So my verdict, a computer is like the love of your life, unless you are too dumb to know what it is, and we all ahve preferences, go to hell if you stand on either side of this Os war, I am happy using both, and love them all,
But if you say, Dude I am not sure what to buy, the answer is simple, what you want,
If its your day to day use, e-mail, blogging, video, watch shit, download crap, you better get a Mac, it takes teh shit, an dkeeps mum, and yeah it will please you fancy by popping out a Cd if it has any malware or suspected virus,
The only reason WE use Macs is the Softwares, being in Film, and Video, can’t do without Final Cut Studio, Logic Pro, and a lot of very usefull high standard softwares, for your kin information it is not just teh OS or the so advertised Hardware, it’s the UNique fuckin Softwares that make us buy macs, and of course they are the flashy things, so some style conscious numbers do pop in, an dhey no doubts the Mac Book Pro looks cool,

So teh only things you have to look at, what you want, what money have you got, and how soon are you gonna upgrade, the rest is useless, if u got the brains you can build super computer out of you sony playstations, end of day all that is inside is Made in China, Made by you knwo who hardware manufacturers, and people liek me buy it from them and build their own machines, and hey forgot to tell you Mac OSx runs better on Windows, and yeha it can eb done, hehe, :D
so go ahead plunge into whatever you want, ahve fun, and don’t ya fuckin waste webspace with your silly so called technical explainations to which computer manufacturer is better,
Adios,
Much love & Peace,

I wouldn’t recommend doing such a comparision however, ANY computer manufactured by a decent company will fulfill the requirements you’ve mentioned. You should, instead, focus on other factors like design, feel, warranty and portability (weight, battery life, etc.). Try out your laptops at a store; a few Dell ones which looked real nice online felt cheap and clunky at the store.

It wouldn’t make sense to follow a recommendation; we’re talking about a digital life partner here, you’ve got to go out and get to know them.

I managed to run SolidWorks through boot camp and so far only 1 function wont be working cause it requires a Nvidia Quadro GPU.

To make it simple for you, any program can work in BootCamp because Intel Mac uses the same processor and chipset as its competitors.

nice comparison! I have been looking into the 1530 now for about two hours of extensive net research as an alternative for my crappy quality mbp.

You are missing a few points:

1. the mbp has serious display issues. if you neet good colour quality, don’t go for the mbp. if you start reading the edid info out of your display and check on EXACTLY what apple builds into these things you will realise, that you are beeing ripped off. my display is a lg display (in a brand new mbp) and only supports 262k colours and only has a contrast of 400:1, instead of the promised millions of colours and 500:1 contrast. if you check up on the other 4 possible displays you can get shipped in your mbp you will see that all have worse technical data than apple claims. AND: you will have real problems keeping some colours apart. besides: it’s a rip off.

2. sound issues: the mbp has a serious issue with the sound chip which is mounted too near to the power translation input thingy. the result: I know three people personally by now who have a very disturbing whining noise. several exchange attempts have failed. and nearly every mbp has a loud cracking sound when you mute the system with earplugs. That hurts, seriously. so you can not use it for working on sound, either.

3. apple service vs dell service. this is self explainatory

4. just a small list of faults i have with my mbp:

dvd writer doesn’t work, “a” and “1″ key hardly work, the display is not quite even in lighting quality, colour issues, sound issues, vga port is broke and the whole casing is not quite straight. and i look after my mbp better than my balls.

so: as long as apple still continues producing crap quality i will run os on pc hardware. the dell 1530 looks most promising and with dual boot you can work with another os just in case your main os froze or broke. you can install any OS on a 1530, there are many many good guides with promising results.

by oliver - 7/15/2008 6:39 pm

Hmm, as much as I doubt that you are telling the truth, but there is no way your MBP has THAT much problems, its either you are a troll or just trying to make the MBP look bad. I know MBP has issues, but it doesn’t have THAT much issues especially from a single unit.

You are missing a few points:

1. the mbp has serious display issues. if you neet good colour quality, don’t go for the mbp. if you start reading the edid info out of your display and check on EXACTLY what apple builds into these things you will realise, that you are beeing ripped off. my display is a lg display (in a brand new mbp) and only supports 262k colours and only has a contrast of 400:1, instead of the promised millions of colours and 500:1 contrast. if you check up on the other 4 possible displays you can get shipped in your mbp you will see that all have worse technical data than apple claims. AND: you will have real problems keeping some colours apart. besides: it’s a rip off.

2. sound issues: the mbp has a serious issue with the sound chip which is mounted too near to the power translation input thingy. the result: I know three people personally by now who have a very disturbing whining noise. several exchange attempts have failed. and nearly every mbp has a loud cracking sound when you mute the system with earplugs. That hurts, seriously. so you can not use it for working on sound, either.

3. apple service vs dell service. this is self explainatory

4. just a small list of faults i have with my mbp:

dvd writer doesn’t work, “a” and “1″ key hardly work, the display is not quite even in lighting quality, colour issues, sound issues, vga port is broke and the whole casing is not quite straight. and i look after my mbp better than my balls.

so: as long as apple still continues producing crap quality i will run os on pc hardware. the dell 1530 looks most promising and with dual boot you can work with another os just in case your main os froze or broke. you can install any OS on a 1530, there are many many good guides with promising results.

I price compared both the XPS M1530 and MacBook Pro (with educational discounts, mind you) with similar hardware (Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz, 4GB RAM, DVD burner, Bluetooth, Wireless N, 1440X900 LED screen, etc) and the price difference was about $900. Really, if the Mac was only like $100-$200 more expensive I would have gotten it instead, but $900 is not easy to swallow. AND on top of that, I already have a successful and stable installation of OS X 10.5.2 running in addition to Vista and Linux. So I think the argument of “Get the Mac for the OS” is nullified, EULAs aside (I still paid good $$ for my copy of Leopard). Unless you are, of course, the average computer user…

on a side note, ‘not being able to afford a mac’ isn’t always applicable. with financial aid from a school, its possible to pick up a mac at 2/3 of the price slashed.