Sell MBA and buy Windows 8 machine? / Windows 8 in Boot Camp

[Shadrack]

I too have found that running Windows 7 on my mid-2009 MBP would eat up battery life a lot faster than Mac OS X. I buy that it is probably due to Apple not properly supporting things with their "bootcamp" drivers.

That being said, I found that performance was about what I expected. In general games ran faster in Windows than they did in OS X. If my MBP was plugged into the wall there weren't any real issues. But I much prefer OS X and eventually just erased my windows partition. I kind of set it up for when I wanted to work at home, but since I have a Windows laptop for work I would prefer to use that. So with that I'd probably just recommend getting a proper Windows laptop if you want to run Windows. Apple's attitude has been that their driver support is just good enough to keep saying it is a feature. I doubt that will change.

[ingramator]

Thank you for the very detailed instruction. but my question remains: how good is windows 8 on a late 2010 macbook air?

It will run just fine!! Don't expect to be doing any gaming or visually intense stuff but once it's installed it is definitely a smoother, faster and less battery hogging experience!

[mrmomoman]

Sell the MBP and get a WIN8 PC.

Thinkpad X1 Carbon is a great machine.

Acer Aspire S7 - 13.3 or 11.6" both 1080p displays. - This would be on the top of my list at the moment for this form factor. Has touch display.

The Asus Zenbook UX31E or the UX31A are nice machines as well.

[LaP]

Why not try to install Windows 8 on it ?

[edit] well i should have read all the replies before lol anyway can't delete so ...

[kevpan815]

You can wipe completely OSX and install Windows 8 native.

Don't use Bootcamp. One thing for sure, your graphics card will see a huge improvement.

NO YOU CAN'T! ALL NON-OEM COPIES OF WINDOWS 8 ARE UPGRADE ONLY! IT'S IN THE EULA. OTHERWISE YOU ARE COMMITING SOFTWARE PIRACY AND I WILL REPORT YOU TO [email protected]! JUST FYI!

[kevpan815]

I should further note that someone else here (in a different post) said that your Mac will automatically look for an EFI Based Operating System on the Hard Drive and will NOT start looking for Windows 8 for another 20-30 seconds (and I can Confirm that it's True).

[Eins.MY]

The better replacement for MBA 11" is Surface Pro imho

Core i5, 1080p screen, 64gig-128gig store, usb 3.0 plus the price will be around $799-$999 at best

I should further note that someone else here (in a different post) said that your Mac will automatically look for an EFI Based Operating System on the Hard Drive and will NOT start looking for Windows 8 for another 20-30 seconds (and I can Confirm that it's True).

not true, I've seen videos on youtube, win 8 boot very fast on MBA, see this one for example :

[cnl1980]

I'm about to try it. I am backing up my files right now and I'll report on my success (or failure) later.

Did it work?

[Noir Angel]

Given that Apple machines retain their value pretty well you could resell it and get a pretty tidy Windows 8 machine with the money you make. And you'd probably stand a better chance of ongoing driver support than you're likely to get from Apple.

[123456789A]

Did it work?

Not really. I tried doing a clean install and had issues with the screen blacking out randomly. Then I tried as an upgrade from Windows 7 and didn't even have a functioning touchpad and the screen kept going out and I got a blue screen if I pressed F2. So the method worked, but the hardware didn't.

[threetonesun]

I should further note that someone else here (in a different post) said that your Mac will automatically look for an EFI Based Operating System on the Hard Drive and will NOT start looking for Windows 8 for another 20-30 seconds (and I can Confirm that it's True).

Windows 8 on my Macbook Pro boots in about 10 seconds on an SSD. I mentioned this in another thread, but it's practically faster for me to switch OSs than run a VM.

[MFH]

NO YOU CAN'T! ALL NON-OEM COPIES OF WINDOWS 8 ARE UPGRADE ONLY! IT'S IN THE EULA. OTHERWISE YOU ARE COMMITING SOFTWARE PIRACY AND I WILL REPORT YOU TO [email protected]! JUST FYI!

They are upgrades to previous versions of WINDOWS, not upgrades to OSX...

[Luis Mazza]

I run both (Mountain Lion and Windows 8) on my rMBP and overall, everything works. It is very fast and I came from Windows from about 2 years now.

I don't think touch-screens are for powerful OSes.

The only thing I would like OSX to support is the great file management and copying that Windows (mainly Win8) has. It is superb. The rest I rather stay with Apple.

[offroadaaron]

First: Massive LOL at boot camp slowing grapics down.

Secondly: The hardware inside the Apple machine is standard hardware!!!!! The drivers are not Apple drivers for things like the graphics card and chipsets.... Touchpad and whatnot Apple have created them.

Thirdly: If you don't like the Apple supplied drivers download the drivers from the hardware manufacture, Apple don't make Linux drivers but you can install ubuntu and find the correct drivers for your Macbook.

Lastly: Performance will be the same as any other computer with the same specs! The battery life will be worse.

[ahhell]

a windows 8 laptop with touchscreen, you really are dillusional. Only a crazy people would want to touch a screen to use windows. It would take forever to do anything and you would get repetative strain injury. If you love win8 so much just sell your macbook and get a windows 8 laptop without a touchscreen or Wait for an arm ultrathin notebook with windows 8 if you must have a device as thin as your macbook air.

:rofl:

To the OP, it's safe to ignore this guy.

[threetonesun]

First: Massive LOL at boot camp slowing grapics down.

Agreed. Running Windows, at native resolutions, the macbooks mac decent portable gaming machines. Running OSX, they're complete turds. :laugh:

[SMELTN]

Honestly I don't like the idea of a touch screen desktop or laptop myself. I think overall its not good for operation and ergonomics.

I am however very interested in getting Windows 8 to work on my mbp because I will be using dual boot as I do with Windows 7 now

[neufuse Veteran]

Um...what? When you use Bootcamp, you are running windows natively. Bootcamp is not a virtual machine. I can max any game I want to even in Bootcamp. If you have the Mac Pro like I do, you do not need to even install the bootcamp drivers since I have all Windows and Mac compatible accessories.

I think they meant to say without a boot selector... too many people think the main boot OS is the "native" os, no idea where that idea came from

[kevpan815]

The better replacement for MBA 11" is Surface Pro imho

Core i5, 1080p screen, 64gig-128gig store, usb 3.0 plus the price will be around $799-$999 at best

not true, I've seen videos on youtube, win 8 boot very fast on MBA, see this one for example :

I meant to say that if you put Windows 8 all by itself on a Mac, it will take 20-30 seconds before it starts looking for Windows 8, at least that was my experience with my Mid Year 2010 Mac Mini.

[OOOOOOOO]

Bootcamp is not virtual machine, yet OSX still exists, that is the reason I said natively, without OSX involved.

But you will NOT see a difference in your performance in BootCamp or Native. It simply wont make a difference. If you use the same driver, you will see the exact same performance.