Universal Rule

Book Reviews

Saturday, November 15, 2008

Macbook Pro - in good and bad -- Comment()
I have now used the new "unibody" Macbook Pro for one week. No problems so far, but there are some inconveniences.

I haven't yet transferred all my files from my old Titanium PowerBook G4, because of technical hurdles. Usb file transfer on the TiBook is very slow - it is not USB 2.0 but the older version - and moving gigabytes and lots of files is VERY slow. There is of course Firewire, but I don't yet have a cable for connecting my TiBook and MBP together, because the Firewire port on the new MPB is FW800. So, I need to get a 9-pin to 6-pin Firewire cable to use the target disk mode on the TiBook for file transfer. I did manage to transfer a couple of GB of data, but the rest is still waiting on the TiBook.

One problem with the nice design of the MBP is that dirt is easily visible in the aluminium and on the display. Well, you just have to keep on cleaning.

I'm liking the keyboard more and more. It is nicely responsive, I would say a bit evolved version from the iMac flat keyboard. It is very nice to write when the laptop is in the lap. Some have been reporting unevenly placed keys on the new MBPs, but no such things with mine. And no crooked lines or other blemishes.

The early-adopters dilemma is quite possible with new Apple hardware - and with other brands as well. When I got an aluminium iMac a bit over year ago, there were severe software problems resulting in the machine freezing several times a week. After a month or so Apple updated the graphics software, and from there on the machine has been performing almost flawlessly. So far, it seems that the new MBP does not have such severe problems (at least mine doesn't). But I'm not using the faster graphics cpu, and also in other ways my needs are quite modest.

There may be a slight problem, and that is with sleeping - or waking from sleep. Normally this works very well, but when working with an external display and the lid closed, I had one-time occurrence when the machine did not at once wake up when pressing a key on the external usb keyboard. It may have been caused by the old usb 1.1 hub, perhaps, or there may have been other reasons. But that was a single occurrence. Since then, no problems like that have occurred.

I'm not yet quite sure how long the battery lasts on this thing. About four hours at least, but I haven't really timed it. When not plugged in, I have been using wireless, bluetooth etc., so I feel that four hours is not bad at all.

In all, the MBP is an excellent workhorse. Perhaps I could have coped with the new aluminium Macbook as well, but I feel that this machine will last longer in use, and the display of course is larger and allows more effective work.

Will this machine last for almost six years in use as the TiBook did? Who knows - but I'm not so sure about that. Getting outdated is happening faster all the time. Perhaps only five years?