Can A MacBook/MacBook Air Run Parallels?

[jyl]

Hey Mac guys and PC geeks, I have a question. I'm going to buy a MacBook to use as my personal laptop and my work laptop.

In "work mode", it will be running Parallels/Windows 7, a couple of models in Excel/for Windows locally in Parallels (because Excel/for Mac is a useless POS), a remote desktop in Citrix, and Chrome browser.

My question is, will a 11" MacBook Air be powerful enough to do this? The specs would be 1.6 GHz dual Core i7 (optionally 2.2 GHz dual Core i7) and 4 GB DRAM (optionally 8 GB).

If so, would the new 12" MacBook be powerful enough? The specs there are 1.1 GHz dual Core M and 8 GB DRAM.

The MacBook interests me because of the Retina screen, but it is hardly any lighter/thinner than the MacBook Air, so I won't choose it if the Core M processor is going to be a hindrance.

[stomachmonkey]

Both will run it but I'd use the Air with 8 GB of RAM.

Does the Air have an SSD? I think they all do now, can't recall.

If yes just another reason to go with the Air.

[jyl]

Yes, the MacBook Air is SSD-only. As is the MacBook.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Probably but not optimally. I run a MacBook Pro (late 2011 model) with 16GB RAM and it runs parallels okay. When it had just 8GB RAM it still worked but not quite as well. You can pull up the specs on that unit and compare to the new MacBook Air. I suspect the Pro is still more powerful but a new Air is... well... new and technology catches up quickly so even a "less powerful" Air might be nearly comparable to a "more powerful" Pro from a few years ago.

I suspect you'll be able to run fine - your battery life might be poor off line power though (if you're going to run that way at all).

[jyl]

Thinking about the exact usage: when I'm at conferences and meetings during the day, I'd be running
- Excel/Windows 7 in Parallels, probably just a couple of moderate size spreadsheets.
- Citrix/Mac with a financial application (Factset).
- Outlook webmail in Chrome/Mac
- Battery power

Back in the hotel I'd
- plug in a second monitor (I found some slim 13" monitors that aren't much thicker than a MacBook Air), to run the above apps with dual screens
- AC power

I wouldn't need great performance but don't want beach balls.

Seems I'd clearly want to get 8GB DRAM. I'm not sure if the faster processor would be important.




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[stomachmonkey]

Originally Posted by jyl

Thinking about the exact usage: when I'm at conferences and meetings during the day, I'd be running
- Excel/Windows 7 in Parallels, probably just a couple of moderate size spreadsheets.
- Citrix/Mac with a financial application (Factset).
- Outlook webmail in Chrome/Mac
- Battery power

Back in the hotel I'd
- plug in a second monitor (I found some slim 13" monitors that aren't much thicker than a MacBook Air), to run the above apps with dual screens
- AC power

I wouldn't need great performance but don't want beach balls.

Seems I'd clearly want to get 8GB DRAM. I'm not sure if the faster processor would be important.




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The processor is important because you can set the VM to use a dedicated number of cores.

[TimT]

I found some slim 13" monitors that aren't much thicker than a MacBook Air

Link? Monoprice?

[jyl]

Stuff like
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00H4HCNLQ/ref=mp_s_a_1_12?qid=1427844932&sr=1-12&pi=AC_SX110_SY165_QL70

[stomachmonkey]

Originally Posted by jyl

Stuff like
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00H4HCNLQ/ref=mp_s_a_1_12?qid=1427844932&sr=1-12&pi=AC_SX110_SY165_QL70

Just remember if you go for the MacBook don't get the latest with it's stupid single USB-c port.

[Paul_Heery]

You might want to take a look at Office 2016 for Mac before you go off and determine that you need to run parallels to run Excel. It is considerably different than the version released a few years back,

Office 2016 for Mac finally catches up to its Windows equivalent | The Verge

[masraum]

Does it have to do it in parallels, or could you set it up for dual boot?

[jyl]

I suppose I could boot it into native Windows. I don't know much about that. A little reading I did suggested that parallels works better than boot camp, but I don't have any real knowledge.

[Shaun @ Tru6]

I run Parallels on my 2011 MacBook Pro and it works perfectly running out Access-based order entry and invoicing system

[stomachmonkey]

Originally Posted by jyl

I suppose I could boot it into native Windows. I don't know much about that. A little reading I did suggested that parallels works better than boot camp, but I don't have any real knowledge.

The better way to do that is Boot Camp first, then when you set up Parallels you tell it to use the boot camp partition as it's virtual drive.

Best of both worlds and not really any extra work all things considered.

That way if you find you need all the Macs cpu and RAM for Windows you can reboot into it native.

Boot camp is cake.

There is a guided app on the Mac to set it up.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

I personally can't stand boot camp because I don't like having to reboot the machine each time. With parallels you run both at the same time. If there were Mac versions of Autodesk Revit, formZ and a few other things I use I'd get rid of the windows part altogether but until that happens parallels is the best option I think

[Shifter]

Any reason you don't just run your needed MS apps on your citrix desktop? Or will you be working without internet connectivity?

If you are running work apps on your personal machine you do risk it be taken by your company in case of a discovery, but then I don't know the risk of litigation your company is exposed to.

[rusnak]

I have a MB Pro, run Parallels and Win 7 just fine. I don't get the Excel for Mac is a piece of crap statement though. Do you have any experience on a MacBook?

Excel for Mac runs better on a Mac than Win 7. In fact, now that I have gotten it dialed in, it's really powerful. I run multi-tab spreadsheets that are more elaborate than a "moderate" size. I despise Chrome though.

[Scott R]

Originally Posted by Paul_Heery

You might want to take a look at Office 2016 for Mac before you go off and determine that you need to run parallels to run Excel. It is considerably different than the version released a few years back,

Office 2016 for Mac finally catches up to its Windows equivalent | The Verge

Still means I have to run Visio in Unity on Fusion. Fail Microsoft!

[stomachmonkey]

Originally Posted by Porsche-O-Phile

I personally can't stand boot camp because I don't like having to reboot the machine each time. With parallels you run both at the same time. If there were Mac versions of Autodesk Revit, formZ and a few other things I use I'd get rid of the windows part altogether but until that happens parallels is the best option I think

The benefit of using Boot Camp for the virtual hard disk is you have the option to reboot native if you need to.

As good as Fusion and Parallels are there are still occasions, mostly hardware related, that running native is the only option.

Certainly more of an issue on desktops than laptops.

My Infinity PCI cards will run in my MacPros when booted to Windows under boot camp but not under a VM.

There is one caveat to running the boot camp partition as your VM's disc, you can't suspend it, a total OS shut down inside the VM is required.

I find it a minor issue since booting the OS does not take much more time resuming from suspend. Although admittedly the suspend allows you to leave all apps and work open.

Which way to go really depends on what you are using Windows for and how often.

[jyl]

I use Macs at home and have Excel/Mac. I use PCs at work and pretty much live in Excel/Windows. Excel/Mac is a POS if you are a power user of Excel/Windows because the keystroke shortcuts are different, the menus are different, not all the functIons are available, it won't run many macros, there is no Visual Basic, and add-ins for specialist financial applications don't work for Excel/Mac. Basically Excel/Mac has always been a rather crippled version of Excel, and I suspect Microsoft did that deliberately, for obvious reasons.

From the initial reviews I've read, Excel/Mac 2016 addresses the keystroke shortcut problem but nothing else.

I can't use something almost the same as Excel/Windows, it has to be exactly the same. If the third party add-ins don't support Excel/Mac, for example, that's game over.

The other option is using Excel/Windows via Remote Desktop/Citrix, but the latency makes that a pain the in rear, and the Citrix Mac client doesn't support the same keystroke combos. And of course you need a good internet connection, so no working on planes etc.

Thus I have to find some way to run Excel/Windows locally.