bingieman Posted February 9, 2015 Share Posted February 9, 2015 Hey guys, So I am about to retire my old Lenovo y50 because it is too heavy for something lighter like a MacBook pro retina 256 go ssd. I will be using this a lot for pentesting and will use virtual machines a lot. I also have a pineapple so take this into consideration. Based on my requirements would you guys recommend me to buy this because it is a big decision for me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rkiver Posted February 9, 2015 Share Posted February 9, 2015 Considering the issues that Mac OSX has with the pineapple, just look into the Pineapple forum for examples, I'd recommend no. To be honest I could never recommend a Mac based system. The cost is rather large and you get rather less. A newer Lenovo would be the way to go. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
digip Posted February 9, 2015 Share Posted February 9, 2015 Just my opinion, but if I'm going to spend the money for a macbook pro price, I'd probably get a studier and beefier laptop with the high end hardware. My wife used to work in a store that bought laptops and other devices, and the macbooks, as much as they are touted for their glamorous look, always seemed to be the most destroyed and broken ones coming in with OS issues(maybe they weren't regular apple geeks and just trashed them not knowing how to keep them updated?). Not sure why, because most apple users tend to be pretty anal about their apple toys and taking care of them, but whatever. The money you spend to what holds up though, get an x86 based laptop for half the price since their all pretty fragile to begin with, no matter what kind of shell/body you get unless you want a toughbook which can cost you up to 5grand depending on the model you go with, and really overkill. They make comparative hardware based laptops as the macbook pro though(apple runs intel boards with ati/nvidia gfx these days) at half the price, and if needed, put linux, kali, or shrink the HDD and dual boot windows and *nix for live hardware use vs a VM(unless you want to be anonymous, which you should just live boot anyway vs saved VM's but just my 2 cents). A native install will have a bit more horsepower and also access to the built in wifi vs having to be forced to carry a USB wifi card if you weren't always using the pineapple for connectivity. Plenty of options these days with the horsepower to money relationship at less the cost though in my opinion. Depending on your needs too, and if retina display is a selling point and smaller lighter form factor for why you want a macbook, I'd say go with a nexus 10 tablet(which has a nicer screen resolution and look than retina) and then installing nethunter. Smaller form factor and innocuous looking pentesting platform with all the features of a desktop install of kali and more using adb cables for native USB/HID attacks on the go and such. You can daisy chain a (powered)USB hub to them for multiple wireless cards and creating your own pineapple attack machine/fake AP as such and the battery on tablets usually lasts a good deal longer than laptops when on the go and carrying them around in a bag. I'm upgrading my phone soon, and the Plus1 is probably going to be my next choice with nethunter installed on it, so its both a phone and a kali machine in one. The Nexus 10 has a 10.05-inch display that has a 2560 x 1600 pixel resolution, making for 300 pixels per inch(Kali) http://www.nethunter.com/ installers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bingieman Posted February 9, 2015 Author Share Posted February 9, 2015 Okay but how is the Yosemite software because I have heard many good things about it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barry99705 Posted February 9, 2015 Share Posted February 9, 2015 If you want a Mac, buy a Mac, but do so knowing it has issues with internet connection sharing with the pineapple. Macs are also BSD based, not Linux based, so some stuff will work differently, or not at all if you're following online tutorials for linux pentesting applications. Mac os works great, until you start doing unMaclike things with it. Then it becomes a pain in the ass. If you do get one, get it because you're a Mac guy, not because it's shiny and pretty. Also max out the ram if you do get one. It will make running multiple virtual machines smoother. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
newbi3 Posted February 10, 2015 Share Posted February 10, 2015 I have a macpro and a macbook pro the built quality is amazing the screen looks beautiful (on my macbook pro) and they can both handle my large amounts of development that I do on a daily basis. My mac pro is a dual quad core xeon (clocks at like 3.4 per core) its 8 years old now and its still a freaken powerhorse. My macbook is only a few months old now but it will definitely last 4-6 years if I dont upgrade before then (which I will). Battery life is amazing, I run at 14gb of ram and 80%ish cpu throughout the day and it doesn't freeze up at all. Everything being said, don't get a macbook for yosemite. OS X really isn't that great, way better than windows but if it wasn't for me needing certain proprietary softwares id be running linux on both machines Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sud0nick Posted February 10, 2015 Share Posted February 10, 2015 I've had two Macbooks in my life. The first one I got when I ran my own music studio and it was great for running Pro Tools. I got my second one back in 2010 and I still use it to this day as my sole laptop. My desktop is Windows so I feel I'm balanced. I can say my Macbook has been running without a hitch for the last 5 years, I even had it with me for 9 months in Afghanistan. The only thing I've changed since I bought it is the hard drive. I swapped it for a solid state a little over a year ago. There is nothing in particular that I need a Mac for but as newbi3 stated the build quality is amazing. I bought my wife a new laptop with an i7 and twice as much RAM as my Macbook and while it runs well the casing feels like cheap plastic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StoneyBBS Posted February 15, 2015 Share Posted February 15, 2015 I've been SUPER pleased with my Lenovo X131e. I bought this thing when it showed up one day on Woot for $219 (normally still selling for $500+). It's a netbook, primarily meant for Education (to be given to teenagers). For a netbook, it's heavy-duty. There is a rubber bumper all along the edge, and it's very sleek. There isn't any nonsense crap / buttons all over it for garbage I don't want. I've been VERY impressed with it. It came with a fairly unimpressive 1.5Ghz Celeron something or other, but with 8 gigs of 1600+ Mhz ram, and a SATA3 SSD drive, it's been extremely fast. For this kind of stuff, you don't really need heavy processing power. The X131e is an older model, but if you want to stick with Lenovo, there are a few others in that price range. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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