Review: Parallels 3.0. Build 5060 (Beta) Vs. Fusion 1.0 Final.
Hardware Used: June 2007 LED Backlit Mac Book Pro 15 Inch 2.2 Ghz 4 Gig Of Ram.
I have been a long time user of Parallels since its incarnation to the Mac platform. Fusion then arrived and many excited people saying its stable and its performance is awesome. So I was curious. Here is what I found out.
I used the Fusion product to see what was so different and the only thing I have to say is disk and video performance are great and yes my Mac seems to breathe easier because it’s not pushed hard with consistent CPU usage especially being idle but to me even with that said it still doesn’t warrant me to jump ship from using the Parallels product.
For me Parallels feels better with all of its features and it has so much more to offer like “Smart Select†and “Coherenceâ€. These features are great and solid. Unity feels like a cumbersome way to use windows integrated with OSX. I don’t like the floating panel in Fusion when using “Unity†and forcing the task bar to disappear without my preference for it to remain made me feel like wow, no control here. At least Parallels keeps in mind that folks want control over their software whether or not they want a feature turned on or off. What happened at VM Ware didn’t you know not everybody likes vanilla forced down their throat?
The Fusion file sharing feature to me is sub par compared to Parallels. In Fusion you better be a tech or be very computer savvy to enable the sharing feature and let alone find where the actual sharing folder is on your XP partition so you can even share files between your Mac and Windows setup. Parallels makes sure that it covers the entire basis of ease of use and makes sharing anything Windows with your Mac easy and smooth as pie with the inclusion of the shared folder icon on the desktop of your Windows virtual machine. You could even choose to shut off the feature via the Parallels tools if you like.
When it comes to the Audio side of things Fusion kept in pops and clicks and it became annoying. Audio needs improvement. Parallels always shined with this, even when it came to recording in my experience. Pro Audio always ended up great on Parallels. I just hope one day they will totally allow for Midi input then it will RULE! Fusion actually let me use my Midi Keyboard via USB. Parallels will make it better and soon Fusion will be like huh??
The 2D Video in Fusion really shined though. The video was smooth and extremely responsive. Viewing everything from DVD movies, flash videos, windows media and quick time looked so good and smooth. That is the downside to Parallels. When playing video you get like these jerky slices when there is any kind of action involved. Hopefully, the Parallels team will put in place a much better 2D driver to make things so much better when it comes to video play back. I don’t use either VM solution for 3D video or gaming so sorry I can’t comment on that.
Networking on Fusion was good like internet surfing. I think Parallels feels faster overall. Downloading and web pages snapped in rather quickly using Parallels. Again Parallels is so much better when sharing files with the Mac rather than Fusion. I think Fusion needs to revise what they are doing and look it how Parallels keeps the customer in mind when it comes to ease of use.
CD / DVD Rom access on Fusion felt SUPER SLOW!!! On Parallels it is super fast and smooth. Copying files was like murder on wait time using Fusion. Weird because Parallels was super responsive using the same hardware.
USB on Fusion felt more stable and most things worked great. Parallels some how gets slower when USB is turned on. Hopefully this will be improved.
Using third party apps like “Virtue Desktop†or “Desktop Manger†software to flip your screen so you can use full screen setups with your virtual machine and your Mac on Fusion just didn’t work. It really sucked big time if you ask me. It would always reset the window from full screen to single windowed screen in Fusion. In Parallels it just works and works awesome too!! Never a problem there.
Allocating up to 3.5 gigs of memory in Fusion ruled! Allocating two virtual processors is great too. Parallels says, “This is coming†so, Fusion will be again like huh?
My experience with Parallels is great thus so far. Yes sometimes there are these bugs that rear their ugly heads but all in all Parallels is shaping up to be great. It’s all in time and Fusion may have better performance and other little things about it this time around but it feels dated and not so integrated with Mac OSX like Parallels does. That’s just my take on it. I feel comfortable with Parallels and it has been great to me on My 2.0 ghz Mac Book and 2.2 ghz Mac Book Pro. I prefer it because it has many great features and feels like they are going on the right track.
Parallels has gotten a lot of heat lately with the inclusion of all these features not working up to par but man, if you were using “Virtual PC†from Connextix (Now a Microsoft abandon ware product) back in the day you would understand how Parallels is such a welcome!!!! You have no idea how crappy Virtual PC was and super SLOW and painful to use back then and yet people used it on Power PC based platforms. Back then it was all about how fast can we get it you know.
Today we have near native speeds and something we couldn’t ever dream of. Maybe Parallels hasn’t delivered perfectly and maybe they push cool new technology in their product a little too fast but you know something? They provide us with a solution that is cool and better than just having one operating system running. Hopefully in time they will offer their solution with all the bugs worked out. Hey, it sure beats buying a real PC at a few hundred bucks. At least you’re running a cool virtual PC & Linux Box on your Mac for $80.00. Think about it.
Many of you may say or think, this guy is a fan boy. Think what you want but I know that I am sticking with this product because to me it’s growing and moving towards greatness even with all of its quarks. It has never failed me. Fusion has to play catch up and even when they do finally catch up Parallels will have blossomed into the superior platform of virtualization solutions.
Please share your experience. Thanks for reading.
Last edited: Aug 17, 2007