pandamaja

I understand the sarcasm, but with all do respect, there are a ton of things windows does better than OSX (and vice versa). Gaming is leaps and bounds better on a windows. Lan networking (as simple as mapping network enabled devices). My remote access for work only works on a windows os. you can get away with VM’s for the most part though.

Yeah, like I said, no regrets. Just wish apple was a little more flexible considering all the unforseen issues. Performance is fine. So long as you keep the things that need to be fast on the SSD and the things that don’t on the HDD. I have noticed the SSD slowing down a bit once it filled up. Not to much though.

I flat out refused to put the optibay back in just to install windows. I found a walkthrough on getting windows on bootcamp up and running. Essentially, it involved created a vm with actual hard drive space. then pulling the boot loader out of the vm package. It was a bit of a hassle as it involved booting into recovery and unmounting drives.

I want to reinforce a few points that Cloudgazer said. Build quality is unmatched and the trackpad is really something beautiful. There’s a reason why you see a lot of people using a mouse with a windows laptop. Because the trackpad is terrible. The MB trackpads are the first trackpads I’ve actually enjoyed using. So much so that I’m considering purchasing the separate trackpad when I have the MB hooked up to a monitor. That being said , there are a few other things to consider.

What will you be using this for? If have any inclination to game on a laptop, you might be better off spending the extra money on a beefier windows laptop.

Secondly, OSX isn’t as easy as people make it out to be. There is definitely a learning curve coming from windows. And there are definite things that windows does better.

Also, macbooks will ‘technically’ be outdated just as fast as a windows laptop. The hardware inside the laptops are essentially the same. They might run differently after a few years.

I want to chime in here for a few things to be in mind. I did this for my early 2011 MBP refresh. While I don’t in anyway regret it, there are a few things to consider. I actually purchased my MPB with an SSD option and wanted to throw a larger HDD in place of the superdrive to use as local user storage. (was cheaper, didn’t have to worry about transferring OS) Here are a few things I’ve learned since doing it.

• If you choose an HDD to throw in there, make sure the depth of the drive is no larger than 750GB laptop drives. (I bought a 1TB drive, but alas, it was too thick. Mayhaps, they’ve slimmed down since I tried.)

• Its a PItA, but worth it. have some tools. And a magnetic pen. The screws are tiny. (Don’t worry about magnet and HDD, the magnet is no where near strong enough to do damage)

• Even though the optibay comes with an enclosure for the superdrive, your MB will still be looking for it internally. You’ll get errors. Someone wrote a script to switch some flag to stop these errors. I don’t remember where it is, as I did it over a year ago. Just google the error and you should find it.

• If you ever want to consider Win7 and boot camp option, I sincerely suggest trying to install on your new drive BEFORE you remove the superdrive. It is an insufferable pain to get windows and boot camp up and running with an external drive/USB. Maybe Apple changed this on the newer MBP’s but as of the early 2011 refresh, the ONLY macs you could install win7 via usb were the MBAs. It is possible, but it is very hands on and involves VM sorcery.