Universal Rule

Book Reviews

Saturday, November 8, 2008

Experiences of using the new Macbook Pro -- Comment()
I have been using the new Macbook Pro for a few days, and it is indeed impressive. All things seem to work as they should, and many practical features are much better than on my previous (work-horse) laptop, a Titanium PowerBook G4.

What are the best things? The display is excellent. I have never been especially militant about glossy vs. matte displays, and the bright and clear display of the MBP is for me just right to work on.

The keyboard is also great, better than on the TiBook, which was one of the best laptop keyboards I have used. I like the "flat" keyboard of the aluminium iMacs, and the MBP keyboard is of similar style, but even better in terms of handling. Also, it is backlighted, which is nice now that there is not much natural light here in Finland.

The "buttonless" trackpad has proven to be very convenient, I have had hardly any problems in starting to use it. I'm not really familiar with all of the gestures yet, but it seems that most of them are quite natural to use.

Compared to the TiBook, the speed of the MBP is of impressive, sometimes many times faster. Of course, in practice the speed difference is not always that great, especially when you are using the net. Then you wait exactly as long as with the TiBook. But there is little I could wish in terms of more speed.

And one more thing about speed: the MBP seems to stay quite cool, so it is convenient to use the machine in the lap. It is also very silent. But I haven't yet really tested it much. When I was installing some software, the fans made some noise, but it wasn't what you could say loud.

The "unibody" construction feels robust, no flexing in the machine at all. This is of course very different from the TiBook, which was sometimes disturbingly flexible. But that machine has lasted in continuous use for 5 years and 11 months, so perhaps rigidity is not all that necessary in designing durable computers.

What I like about the machine are the small details. I allowed the battery to run out after the first charge, and the machine automatically shut down saving to disk the contents of the memory. When I started the machine again, it continued where I left.

The Magsafe power has already proven to be useful, a nice way of avoiding dropping the machine on the floor by pulling from the power cord. I also looked inside at the battery and hard disk compartment. Extremely easy to access and to replace both. Convenient design. As is the battery charge indicator on the side of the machine.

A slight problem is that the two usb ports are beside each other, making it difficult to use "thick" usb sticks at the same time. But this is a minor thing. Having all ports on the same side has good and bad points. That side of the machine gets cluttered with things, but on the other hand the other side of the machine stays clear. In the TiBook most of the connections were behind the machine. This was in some situations quite convenient, but sometimes it was a bit hard to reach there when you had the machine on the table in front of you.