Crossing the Rubicon: A Look at the Macbook Pro
Christmas came 2 weeks early this year. They say you can’t beat the feel of a brand new computer. In a lot of ways, the opening of the box, the techno beats of the welcome screen, and the never-opened manuals are sort of magical, but otherwise, it’s a lot like getting a used computer. The important thing is that it’s new to me.
What’s more gratifying in the long term, though, are the specs that you can’t get from a used computer. This will be my first that has 1) over a GHz clockspeed, 2) a gig of RAM, 3) over 1024×768 resolution, 4) USB 2.0, and 5) sweet dual latches. It closes more tightly than the iBook G3 did, but you kind of have to wiggle the button to release. Nothing major. The keyboard isn’t detachable, but it feels a lot sturdier than the iBook’s flimsy one. The trackpad is wider and a bit taller than the iBook’s, making it easier to work unplugged, and the CD slot is on the front, which would be good if I worked in a cramped workspace.
Booting it up beside the iBook to transfer files, the higher PPI of the Macbook made the iBook’s screen look dim and fuzzy by comparison. I had wanted the glossy screen, but it came with free AppleCare, and it seems customization (even free options) isn’t allowed with bundles. Bah. The matte screen shows sort of a speckled pattern, but it’s barely noticeable.
The backlit keyboard is a nice feature too for typing in the dark. I spent a few minutes covering up various parts of the computer looking for the sensor, until I figured out that it has sensors on both sides of the keyboard. Tricky! But while this is a nice feature, I did expect it to be fully automatic: three of the F-keys are used for controlling the keyboard brightness - F-keys that I would like to use for Exposé. Instead, I have to use command-F11 and command-F12 for the two that don’t fit on the free F-keys. It’s not too big a deal at the desk since the mouse takes care of the functions, but it gets irritating unplugged.
As for the more minor things - USB 2.0 is handy; now I can sync my iPod at full speed again, FrontRow is nice to have back again (10.4.8 borked FrontRow installation on non-supported Macs), I’m enjoying having a working ethernet port again, Magsafe takes some getting used to, the internal speakers are leaps and bounds better than the iBook’s pebbles (though not nearly as good as the external set), and PhotoBooth is still amazingly fun to play with.
Speedwise, I’m not noticing as gigantic of a difference as I’d hoped. Certainly things are faster, but bootup takes about the same. I was impressed, however, with Rosetta: It ran each of the most intensive apps I threw at it even faster than the iBook did. Things like Photoshop, MarbleBlast (a 3D game), N64 emulators - they all work without a hitch. Considering how different the two architectures are, and the abysmal performance of VPC on PPC, I’m impressed at how efficiently they were able to make it run.
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One Response
Dec 27 at 12:56 pm
Congratulations dude, just in time with the Photoshop CS3(b) launch. I’m going to get one of these myself next summer. Well have fun with it!