Paul's Down-Home Page
Cajun. Mormon. Marine.January 10, 2006
Tough decision: MacBook or Thinkpad T60
Lenovo and Apple are fighting over my wallet. I'm thinking about buying a new laptop, and the two contenders now are the Thinkpad T60 and the brand-new MacBook Pro. The big variable is whether the MacBook can run Windows, either using VirtualPC (Microsoft isn't saying) or natively. If yes, that's my choice; if no, I'd probably lean towards the Thinkpad. Fortunately, neither one is actually shipping, so I don't have to make a decision quite yet.
Update: there's some great stuff at AppleIntelFAQ.com that partially answers my question about dual-booting. Dave Schroeder also commented at Macintouch that side-by-side Windows solutions will be available in "weeks/months", and that XP won't install on the MacBook Pro because XP lacks EFI support-- but that Vista might install. Now that would be worth trying.
Posted by Paul at January 10, 2006 02:30 PMComments
I've been looking into that as well (in a theoretical sense) and it looks like a lot of people are looking into it. I would expect a hack sometime soon! I am still hoping that I can get OSX on an intel box...
Posted by: Tim at January 12, 2006 05:54 PM
It looks like you can fairly easily install Vista on the MacBook Pro, but it's not clear to me how you'd dual-boot, and that's really what I want to be able to do (at least until side-by-side operation starts working). Guess I'll have to wait a while.
Posted by: paulr ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.robichaux.net/blog/nav-commenters.gif)
at January 13, 2006 10:11 AM
I also was looking around and it looks like the MacBook is getting some lackluster reviews about power consumption, screen resolution and a couple of other things.
It wouldn't stop me from buying one, but I think this goes back to the caveat of buying things the first model year (:
Posted by: Tim at January 13, 2006 11:31 AM
Why bother with trying to run windows on the apple? If you like Windows, then just go for the thinkpad! It's a gorgeous design in it's own sense and will be built like a tank. Not to mention that it will probably be much much faster at running windows.
Posted by: Duncan at February 17, 2006 06:47 PM
I spend all day working with and writing about Windows Server 2003, Exchange Server 2003, and other server-side products. It's much easier to do some related tasks with Windows than with OS X, which is why I want the ability to run Windows on demand. I love my T40, and will probably just hang on to it for a while.
Posted by: paulr at February 20, 2006 06:43 AM
You know, I am standing near the same problem of choose, MacBook Pro or IBM T60. Mac kicks asses, but I need Windows software on it. Did you consider Sony or any other laptop brand?
Posted by: Olexandr Prokhorenko at February 24, 2006 03:30 AM
Thinkpad would be a better choice. You might want to hang on just a little more. Waiting for Vista and OSX-intel to be accepted en-masse would be a good indication whether these OSes will be cross-installable, and hence, might affect your choice.
Posted by: Richard Relos at March 1, 2006 03:15 AM
Olexandr: no, I didn't consider any other x86 laptop brands. I've owned Dell and Toshiba laptops before and wouldn't buy them again, and I won't spend any money with Sony because of their casual attitude towards my rights as a digital media user and consumer.
Richard: Good point. At work, we're trying to hire a couple of people; when we succeed, one of them will get my T40, and I'll probably buy a T60 to replace it. If and when the cross-install story gets better, I might buy a MacBook and give the T60 to someone on my team.
Posted by: paulr at March 1, 2006 07:10 AM
