For Glen: WInXP on the MBP.
 

How's the experience so far? Is it absolutely, positively stable? Consideering one for SDE work.

any keyboard differences?

Cheers,
Jason

I believe his MBP "bested" his Desktop by about 3 seconds for the Vegas Render test

Jason, the 2.13ghz Core Duo Mac Book Pro bested my Sony VAIO RC PentiumD 3.0ghz desktop by a few seconds. Apparently there isn't any overhead for XP running on Mac hardware.

I purchased a 2.0ghz iMac for my gf in which she had to install XP via Boot Camp because her day-job requires her to use a PC. She uses XP on her Mac daily and has reported positive results. Stability isn't 100% perfect- it did lock on her once...but that was in the span of several weeks of use. The only ongoing problem she has is her keyboard/mouse stop working intermittently, requiring her to unplug and plug them back in.

This shouldn't be an issue with an integrated keyboard of a laptop however unless you have other motives for buying a Mac and running windows (ie Using it to learn FCP or other Mac programs) it might not be worth the price of admission. If your going to use it SOLEY as a PC machine you can buy a coparably powerful PC laptop for much less.

However if your looking to specifically have a machine that can run both XP and OS X and have an interest in learning some Mac programs it's quite a valuable piece of hardware. I personally love my MBP but don't know if I'd like it as much if I was using it ONLY for running my PC NLE via bootcamp. I've since deleted my XP partition and use it ONLY as a Mac machine now. I've been studying FCP studio for a possible switch next season.

Glen,

Why the swtich? I have long been supportive of windows users
and was looking to learn Sony Vegas (which I know you use). I do remember
you going into details to one guy about a computer is a computer. I now have
a friend who loves vegas, I would love to share your story with him.

Glen are you running BootCamp or Parallels or something else all together?

I prefer OSX over Windows plus the integration with Motion and DVDSP is really nice. I personally still like Vegas better than FCP but am in the midst of learning FCP. The more I learn about it the more aspect of it I'm growing to appreciate. Either way I think there is no "perfect" NLE.

Moving to the Mac platform makes better business sense. For one there is a great deal of local FCP editors I have access to if need be. Plus if I need to hire out my own services for editing FCP is the preferred NLE.

I was running Boot Camp but have since deleted the XP partition and relinquished it back to OSX to make room for FCP Studio. In my limited experience with it, it ran very stable.

Glenn,

So you A) don't run Vegas and b) didn't test Vegas while running bootcamp.

The reason I ask is, I will probably be forced, hehe, into buying a laptop for editing and since I already invested in Vegas, I think I'm too old to learn another NLE, that and FCP costs as much as my house. :}

No I did (on both accounts) and with staggering results. My Vegas Render test results from the Mac Book Pro (2.16 Duo) bested my VAIO Dual Core (3.0ghz) desktop!

Glen I might wait for the quad powermac.
By the way how's the FCP experience?

What are some things that you like about the motion dvdstudio intergration?

Verses what you use to use before?

Thanks Glenn,

I've been drooling over laptops for a while, I'm just trying to figure out which way to go, Mac or PC. I'll probably end up flipping a coin. :}

I just noticed that MacMall is now selling all the Intel Mac's with Windows XP pre-installed for about $150 more. That seems like a pretty good deal if you want both systems, and you don't have to suffer through any installation yourself - I think you can get the entry level MacBook with WinXP for about $1250, or the Mini for $700.