When I was getting ready to move to college, I had to decide what laptop I wanted (and needed). As a Computer Science major, I figured a Windows laptop would be a no-brainer. Here’s the problem: I hate Windows laptops. I would’ve loved a MacBook, but I wasn’t sure I could do all my work on one. I ended up with a two-device solution: a desktop PC that stays in my dorm, and a MacBook as my daily driver that remotes into the PC when I need Windows-only software. Does it work? Yes. Is it kind of annoying? Also yes.
The root of this is my distaste for Windows laptop trackpads. If you’ve never used a MacBook, that may sound trivial, but I grew up on MacBooks and used one throughout high school. A MacBook trackpad doesn’t physically pivot like a button. It senses your press and fakes the click with a haptic motor, so clicking anywhere on the surface feels identical. Unlike a MacBook, many Windows laptops still use a hinged design, where clicking the upper half is either impossible or takes real effort. Could I have survived? Yes. But I didn’t have to, because I was fortunate enough to be gifted a PC for college.
Here’s where the fragmentation comes in. My PC lives in my dorm and has a great setup: two monitors, my preferred mechanical keyboard, a macro pad with my most-used shortcuts, and a mildly comfortable chair. But to use it, I have to be in my dorm (shocker). The bigger issue is that the Mac goes everywhere with me, so nine times out of 10, when a class asks me to install software, it gets installed there. Neither computer ever has my whole workflow.
Take my current class, CS 382. It requires a virtual machine—another operating system running inside your computer—to complete the assignments. I built mine on the Mac so I could work in lab without worrying about keeping my PC awake. Now, every time I need to do work for that class, I pull out the Mac, even when I’m at my dorm desk with two monitors and a good keyboard, because repeating an hour-long setup on Windows doesn’t make sense to me. Syncing files between the machines doesn’t help either. It takes either a local network connection or paid cloud storage, and I want neither.
That’s what makes this setup strange: the best hardware I own often sits unused while I work on the weaker machine. I can’t just use the PC because my work isn’t there, and I can’t just use the Mac because the PC has the setup and the Windows-only software. Remoting to the PC is supposed to bridge the gap, but it only works if the PC is awake and I remember to leave it ready. So I bounce around. You might see me working at my desk on the PC, then suddenly stand up, move to a chair in my living room, and start something different on the laptop. It’s not a huge deal, but the tools meant to make me more productive end up costing me time.
I know this is a first-world problem, and I don’t want this to be read as whiny even though I have two computers. I know how fortunate I am, and how hard my parents work to afford them. I love my MacBook for its ease of use, and I love my Windows machine for its power, its games that let me bond with friends, and the work I do for my job. But I’d like to stop treating my computers like two coworkers who never share notes.
