MAC VS PC LAPTOP

[Bering C Sparky 7]

Hello all, I know that this subject has been beat to death, but i am looking to purchase a new laptop as soon as apple releases there updates next week. I have always been a PC but after purchasing the IPHONE and IPAD, I am seriously considering buying a MAC laptop. Would love to hear feed back of your opinion on using a Mac v/s PC for running Rockwell Software. Any problems running Rockwell on a partitioned Mac hard drive with Windows 7 installed? How about partioning v/s virtual machine with windows on an external drive? I am in no way experienced on this subject and would be greatful for any advice before I go and drop the $$$. Also I know you will shake your head at this one but I have been considering going with the AIR BOOK instead of the MAC BOOK PRO, I realize it has limitations as far as # of USB ports, and only has 13" screen, but I travel alot and its compact, lightweight size appeals to me. It has 512G solid state hard drive, 8G RAM, and 2.8 I7 processor so it seems somewhat compatable to the MAC BOOK PRO except for the graphics. ( please correct me if i am wrong about this ) I dont do alot of SCADA so screen size is not really an issue for me. Thanks in advance for your feed back and opinions. BCS

[Crossbow 295]

I have seen many people running the Mitsubishi software under the XP emulator on a MacBook. Never heard anyone complain about it. But I have no idea on the Rockwell side, as that software even seems to hate Windows sometimes...

[Bering C Sparky 7]

I know what you mean there crossbow, one better the company i work for is run by europeans and the laptop they provided me to run the plc's on the ship is a Danish windows xp operating system. So when I have driver configuration errors and the like, I am often at a loss. ( thank goodness for Google translate ) Hopefully there are a few guys out there running Rockwell on macs so i can make up my mind which way to go. Thanks for the reply. BCS

[BobB 58]

Funny thing - I put a band saw through my iPhone (with pleasure) and will not use tablets at all - no guts. Bought a Nokia N8 - latest version of Nokia Symbion includes Acrobat reader and Quick Office in the OS - ruddy brilliant! Also has a HDMI output, USB interface and expansion memory (mini SD card) all built in - no having to buy a heap of stuff to do anything. 12 megapixel camera as well! Nokia Suite also allows editing of your contacts and not just synchronisation - that is a pain - finish up with a load of crap from Outlook in the phone and from the phone to Outlook that you do not want synchronised. Have never been an Apple fan and never will be. My laptop is a Dell XPS monster - aluminium case - huge battery - heavy - full HD screen - lots of guts - it really goes. With all power saving turned off (no good for PLC work as the comms drop out - absolute pain) the batteries last a couple of hours or so.<br />Very important to me for generator work - power is down - have to diagnose the problem with the generator system - huge batteries very important. The great screen also shows a lot of ladder - a lot more than a smaller screen. Carry the laptop and cables in a big backpack - too heavy to be lugging around airports in a normal carry bag - happy though - would never go back to anything smaller. Also have a big hard drive partitioned and dual boot Windows 7 x 64 bit and Windows 7 x 32 bit - one installed on each partition - some things like Modscan will not run on 64 bit. Also use a virtual box for all PLC software except Omron - Omron CX-One shuts down completely and does not cause any problems with grabbing serial ports and running useless services all the time as do AB, Schneider PL7 etcetera, etcetera. Siemens software 'infects' the hard drive with a million files all over the place. Better to keep all these in a Virtual Box and when you shut down the box all services and serial port grabbing software is shut down too. There are also no conflicts between the different brands of PLC software competing for resources. Edited 25 Oct 2012 by BobB

[Nathan 7]

I'm not sure how well Rockwell software runs on a virtual machine. Do some searching on PLCTalk - I'm sure that I've seen the topic discussed multiple times there. I have a monster Alienware laptop and a Macbook Air. I don't use the Mac as often as I thought, primarily because I'm more used to (and I like) Windows 7. I do all my work on other OSes on VMware on the Alienware laptop since it has 16 gigs of RAM. I find that I rarely use my fairly modern desktop computer that's sitting right next to the laptop. I do have 2 complaints: My laptop is way too big to reasonably travel with and the proprietary video drivers on Dell/Alienware laptops is enough to irritate you since the manufacture reference drivers don't recognize the hardware and the vendor doesn't keep them current. In the end it comes down to personal preference. The new Mac Book Pros are sweet machines. As are many different PC laptops. Consider a solid state drive in either case!