Poor performance and no OS X support - this is not woth the effort.
342469
We purchased a Book World Edition II for our office to use as external storage to be shared across multiple computers (Macs and PCs). It has been a nightmare.

  There is no OS X support. None. Although there are some hacks out there for accessing the drive using SMB for OS X, it is not a simple procedure and should not be considered a solution but more of a workaround.

  Also, although the Book World Edition II has a gigabit ethernet port, the backplane (the board that connects the hard drives to the ethernet port) is NOT gigabit. So don;t expect gigabit speeds from this drive.

  All in all, it advertises itself poorly and is difficult to set up and maintain. There are other options out there, and I suggest you research them.
2136887
My 12-year-old bought this with his Christmas money, and although we have the required operating system as listed on the back of the game (Mac OS X 10.6) and very fast Internet service, the game is so slow to load ("laggy," as my son puts it) that it's impossible to enjoy.  As is always the case with software, you can't see if it works until you've installed it, and once you've opened the box and installed it, you can't return it.  Funny how well that works out for the manufacturer!
3068138
The Mac Pro has a lot of problems. Nobody really seems to buy them for quality, which is good. The computer is completely unsuited for professional grade applications, and Apple's questionable configuration and outright counterfeit parts make this computer simply unfit to handle professional-grade computing.

A common misconception among Apple users is that Xeons are magical performance unicorns. They're not. They have precisely two advantages over a Core i7. One is that a Xeon supports dual socket motherboards. But since no Mac has these, that's not important. The other feature is ECC RAM support. The Mac Pro has ECC system RAM, but not ECC GPU RAM, so any GPGPU application you run on the graphics cards could result in corrupt data that lose you days or even weeks worth of work, should you attempt to use this computer professionally.

Another problem is that the performance of the "FirePro" cards is terrible. Apple didn't use real FirePro cards in the Mac. They used two-generation old RadeonHD chipsets that are 20-30% slower than their current generation R9 counterparts to begin with, and that was before Apple underclocked them for the Mac Pro, so performance drops even further. The only thing that makes these "technically" a FirePro is that this is what the firmware identifies them as. They don't have ECC RAM or the performance level that professionals might be expecting.

The Mac Pro is non-upgradable. It won't accept off-the-shelf graphics card or CPU upgrades. The upgrade procedure for Apple products is "Throw Apple product in trash. Buy new Apple product.".

In closing, just get a PC, and you'll be much happier.
686466
Well, as a programmer, I've used every version of Windows since 3.1, so I wanted to try something new.  Linux is terrible as a desktop client. BeOS is dead, so that leaves MacOSX.
Many people talk about the high system requirements for OSX, and it's true, iBook with 128MB of memory just doesn't cut it. First thing I did was to add another 512MB of memory, now OSX is tolerable, snappy even if you stick to doing general office productivity tasks and web browsing.
The best part about OSX for me is the BSD UNIX foundation.
emacs, tcsh, ssh, apache, gcc all the geeky stuff that I need for programming is there.
so, is the switch worth it?  I think so.  I used to need two computers -- a windows XP client and a linux server. now I can do it all on the iBook.
I however do not have good things to say about Apple's iApps bundled witht OSX.
Both iPhoto and iTunes only appeal to novices.
iPhoto organizes your photos into its own multi-leveled directory structure based on date -- something I don't need on my already neatly organized photo albums on windows XP.
And as far as i know, quickly browsing/viewing photos at full screen like ACDSee is not possible with iPhoto.
iTunes similarly works best if you are just starting out with digital music, ie, ripping CDs with iTunes and letting it manage your collection.  But I already have 25GB of mp3 on my windows desktop, moving them to the iBook is out of the question.
So what I really need is a simple program to play songs from a shared network drive.  Fortunately, in the Mac world there's no shortage of good 3rd party software.  I found Audion from panic.com which does what I needed (and much much more).
2982578
Bought Matlab.  This company spends more time/resources making sure you don't steal it (ie allowing you to install it on your own computers hassle-free)...then it does in working the bugs out. It is advertised as working with Os X....GOOD LUCK getting it to run right. This stupid program was so important that I had to run out and buy an Intel iMac..Install that Bootcamp/Windows OS "thing", and install Matlab on the pc side so that I could have stable environment. This P.O.S. is NOT Mac compatible... Sooo...having said that....whatcha think?

Dear Matlab Folks: drop the RETARDED activation scheme which ONLY hurts LEGITIMATE users ( you can find lots of cracked versions in the newsgroups btw) and make this program WORK.
2738575
I've had the Cavalry CAUH2560 for some time, and it works OK with Windows XP. Unfortunately it scarcely works at all with our Mac OS X computers so it is essentially worthless for us and I'm about to replace it with a different make. (I.e., it works very occasionally if I reboot; but then may just as likely cut out in the midst of a file transfer.) It may well be that Cavalry's firewire/USB models would work better, but I no longer trust the manufacturer because its claim that the unit is usable with "Apple: iMAC or G3, G4, iBook" is misleading. For a backup system what is needed is reliability and full compatibility with different OS; and this model has not provided that. (And I can second another reviewer's comment that the instructions and FAQs are incomplete and poorly drafted.)
3111924
I bought this to do dual displays for my Macbook Pro Retina running MAC OS X 10.10. Unfortunately the display link driver, which you have to install from their CD (I downloaded on the MBP)  is in beta for Mac OS X 10.10. The displays do output, but there is a noticeable performance decrease from the standard mac display driver. So much so the windows are slow and choppy dragging from one screen to the next, using mission control, and the mouse scrolls are lagging behind. The screen would also flash white and black, and then finally while on a very important call, one of the displays stopped working, and I had to unplug the dock to work off the Mac. I emailed the company to find out when their production display link driver would be released two days ago, and am waiting for a response. They clearly note they cannot respond to all requests, which isn't a good sign in my customer service book. I'm testing the dock with my Chromebook and Windows 8 laptop, which could serve another use case purpose for dual displays.
65530
I bought this to install on my 4 month old Mac, running the latest operating system, OS X, 10.9.4.  The info clearly states that it will run on a Mac and there is even a video review here on Amazon, that was done on one.  It is true that the reviewer says it is not optimal for the Mac, and the buttons on the front of the machine would not work for Mac, but it did scan for him.  Well it wouldn't work on mine.  I couldn't even get it to install.  I uninstalled, emptied the trash, rebooted, and reinstalled it 6 times and each time, on attempting to bring it up, it crashed.  I finally called Epson and they were amazingly unhelpful.  He had me check several things, change the USB cable, finally determined that my Mac could not see the scanner, told me that I had done all the other things he would have used for troubleshooting, and suggested that I find another computer to install it on, preferably a Windows machine!  I finally ended up installing it on a Windows laptop - certainly not my first choice but apparently my only one.  I have not had a chance to fully test it on this new machine, since I wasted 2 days in trying to get it to install on a Mac, but it appears to work okay on the Windows laptop.  I am giving it only 3 stars, however, because it does not work as advertised.  I am very disappointed as this configuration does not meet our needs nearly as well as it would have if we could have installed it on my Mac.
3017912
maybe I would like it if the software was compatible with my new mac.
I will try to make it work again after the holidays but at this point I'd say
forget it.
3565378
This model is a little sluggish.  It's not nearly as swift as the iMac we replaced, but it's nowhere near the top of the line, so that is to be expected.  Pay more and you get better performance.  There is no optical drive on this, so if you need to install software from disc, pick up a USB drive for that purpose.
1017335
I unpacked the unit with great anticipation only to find out that it does not work with mac computers.  Nevertheless, I proceeded to install in my Windows machine - my second choice.

First, I have a big problem with pretentious software installations.  Te software that comes with this unit requires complex installation, lengthy unlock keys, and has a non-intuitive interface.

Second, after an excessive long time installing (what happened to "plug-n-play"?) I tried it and the results were very disappointing.  The slides (only four at a time) do not come through very clear and there is a need for considerable color/brightness manipulation.

Maybe it works for a lot of people; for me, I made the mental accounting of how much money and time this alternative costs vs. sending my slides to a scanning service.  I have about 1,000 slides; at most services, it will cost me between $200-$300  to can them all, not counting how much time I'll save.  Also, they scan them at resolutions higher than 7200DPI.

Again, maybe it works great for some, but did not work great for me.  I returned it.
658005
Ignore the system requirements at your own risk, because this thing runs like a fat sow on any machine more than a few months old. On my iMac G5 bought just a year ago, it's effectively unplayable at even the lowest graphics settings -- and that's at only 2000 BC! I won't even attempt to see what it's like with a full, modern world. Very disappointing.

UPDATE: Performance is massively improved by the 1.61 patch (released on 31 July 2006), but it still slows down quite a bit after a few thousand years. As before, ignore the system requirements at your own risk.
4713117
I find this laptop to be very disappointing.  I'll cover the major points:

First, this is not my primary laptop.  I purchased this as a dedicated machine for a single piece of software.  So the installed software is minimal and the dedicated software is not very intensive.  The machine is running Windows 7 (not Win 8).

1.  It is extremely slow.  For having the i7 processor everything just runs slowly.  It boots slow, updates take forever to install (not to download) and when anything is installing, the entire system is hijacked; you just can't do anything else.  Part of this is the 5200rpm hard drive but since a 7200 rpm hard drive was not an option I'm lumping it into here.

2.  The Lenovo software needs work.  Nothing seems to hijack the system like the Lenovo checkup software.  When it's running, other apps are just unusable.  Spinning disk and that's it.  Again, for a quad-core processor and 8Gb of RAM it shouldn't behave like this.

3.  The touchpad and the touchpad drivers are horrible.  I've had this now for a while and several updated drivers later it stills seems buggy.  When you click on the pad, it feels and sounds like an IBM keyboard spacebar from 2000.  What's worse is that you have to push past the click for it to register as a click. This makes the double-click worse.  When you click-and-drag using the touchpad, the mouse pointer just keeps going even after you stop moving your finger.

4.  The ergonomics are miserable.  With the number pad included it actually shifts everything to the left.  So you have a choice:  your head can be centered with the screen and your hands off-center or you can be centered to the keyboard for touch typing but now your head is off-center from the screen.  As for the wrist pad, since the touchpad is centered to the spacebar it is shifted over as well.  Your left had feels cramped; there is just not enough room and I have small hands.  There's this expanse of unused space on the right.

5.  Who thought it was a good idea to waste valuable screen space with an icon indicating Num Lock?  Just so they could remove a light from the keyboard?

6.  The backlight on the keyboard is a waste.  If it shown through the keys instead of just from the bottom of the key it's be more usable.

All in all I feel that Lenovo has ruined the Thinkpad name with this laptop.  Poorly engineered from the hardware to the Lenovo software to the drivers.  If I had to use it on a daily basis it would be gone but since it's used once in a while only I kept it.
269701
Get a hamberger helper instead.  This feels cheaper than easy mac.
3263341
Mac support is very poor, and there are occasional glitches. The mouse is also missing left and right scrolling (using side buttons for this doesn't work well).

The performance of the mouse itself is fine.
483891
I played with Motion at an Apple store and was so impresssed, I immediately/spontaneously bought it. I'm running it on a first generation 2 Ghz dual processor G5 with 2 gigs of RAM and a Radeon 9600 graphic card and it is slow and sometimes doesn't render "on the fly" at all. So now I have to get a faster ($600) "recommended" video card and all will be nice according to Apple. I've purchased the highest end Apple products since the Apple II and now I am annoyed. Hey Apple, if you write software that runs slowly on your fastest professional machine - DON'T RELEASE IT!!! I must have spent $10,000 in the last year and a half on Apple products and NOW I'm burnt out. I'll stick to After Effects (which can't do what Motion does without hours of keyframing) and eliminate my "on the fly" expectations.
3447539
I never got the DVD-based software working - and you will have the same issue.

1) Customer support told me it the DVDs have a problem and you have use the online download. Just use the license key from the DVD.  (When it says it can't contact the Steam servers that's the problem.)

2) It needs to use Steam for song downloads (and to prevent piracy I assume.) Steam is a real-time gaming platform that's an overkill in complication for this. It also always runs in the background and that may require you to mess with your firewall with some internet providers.

3) It isn't supported on my 3-year old Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) and I don't want to upgrade the OS. But it didn't tell me that until I eventually installed Steam.
That's when I gave up. Who knows what the next problem would have been. Maybe I didn't even have the right graphics card next.

I give it two stars only because a friend recommends it and the customer support person was good.