AD IDEM

Is it a bird?, is it a plane? No, its a Macbook

I am happy to report that I just received my Macbook in the post! All lovely and packaged – could not wait to get my eager mitts on it

Specifications
1.83GHz Intel Core Duo; 512MB RAM (soon to be 2GB ); 60GB HDD; slot loading Combo drive; Gigabit LAN; 802.11 g Wi-Fi; Bluetooth 2.0; 13.3″ 1280 x 800 glossy LCD. One detail that has attracted my attention is the glossy coating on the screen – a number of PC laptops have similar screens.

I’ve been using a Mac for over a year now, first on an iBook and until this point mainly on a Powerbook G4. I’ve been blown away with Panther and Tiger, and am very impressed with Apple’s philosophy on the whole. I was more or less set on upgrading to a MacBook Pro, but upon hearing rumours of a the iBook successor being released I decided to hang on. I’m really glad I did.

I’m going to cover a few different areas and offer my thoughts:

Heat
Granted, this is the first Intel Mac I’ve owned, but I haven’t found the alleged heat issues to be a problem at all. Despite shying away from the term ‘Laptop’ in Apple’s literature, I don’t see any reason to worry about overheating. Sure, it’s warm, but most laptops always seem to be. I certainly don’t have any complaints in this area.

MagSafe
This is a fairly gimmicky feature, but it does work very well. You can literally just throw the power cable somewhere in the direction of the laptop port and the powerful magnet pulls it into the slot. It’s quite handy, and will indeed eliminate the problem of tripping over your power cable and wrecking your laptop.

Battery Life
I’ve been really pleased with the battery life on the laptop. It generally lasts around 3 to 4 hours on a full charge, which is more than enough for my needs. It’s great to be able to roam around wirelessly without being tied down – something I’ve been used to before. It lasts longer with bluetooth and airport turned off, and turning down the screen brightness works a dream. Brightness is something the screen has in bucket-loads, so turning it down really doesn’t cause a problem.

Intel Schmintel
I wasn’t sure what to expect with the new Intel processors. First off the positives. It’s fast. Really fast. Despite at present the machine having less RAM than my iBook (not for long, I’m upgrading to 2gb soon) it is really quick. Things like searching my iTunes library just happen, as does searching with Spotlight, something which was more or less unusable on my G4 iBook. There are a few downsides. Photoshop is a little bit slow, and for some reason I’m having problems running a few apps in Rosetta (which, by the way is great – completely transparent). Dreamweaver MX isn’t wanting to run, and some other older pieces of software for my scanner etc simply crash when launched. My Bit Torrent client, Azureus, also doesn’t work at all. I use Transmission now

Boot Camp
It basically does what it says on the tin. It works fine, and I installed Windows XP without a hitch. It’s great to have on there, no need for a old big o’l Windows machine, but it’s still not ideal for my purposes. I like to be able to test web development etc in Internet explorer as well as Firefox and Safari in one fell swoop – rebooting each time is hardly ideal (even with the MacBook’s sub 20 second boot times!). It’ll be great to have a machine that runs Vista too, wherever it is (eventuallly!) released. Update* Vista can run no problem

Screen
Put simply, wow. I’m quite a screen connoisseur, and the MacBook’s screen has blown me away. Unlike many people, I’m a huge fan of the reflective displays with the glossy finish – everything is clearer and more vivid. Apple have done it perfectly and I can’t fault the display at all. The resolution is great too, and the ability to put a second output to an external TFT, at full resolution, is simply fantastic. There’s so much space to work with!

Conclusion
I’m really impressed, and know this machine will fit my needs perfectly over the next few years. I’d recommend it to anyone really, consumer or pro. I will be fitting it out with additional RAM as the standard 512mb simply isn’t enough. Hopefully 2gb will allow me to run more of the professional apps I need on a day to day basis. I really can’t fault it, and I’d recommend the black one if you can afford to put out the extra money. I’ve got a Mac to see me into the next operating systems both from Apple and Windows, and it’s a future proof machine.

I am eager where Apple are going to take this line of model next. According to Appleinsider the new “MacBooks” model is expected to introduce some features not yet available with Apple’s existing notebook offerings, such as onboard NAND flash.

Also looking forward to Leopard, whose development has been slowed down due to development schedule of the new iPhone due to be released in very soon. There is a nice countdown timer on everythingiphone – have a look and drool