While I mainly use Windows machines for work and at home, I’ve also used Apples since the late ’70s. Among my computers is an old PowerPC Mac Mini, but I needed a new laptop so for Festivus I bought myself a new Macbook.
It’s one of the aluminum ones with the LED-backlit screens. The screen is amazingly bright and easy to read. I’ve always preferred non-glare screens, so I was wary of the gloss screen the Macbook has, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised. Aside from having a lamp directly behind me that reflects its image on the screen, it isn’t a problem. In fact, it actually seems to make what’s on the screen more readable and, well, shiny.
The other big question mark was the keyboard. It’s more of a chicklet-type than your usual laptop or desktop kind, but I’ve been amazed at how easy and enjoyable it is to type on. In fact, it ranks as the second or third best keyboard I’ve ever used over the last 30+ years! On top is still my late-80’s PC keyboard that’s built like a rock and can’t be beat for feel. Nothing allows me to type as fast as I can on that, but the Macbook’s keyboard is astonishingly close.
While the Macbook isn’t as thin as the Air, it is quite thin and fairly light. Battery life I’ll leave to the magazine testers to thrash out. One nice touch is the clever latch underneath that pulls off a cover over the battery and hard disk. Apple has made it very easy to swap out hard disks as the technology drives capacity higher.
So, what’s bad? Not that I have a current use for it, but there is the much discussed lack of Firewire support. If USB 3.0 were here with it’s vastly higher transfer rate then I could see it. But for a consumer grade laptop, many of whose users have video cameras and other devices that use Firewire, it seems like a slap in the face. I just don’t buy the “not enough room for the connector” excuse.
Another pain is the replacement of the DVI connector with the mini-DisplayPort. Why? Plus, unlike with my Mini, no adaptor to VGA or DVI was included. I want to hook up my 32” TV to the Macbook, but noooo. Not without a $29 adaptor. Apple has released the specs to manufacture them, so there should be cheaper ones soon as well as an adaptor to HDMI.
I’ve left the glass (although you’d never know it unless you were told), Multi-Touch trackpad for last, partly because I hate trackpads. I’m a mouse guy. Period. Gestures using it with pictures is definitely cool just like on the iPhone. No buttons. You press the pad for that. But for general use, I need a mouse.
Other improvements, including the faster Nvidia graphics chip, make my new Macbook a pleasure to use. Oh, yeah.. it runs OS X, a distinct improvement over Vista which I have running on an HP box I bought a few months ago and XP on others.
Yeah, it’s expensive for a laptop these days, what with cheap netbooks becoming the newest thang, but now I have the best of both the OSX and Windows worlds (with Parallels installed for the few Windows-only programs I need). A few negatives, but in the end, worth the cost.




















