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Well, I’ve had my 2Ghz MacBook Pro (MBP) for a day now, and I’m certainly pleased with the new machine, but I’m also slightly concerned about two problems that I’ve noticed.

So, given I’m up early and playing with it, I thought it’d be good to put down some of my initial impressions. It’s more of a review than a few bullet points, all said. It’s very hard not to be impressed with it, but my notes of caution might be of use/interest to others out there.

Anyway, full detail follows after the jump…

First, the good stuff. The keyboard is wonderful. It’s a distinct improvement on my old Titanium Powerbook G4, which had a translucent black plastic keyboard. The silver keyboard on the MBP is noticeably better and more ‘tactile’, at least to my typing preferences (I can sort of touch type, so feel of a keyboard is quite important). This was one of the major reasons for not buying the considerably cheaper MacBook - They keyboard reminds me of a ZX Spectrum 48k rubber-keyed wonder. Too much space between the keys themselves struck me as a touch typers worst nightmare.

The Magsafe Power adaptor is pure genius; One of those rare ideas you see and think ’surely somebody should have thought of that before’. It is that good. I’ve caused a lot of damage over the years tripping over cables and pulling sensitive laptops off work surfaces. I wonder how long before it’s used in some way in other connectors?

The wizzy motion sensors makes for some great fun. The practicality in it is that the MBP can park it’s hard disk, preventing data loss, if it’s dropped. Of course, practicalities are as nothing when compared to silliness and fun. Mac Saber has to be probably the most useless app ever (it makes silly sounds), but surely and paradoxically, the best thing a geek could ever want. Dude. I’m a Jedi. With a Mac Book. Bring. It. On. sorry. Got all distracted. The other is Seismac, which shows shudders and movements as detected by the sensors. Now, when I was a kid, we used to occasionally draw charts like this sat in the back of the car - running a pen over a piece of paper as the car moved. We saw it on Why Don’t You? or somesuch, and it amused my brother and I immensely. So now my computer does it. Marvellous. Just need that mythical “homework completer” I wanted at school, and my childhood ambitions are complete.

But I digress. The MacBook Pro does have a couple of nasty problems, some of which are well known. First, is the temperature problem. It does get noticeably hot on my lap. I’m curious as to the lack of vents in the machine, compared to my G4, which can’t help matters. Rumour has it there’s a firmware update that fixes things, but recently patched up, I’m not seeing any improvements. Perhaps my problem isn’t as severe as others. One things for sure, I’ll not be wearing shorts when using it.

The other problem is the trouble I have hearing people when using iChat. The right speaker is the only one that gets used (the microphone is in the left speaker enclosure, so using only the right prevents feedback), but seems to have trouble playing human voices. You can here it yourself with what I call the “Bob Dylan test”, and play “Tambourine Man”, and play with the sound balance whilst listening. You’ll hear a richer fuller sound from the left speaker, but a tinnier sound from the right speaker. So there’s an imbalance in how the speakers are setup, confirmed by the ifixit guide, which shows the right speaker mounted quite strangely compared to the left. Oddly, it sounds fine when playing music, just lower frequency sounds you get in iChat get muffled and distorted. So I suspect headphones may be necessary.

Other gripes include the change in memory mounting. My G4 Powerbook had the memory mounted under the keyboard. A simple clip and easy to remove retainer screw meant the keyboard came off, exposing everything underneath. No more. Lots of very small phillips screws required to get at the memory enclosure. All very annoying. At least they’re not using the irritating torque screws which required special screwdriver attachments to get in to.

Now the inbuilt iSight is an engineering triumph. It’s a great camera, easily as good as my ‘proper’ iSight. And inpossibly thin mounted in the display as it is. I just wish there was a latch to physically switch it off. I just don’t trust the green indicator light is entirely truthful. Call me paranoid if you want, but I think it’d help prevent gunk build-up too from bags (Just check your mobile phone camera if you don’t believe me).

My last gripe is brought about by my experience with my G4 Powerbook. The screen on that folds back 180 degrees - so it’s parallel to the table, face up. Unfortunately, due to the change in the way the screen is mounted, it only goes back about 120 degrees now. Which I feel isn’t far enough, especially if you’re tall like I am. It’d be great if it’d just go back a tiny bit further. The mounting certainly seems sturdier than my G4, which has to be a good thing, it’s just a shame they couldn’t have shaved a bit off the screen frame to enable it to go back more conveniently.

Back to the good things, and the backlit keyboard is something I’m pleased about. Perhaps not as light as I was expecting, but enough that it should make a real difference over the previous trouble I sometimes had in low-light working out what key was what. OK, perhaps switching the light on earlier is a better idea, but we all know how easy it can be to get carried away with what you’re doing, and not notice how dark it’s got.

Ripping a DVD with Handbrake took about 50 minutes, which is significantly faster than my iMac G5. Only trouble was I couldn’t get the TV into wide-screen mode after copying it upstairs for streaming down via my EyeHome. Ah well, the West Wing and Battlestar Galactica sufficed last night instead.

Double-fingered trackpad scrolling becomes second nature. I showed it to Frances last night whilst researching holiday destinations. Now she’s normally very unimpressed by time-saving interface shortcuts, but she was quickly using it without thinking. I’m not so keen on the slightly raised button, but perhaps my G4 one has been battered into submission, and was just as proud initially.

As I mentioned yesterday, part of the fun with Apple is the care they take in designing the packaging. There’s even a new Styrofoam design from Apple too, which is quite wizzy. The experience is really quite cool, and the sleek packaging very convenient. I could have bought this thing a couple of weeks ago when I was in London, and carried it back on the train with no trouble.

So all in all, I do rather like the Mac Book Pro. I’m excited about Parallels for running Linux and Windows when I need to (more the former than the later, to be honest!), and the possibilities in OS X 10.5 (Leopard) seem quite endless. Apple certainly seem on the ball here. I’m pleased I didn’t get the top-end model; The 2Ghz dual core is more than sufficient; another £300 for a bit faster CPU and a bit more RAM (Get just as much for much less at crucial or similar memory outlets) just seems like poor pricing, but then I almost succumbed, so perhaps there really are weaker willed mac users than I out there!

Sure, it could be better. Not least with heat and sound issues, but they’re minor really in the grand scheme. What I do have is a great, powerful, flexible and extraordinarily well designed laptop that’s going to see me through the next few years.

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 8th, 2006 at 9:02 am and is filed under Apple, Gadgets, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.