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Comment by wodenokoto | Hacker News Reader

When was a notebook ever the choice for running multiple VM's or heavy editing of video?

This is what I don't understand about the current criticism.

I bought my current mac 7 years ago, and though it has dedicated 3D hardware, it was never meant for heavy gaming or rendering 3D movies, and everybody loved it. It also came with very little RAM, even for the time.

But today it is apparently a travesty that MacBook Pro doesn't offer tons of memory and high-end 3D graphics. When did they ever do that? The hall mark of the pro has always been the form factor, battery life, screen, mousepad.

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>When was a notebook ever the choice for running multiple VM's or heavy editing of video?

There has been a category of laptops that are classified as mobile workstations for quite some time now, including IBM/Lenovo's retired W5xx series and current Pxx series and Dell's Precision laptops. The MacBook Pro is (or was) considered to be Apple's equivalent.

And just for comparison, a 2010 Lenovo W510 already supported 32 GB. The Pxx series currently can do 64.

(But they are heavier, power-hungry and more complicated than the MacBook Pro, which IMHO isn't really in the "mobile workstation" class, but . But in comparable form factor you get 32 GB right now in various ThinkPads. Some new models only offer 16 as well, maybe for similar CPU availability reasons. But you have the choice if you need it.)

> When was a notebook ever the choice for running multiple VM's or heavy editing of video?

When they became powerful enough to do it, and so more cost effective for companies to just buy laptops for everyone, rather than provide desktop computers as well as laptops for those that need to travel. Alternatively, when open plan offices and hotdesking became popular.

Everywhere I've worked for the last 5 years I've been given laptops as my main/only development device. Admittedly I'm not generally running multiple VMs, but 8GB isn't enough for my workload, 16GB would be, but I could easily see others wanting more for a future proof work laptop.

As for graphics and gaming, a few years ago they did have models with Nvidia graphics, and that doesn't seem to be the case now. That said, they were usually mid range GPUs, and Intel graphics have come a long way in that time, so there's probably not a huge difference in relative performance for modern games.

> The hall mark of the pro has always been the form factor, battery life, screen, mousepad.

Form factor was always a secondary factor. First and foremost was high specs in CPU, memory, storage, connectors and screen. i.e. for a Pro-fessional user (photographer, graphics designer, film).

I think you're getting confused with the non-Pro macbooks and 'air' line.

I'm wondering what you've been using your mac for if performance isn't a concern... I'd be concerned that you might have been paying over the odds ...

A few months after the mid-2009 MacBook Pro release there was a MacBook release with identical specs.

In 2009 the difference between a professional and an amateur MacBook was literally screen, keyboard mousepad and aluminium vs. plastic.

> I think you're getting confused with the non-Pro macbooks and 'air' line.

The air was more expensive than a pro in the early days.

> I'm wondering what you've been using your mac for if > performance isn't a concern

Writing, researching and programming. I payed for high-quality components and a great form factor, and that has payed off well. It has always had good performance, but for the same price, I could have gotten much faster PC laptops.

> in the early days

> high-quality components and a great form factor

Yep you could have made do with a cheaper mac.

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