Review by Amazon Customer

So way back when Parallels and Fusion first took off, I decided to jump to one bandwagon and stick with them through the long-haul. I decided Fusion, because I liked the idea of being able to use both Mac OS and Win OS at the same time. Parallels allowed for dual-boot, but not at the same time (from what I understood from the marketing). Flash-forward to today: Fusion has had ups and downs, and although I’ll stick with it, if you want performance, you want Parallels.

UNBOXING:nFirst of few Amazon shipments that came in a box sized to the item inside. Inside the Fusion box, it came with install DVD, USB stick and instructions.

REVIEW:nSo, the gist of this is that it’s Fusion 4 with some slight add-ons. Although the box claims 1.4x faster than Fusion 4, I don’t really recognize any speed advances on my old MacBook. Fusion 5 allows for syncs with Retina Display, USB 3.0 and more memory utilization. However, my MacBook is from 2007 and doesn’t have any of that.

So then I went over to see what Parallels offered, and man, I was blown away by some of the upgrades it’s had over the years. Now, when benchmarked versus Parallels 8, we see that in 8 out of 9 evaluations, Parallels out benchmarks Fusion by lots. Check out the review at macobserver dot com.

OVERALL:nWhereas my dated MacBook wouldn’t really notice the difference between Fusion 4 and 5, I think it would probably do better on Parallels 8. However, I’m keeping with the Fusion warhorse until it doesn’t support my old system any more. For all tasks I need to do: websurfing, office products and light gaming, Fusion will work for me.