My initial shortlist included the Lenovo Thinkpad T61p, the Dell Precision M6300, and the Sony Vaio AR61ZU. I was pretty much settled on the Sony although I was concerned that this might be a bit larger than I really wanted due to the 17" display. I've now realised that the MacBook Pro is also a contender so I now have to choose between that and the Sony Vaio (which is pretty much the Apple of the PC world).
Apart the basics of email and web, I'll be using the machine for Java development work 90% of the time and the tools I use are available on all platforms. The only Microsoft specific tools I need to use are Word and Excel. They are both available on the Mac, at a price. I guess there's always the option of using OpenOffice but I don't know how well that really works, especially with Office 2007 files.
The MacBook Pro is probably the better choice for development work given that the OS is linux based (most of the development work I do is targeted at unix or linux production environments).
It's a tough call. Suggestions anyone?
Labels: hardware
6 Comments:
I've been a long time user of Sony Vaio (I've had two). There are really great machines: good quality, good speed, nice design. I've recently switched to a MacBook Pro and don't regret this change at all. I really enjoy this new machine as well, as it's lighter, sports a powerful OS. In the downsides, it takes a few weeks to get used to the keyboard, but to my surprise the one-button touchpad isn't a problem. For Java development, it's an ideal environment. There's some weird behaviour with Spaces and Java apps, but nothing critical. The screen is not as good as that of Vaio's, but the compensation is clearly on weight. Tradeoffs...
Overall, whatever choice you'll make, I guess you won't regret it. Both are great machines from two great makers.
For me hardware is less important than the OS. I can't stand Windows any longer. So it is either a Mac or a PC with good support for Linux.
The problem with Linux is the lousy support for suspend and hibernation. My Mac normally has weeks of uptime - I just close the lid and then open it when I want to continue. That has never worked reliable on either Linux or Windows. Constant reboots.
I recently look at the same three options. I ended up getting a Thinkpad T61 15.4", and install Ubuntu 7.10 on the machine. Ubuntu worked out of the box with all the hardware with no hacking. I used it for my primary development machine, and I am very pleased with it. With your budget you could easily get the T61p (workstation) which has the option for the 1920x1200 display. I got the 1680x1050 display, FYI, and it's great. It weighs a bit more than a 15.4 macbook pro, but for much less money you get more powerful hardware.
I used to use a number of Dell laptops running windows and now run a 17-inch MacBook Pro. At the office, we have Dells configured with the same amount of RAM and processor speed but the Macs are considerably faster at building our Java code. (The Mac OS X file system seems to be more efficient is my current theory.) The difference is a lot: 20-30 seconds for me, 60-90 seconds for the Windows users.
The Mac OS has a number of Unix command-line tools which are quite handy. (You can get similar tools on Windows with Cygwin.)
Java is built-in on the Mac, and all standard Java tools run. One drawback right now is that the Mac Java is Java 5 (not 6). Versions of 6 will come eventually but are not released right now.
Also, Oracle does not run on Macs, if that is an issue for you.
For office tools, I recommend the free NeoOffice (based on OpenOffice). See www.neooffice.org/neojava/en/index.php
I've decided to take the plunge and go for a MacBook Pro. I've ordered the 15" model which has a lower resolution than I originally wanted but I'm going to be traveling to customer sites more often in the future and want something I can use easily on the road. I'll blog again when it arrives.
OSX is not "linux based". It's a BSD derived Unix variant.
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