600mb John.
yeahā¦ i understand thatā¦ iām the same but oppositeā¦ itās mainly the unibody design thatās so sweet about themā¦ theyāre thin/light yet pretty damn strong since theyāre carved out of a single piece of aluminumā¦
a video showing the manufacturing processā¦ probably interesting to anybody that draws in rhino regardless of whether or not theyād consider buying one (once you get past the jony ive spiel 
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(and in case my motives arenāt obvious for posting this stuffā¦ i donāt care about apple vs dell vs hp etcā¦ but i want mac rhino to succeed so iāll hype it up to anybody that will listen 
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Ouch!!
Much food for thought. Thanks.
I have to admit that Iāve never really paid a lot of attention to Apple stuff, but Iāve just had a look at the Apple website. Like you, I donāt care about Apple vs Dell vs etc, I just want a good tool. Apple make good tools by all accounts, but are itās good features really of benefit to me? I mean the ali chassis is very cool, but will it increase my productivity? Even if the machine is just a better experience to use then maybe āyesā.
But not really having ever thought of having bought any Apple stuff before just how well can I run Rhino on a Mac? Sorry for the dumb question. And of course, Iāve got a load of other Windows software - what to do, keep my M6400 and carry on running that on their? Thatās okay up to a point until I want to - say - take images from Rhino and edit them.
Iām not knocking the viability of a Mac, Iām just ignorant of how it works. Iāve always had this idea in my head that Mac are kind of like Mercedes are to cars; very well made and very nice to use, but it comes at a price and youāve got to need the features your paying for. But yes, Iād love a Merc.
John
Iāll share my 2 cents; I use a MacBook Pro everyday with Rhino 5 and it has performed very well. I started using Rhino as one of my tools that I only used for certain types of modeling. As such, I still used the Mac OS. I first tried using Rhino from running within Fusion on the Mac side of things, which worked ok. As I started using Rhino more, I decided to install Bootcamp so I could start-up in Windows 7 and take full advantage of the laptop resources. I still had things that I used on the Mac side (Adobe CS, Keyshot, etc.), but I quickly found that rebooting was a big waste of time. I have now moved everything over to Windows 7 and rarely ever reboot into the Mac OS. My MacBook Pro is now a Windows 7 only machine.
The performance with Rhino 5 is very good, Iāve had no issues, application response is very good. The only thing that is an issue, or at least something to be aware of is that you still have to have and maintain the Mac OS. Because you still need the Mac OS and because of how Bootcamp functions with it, you need a more complicated back-up plan. I wonāt go into it, unless someone wants to know, but suffice it say, some type of Windows back-up isnāt the only thing to think about. Because of this and the relationship of the Mac OS and the Bootcamp Windows partition, unless there is a specific need to have both a Mac and a Windows machine, I wouldnāt go this route again. Now that I have everything I need running in the Windows 7 partition, I have no need for the Mac OS side and the hassles it poses for back-ups, I wished I would have gone with a true PC. This is somewhat shocking for me to say, since Iāve been a Mac user for close to 20 years. Itās nothing to do with the hardware, which I think is great, itās the fact of how the Windows partition is implemented and if you donāt need the Mac OS, itās a liability.
At some point, Iām hoping to pass the MacBook on to someone else and Iām looking at one of the mobile workstations from Boxx Technologies. They have some awesome PCās, using the top of the line components and they are all built specifically for CAD applications. Like I said, this is only my take on the issue.
One more thought; someone might wonder why I donāt just switch to Rhino for the Mac OS. I know that they are working on it, but itās not fully developed, and even if it was, I use plug-ins that are only available for use in Rhino for Windows, so thatās not an option.
Thanks for the enlightening reply mcramblet. Youāve confirmed my fears. As I say, the Mac looks great but anything that gets in the way of me getting ideas onto the screen isnāt going to work. Maybe if the primary use was - say - Adobe CS, and Rhino a secondary use itād be okay, but the machine is really going to be Rhino specific.
Thanks. John
noā¦ i doubt itā¦ especially when considering by gaining some of the āgoodā features of mac, youāll lose some of the good features of windowsā¦ so thereās a balancing act in there and itās hard to say which is a better choice.
thatās where it becomes entirely subjectiveā¦ you canāt put a benchmark on user experience so i canāt just (honestly) say āyouāll love it!āā¦ because you might hate it
i think you would have to want a mac in order to enjoy using itā¦ if your main criteria is choosing the right tool for the job and thatās that- then thereās probably no need for you to even consider macā¦ if youāve never used one then you bought one-- youāre accepting that youāre going to be spending some time (months?) on simply learning new conventions etcā¦
iām just putting these links etc on here because i know other people are reading it tooā¦ and i realize youāre personally trying to make a buying decision and iām muddying up your thread so iāll quit talking about macs.
John, yes, thatās exactly right and my experience. Again, I have nothing against Apple and their products, I think they are very good quality, but if the main intent is running Rhino in Windows, save yourself the hassle and go with a good PC (another plug for Boxx, just because I want one so badly). If Apple changed the way they implemented the use of Windows, that might change, but I donāt see that happening.
Thanks Jeff and mcramblet. Donāt worry about talking about Macs. Iām happy to discuss all options - how else to dismiss them?
Iām hope your right and others will read this thread.
Well I still havenāt upgraded and Iāll have to wait until work eases off a bit before making the move. Meanwhile Iāve had time to think, and in that respect a review of mobile workstations in this monthās Develop 3D has been of enormous help.
www.develop3d.com/workstations/Reviews-mobile-workstations-for-cad-a-buyers-guide
The bulk of this page deals with the individual components, but if you scroll down to the bottom of the page there are links to each workstation reviewed and a link to a chart comparing the workstations. This is a UK magazine so a couple of models might not be readily available in the US. Also pices are in Ā£.
The real surprise is the Schenker W503, but I think 15" might be too small for me. Also the Workstation Specialists WS-M1760, but that extra performance comes at a premium. I still think for my purposes the Dell 6800 is going to be the best option, but we all have different priorities so Iād encourage you to give the article a read.
It has to be said that the HP & Lenovo offerings donāt score very well, especially when you compare prices. The Schenker is a steal compared. Buy a Lotus for less tha a ford sort of thing.
John
A friend of mine owns a Schenker and is quite happy.
Larger than 15" is a problem for several reasons. Of course there is readability. A larger screen is always better to work with, but that comes with several drawbacks in my experience:
a) portability: my old 18" acer added up to more than 5kg with power supply and extra battery and I still consider that pretty light for the size and power it had.
b) accessory: itās really hard to find decent cases for laptops larger than 15", if at all. ā¦and keep the weight in mindā¦
Iām pretty happy back to 15" right now and only about half the weight to carry around and if I need a larger screen, I can always hook it up to a larger monitor. For most mobile uses, 18" is pretty unwieldy too. Just try a 15" at starbucks or on a train and then scale that upā¦ 
HaLo, what you say is true. I did have a 15" before moving up to 17". However, Iām in the perhaps unusual situation of using my laptop either at home or in my office which is only 200m (200 yards) away from home, so whilst I do need to move it, portability isnāt the biggest priority. I do take it to clients sometimes and it certainly is more cumbersome, but on the flip side the bigger screen is slightly easier to view if there are two or more people looking at it.
The 17" workstations also seem to have (not always, but mostly) better performance scores. And a small point - Iāve found clients are more impressed with a machine that looks like it does the business ('cause I sure as Hell donāt!).
But yes, if portability was a bigger issue Iād certainly be very interested in trying a 15" or even smaller.
I lugged mine around the university campus. Not very large distances either. Still with a bottle of water and one or twoo books, the whole package got really heavy.
Looks like screen size might be the only size that really matters and you are right, itās hard to find good specs with small screens.
As for impressing customers and two people looking at the same screenā¦ 15" convertible 
For what itās worth, I did the MacBook Pro thing (running bootcamp) for a long time, also did it with my desktop (Mac Pro) at the same time. After awhile, I got tired of all the keyboard quirks, but what really killed it for me was the updatesā¦ some Windows updates required me to first update the Mac OS, then update bootcamp, then update windowsā¦ it was just too much hassle. And using bootcamp on a laptop meant a sizable chunk of that precious hard drive space was taken up by OSX, which I never used. I love love love Appleās hardware, but running a straight-up windows machine is so much simpler. I can only recommend running a Mac if you actually have a use for the Apple OS frequently. Otherwiseā¦ Iām sticking to windows machines anymore. It was an interesting experiment for a few years.
To conclude this thread I recently bought a Precision M6800, it just seemed the best value for money, although I was a bit worried about the Quadro graphics card. But I can report that the machine works really well.
Thanks for all the feedback and suggestions.
John
Just to add some more info: many of my students they have Mac and Bootcamp.
Some of them had very serious hardware problem and couple get burned mainboad!
Under stress some series, probably not the pro, doesnāt have enough air flow.
I have a M6500 and work very well also next to a motorcycle accident with me!!
Today the Dell XPS looks like the best for the money.
After yet another issue with my MacBook and Bootcamp, I finally was able to get rid of it. I was hoping to replace it with a Boxx laptop, but I couldnāt make it happen. I was given a really nice, brand new HP Z Book 15 and Iām really happy with it. Fast Haswell i7 CPU, 500GB Solidstate drive, Nivida Quadro K2100 video card and 16 GB RAM. Iām not sure that the Boxx 15" model would have been any better than the Z Book. Itās quite a beast, compared to the MacBook Pro, I had. Iām also very happy to say good-bye to Bootcamp!
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