one, that’s all I can say.

Nothing compute intensive is going to last 6 hours on any laptop

No, but as a mobile consultant this laptop is a bit of a lifeline. In the day it may be running a couple of VMs with server software installed on them (hence memory requirements), on trains or planes it’s used for documents and admin, and in the evenings if I am away it’s used for surfing, chatting and whatnot.

No, but as a mobile consultant this laptop is a bit of a lifeline. In the day it may be running a couple of VMs with server software installed on them (hence memory requirements), on trains or planes it’s used for documents and admin, and in the evenings if I am away it’s used for surfing, chatting and whatnot.

Ah ok, makes sense. I tend to take an ipad/small personal laptop for the planes/trains/etc use. Which is admittedly a PITA. Though mostly it’s the size of the work laptop that’s the pain.

I tend to take an ipad/small personal laptop for the planes/trains/etc use.

I also write code or do other techie things in the evenings. Plus I don’t own an iPad. And when I travel with the computer the tablet would be redundant. Sometimes I ahve to bring a client laptop, that’s a PITA then esp if I am cycling. For that, I want to buy my own Microsoft Surface but that’ll take some saving up for 🙂

and in the evenings if I am away it’s used for surfing, chatting and whatnot.

Get a decent phone / phablet / tablet then. That explains why I didn’t get you point about surfing the web on the hotel bed, I’d do that on my phone, not my work laptop which will be sitting on the desk.

If I need to demonstrate for hours on end then I don’t use a lectern, but sit at a table, then using a mouse is a fine. If it’s just plain presentation then a remote clicker or even just hitting the return button works fine.

Get a decent phone / phablet / tablet then

Spend £x00 of my own money on a second device to cart about? No ta!

I think you are thinking of solutions to things that aren’t problems.

I’ve got a 13inch i5 Macbook Pro (SSD and 16GB RAM) that I use for development.

Having a Unix based OS means I’m happy not developing inside a VM (ssh, scp and bash), so that cuts down on the resource utilisation and will just run a single VM to deploy / run code in.

It’s ok running the latest Cloudera Hadoop quickstart VM in Fusion, although struggles a bit if you have too many services running. Anything bigger and I move it to an AWS EC2 instance, which is infinitely preferable to lugging around a bigger laptop and probably cheaper for the few occasions I need to do it.

Worth getting VMWare Fusion as I think this:
https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/11606
is still an issue on VirtualBox / retina display combinations.

Does running a VM on your Mac consume extra CPU resources? It does on the TP under Ubunutu – each VM takes a chunk off battery life and makes it run hotter. Running two at once makes it pretty warm.

Good question… I’ve never particularly noticed it, but then if I’m just browsing the web or editing text I’ll use OS X. Building / running software tends to be more resource intensive anyway and obviously drains the battery more.

Will do a very unscientific test and get back to you!

I mean on the keyboard. There’s a dedicated key for it, between Alt and Ctrl to the right of the spacebar.

Shift-F10 is broadly the same thing too, if you have a keyboard without a dedicated button.

Will do a very unscientific test and get back to you!

Ta.. I open up system monitor/top and a process called vmware-vmx starts taking up 10% or so CPU. It’s worse with Windows guests, but still does it with Linux.

Yup, vmware-vmx occupying around 3% of my CPU (at a terminal). With Unity running that hops up another 1%.

If you use Mac and Keynote you can control the presentation from your iPhone and preview the next slide

If someone was presenting to me and I saw they were using their iPhone to control their macbook, I’d stop listening. 😉

Molgrips, I’d go for the MBP if it was me. I don’t think OSX is better than any other OS unless I’m using the command line and since you’ll be using Ubuntu then that evens out. The MBP is definitely a nicer piece of kit than the Thinkpad.

Tough call I think

I use predominantly Linux at work and I was using it for most things at home too. A few programs I needed to run would not run under Linux I used a windows VM which was annoying. So I got a Mac Book Pro (i7 16GB etc etc) and its great I can run all those programs I needed natively now which is great. If run a few Linux VM’s when needed, but the great thing is as the operating system is basically linux at lot of the things I would do on the Linux command line I can do natively.

I am a convert I pushed back on them for a long time, but I was wrong.

Also when I priced a similar spec PC laptop with same screen resolution etc, there was not a whole lot of difference in price.

I am a convert I pushed back on them for a long time, but I was wrong.

This. I didn’t make the switch till 2007 and now would never go back

I am a convert I pushed back on them for a long time, but I was wrong.

This. I didn’t make the switch till 2007 and now would never go back

See, as someone who converted for basically all the same reasons in ’03 (the first usable version of OSX was .3 then) I’m now considering going back to windows 8.1/10 for home use.

For work I’d use a Mac still if:

a) I could get one powerful enough
b) Work would let me (i could for one of my machines)

Oh.. just got another email, whilst we’re supposedly entitled to Macs, we’re not *actually* entitled due to some red tape 🙄