Post

The MacBook

I had hoped to get this mini-review out a week after first buying the machine, but a lengthy (and unsuccessful) repair process meant that the Apple service team had my laptop more than me!

For the curious, the malfunction on my MacBook involved the backlight which mysteriously died a few days into its use. The light died so suddenly that I thought I had pressed some kind of strange keyboard shortcut but it was later found to be a hardware issue.

On the positive side, I am likely one of very few to have the excitement of opening up their MacBook twice within a few weeks.

This is by far the most beautiful machine I have ever worked on. It feels solid and looks sharp. In fact, some of the edges are almost uncomfortably sharp especially when I fully rest my arms on the keyboard, but that is only a minor complaint. Like others have mentioned, the new features including a redesigned keyboard and glossy widescreen are all excellent additions.

Also, upgrading the RAM from the default 512MB to a more generous 2GB has made a huge difference. While on the standard amount, I was unable to open Photoshop and Illustrator at the same time. Now, I have no problems opening and keeping open all the programs I use during a normal day.

Another problem I came across arose when I realized I needed Internet Explorer 6 to test a website I had been working on. I wasn’t looking forward to transferring files or even physically switching over to another machine so I tried to remotely connect to it.

Luckily, Microsoft has a great little program (I know, shocking) to do just that and I was able to set it up fairly quickly. However, to make your experience a little easier, be sure to change your display settings to something a little more forgiving (if your connection can handle it) and remember to allow for disk sharing so you can transfer files between machines. Now, I can directly open up a file on my MacBook from my Windows machine which has made testing as simple as possible.

Check out the flickr set for more pictures.

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At
04:27:49 PM
On
June 11
In
By
Tom Fadial

Comments

  1. Man, this is making me anxious to get my hands on one of my own! It looks so dang slick, and from all I’ve been hearing about it, it’s quite the gem to have!

    Tom Martin

    Jun 11, 09:25 PM #

  2. Hey,

    I love my macbook(pro)—you need to go check out parallels.. http://www.parallels.com, it runs XPPro faster than my PC! – really.

    Phil

    Phillip PAlmieri

    Jun 12, 05:48 AM #

  3. Yeah, I’m really liking this computer and would definitely recommend it to anyone looking.

    I didn’t really want to risk it, but I’ll try out Parallels soon.

    Thame

    Jun 13, 06:59 AM #

  4. Good stuff. I just can’t decide if I should get the Pro version or not.. So expensive, but oh so nice!

    Olav

    Jun 14, 02:01 PM #

  5. Did you purchase the RAM off the Apple website or did you purchase the RAM from a third party?

    Sam

    Jun 20, 09:39 AM #

  6. What are you running your adobe software one? Rosetta? I didn’t even try with the 2GB of ram, I just returned it! If it runs like you say I will be buying it agaiN!

    David

    Jun 21, 12:52 PM #

  7. Olav:
    I would actually go with the plain MacBook. I can’t say I’ve spent much time on the Pro but I haven’t had any performance issues on this one at all and I think I run some pretty hefty applications. At any time I usually have Photoshop, Illustrator, sometimes Flash, and Firefox with a few tabs open.

    Sam:
    No, I got mine from Trans International for quite a bit cheaper.

    David:
    I think Photoshop runs under Rosettta but Rosetta isn’t a separate application that’s open…I think the OS just does that by itself when it recognizes a program that isn’t universal.

    If you were using alot of heavy apps (like the ones I listed earlier), you’ll definitely notice alot of performance issues unless you upgrade to 2GB’s.

    Thame

    Jun 21, 07:11 PM #

  8. I’ve been such great reviews about the MacBook, that I’ve been inclined to purchase one and replace my 15” Powerbook. I’ve heard rumors because of it’s huge success, Apple has thought about release a 15” MacBook. Then I would certainly get one.

    Jorgeq

    Jul 6, 06:49 AM #

  9. I too have heard such rumours but I don’t think it would have affected my decision much. In fact, I wouldn’t mind a smaller version.

    Thame

    Jul 7, 01:45 PM #

  10. Re your testing issues on IE6…

    I run a Macbook Pro and used bootcamp with a degree of success, but it was annoying having to reboot. I have been trialing Parallel’s Desktop application, which is pretty good, as long as you have loads of RAM so that you can gift some to your Windows ‘virtual machine’.

    But then I found this, which isn’t due for release until 31 July on Mac OSX, but it looks awesome – allows you to run IE6 (and other apps) in OSX without any emulation by simply serving the right API’s (or at least that’s as I managed to understand it).

    Anyway, thought you may be interested in it.

    Cheers.

    Nice site, btw.

    Andy White

    Jul 8, 01:59 PM #

  11. Hmmm

    HTML didn’t come through on the link, sorry, not sure what happened there…

    here it is: http://www.codeweavers.com/

    Andy White

    Jul 8, 02:01 PM #

  12. Ooh, thanks Andy…that looks perfect. I didn’t want Parallels because I didn’t want to sacrifice that much RAM and I’d hate to have to reboot. It seems like this might be the perfect medium.

    Thame

    Jul 9, 08:40 PM #

  13. I just dropped my Macbook pro off for the second time for the same back light issue (the first time was a week after id purchased it and they simply gave me a new one—which happened to be an upgrade) this time they want to “investigate”.
    I was simply wondering if you found out what the cause was, so that perhaps I could prevent this from happening again!

    This is the best machine i have ever owned—and Ive had multiple apple and windows based machines (laptops). Since going to apple years ago, gaming just wasnt something i did, but Bootcamp, windows xp and gaming works flawlessly (just a few minor things theyll fix for the next OSX version im sure).

    I agree, great site you have here!

    Josh

    Jul 24, 04:16 PM #

  14. Reliable PC,
    It is a pity that of the programs for MAC OS not much

    Serg
    Affordable web hosting

    Serg

    Oct 5, 12:11 PM #

  15. I just dropped my Macbook pro off for the second time for the same back light issue (the first time was a week after id purchased it and they simply gave me a new one—which happened to be an upgrade) this time they want to “investigate”.
    I just dropped my Macbook pro off for the second time for the same back light issue (the first time was a week after

    Arron

    Mar 23, 01:42 PM #

  16. I agree the Macbook sucks.

    Shelby Dingus Von Pubes

    Nov 2, 10:33 PM #

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