Well, I promised an evaluation of my new MacBook Pro and finally the wait is over (you can all breathe again now). After working with it daily for a couple of weeks, I think I’m able to present an overall perspective with some measure of accuracy. I tend to give my systems a workout, and as this is the first of the new breed of Intel Mac Laptops, I worked at causing this one headaches even more.

I’ll start with the positives. As with every PowerBook I’ve had in recent years, this is another example of the quality I’ve come to expect from Apple. The machine is elegant in design, and they’ve even managed to address some items I had issue with in the previous models. Simple little touches like a dual latch on the front to hold the lid down (the single latch PowerBooks tended to allow the lid to warp over time and never seemed to close completely), slightly better backlighting on the keyboard (a cool feature in itself), and a wider trackpad to match the widescreen display show the obvious attention to detail in the design. The new display is nothing less than brilliant, easily matching the brightness and quality of my 20″ Cinema Display. The unit is thinner than previous models, and sports an integrated iSight camera and microphone embedded in the lid. Even though it’s a tiny little thing, the image quality is quite good and more than suitable for the iChat and other video chat applications. The wireless network card seems to be much more sensitive as well. I’m picking up a significant number of new networks that weren’t showing up before as in-the-list right out of the gate. Even down to the polished and shiny MacBook Pro logo on the bottom of the display, this machine exudes class.

Performance is right up there as well. Now benchmarking the speed of one of these is still a little complicated as not everything is running fully as a Universal Binary yet (mind you, they’re coming out amazingly quickly) but even with apps under Rosetta, it’s no pig. As an example, Microsoft Office for Mac is not a UB and it runs happily next to my other native apps with no immediate drop in performance from my previous PowerBook. The time I notice the speed difference most is printing from Rosetta Apps and making processor-heavy requests of the system (eg. Photoshop effects). On that same topic, I just want to say that Rosetta is amazing. The design and coding required to completely interpret PPC code seamlessly inside the OS on the new platform is just plain impressive. I’ve found very few apps that don’t play well with it, and that just shows how much Apple put into this transition. I’m sure that once all the mainstream software is ported, things will get even better.

Ok, now the negatives (Yes, there are a couple). First off, it gets very warm, especially when connected to an external DVI driven display. It’s not quite as hot running on the battery, but it’s still warmer than the previous PowerBook. So far, it’s stayed within system tolerance, but I am keeping an eye on it. Also, the wireless currently has a known issue (Apple is working on it from my understanding) with random disconnects and wireless performance issues connecting to 3rd Party Access Points. I have a Netgear WG302 Business Class Wireless Access Point, and while the signal strength seems fine, the connection seems to drop for no apparent reason. From research I’ve done it appears the problem stems from the WPA code in the Airport Client but again I’ve been told they’re working on it so I’m sure a fix will be available sometime soon. I’m also a little disappointed in the battery life. Now, I’ll be honest. I have the screen brightness cranked up, the backlit keyboard, the Airport Wireless going and with 1Gb of RAM and a 7200rpm hard drive running inside, so I’m not working to conserve power too hard. Under those conditions, I generally get somewhere around 3 to 3.5hrs battery life. I have seen reports that if all the battery conservation methods are engaged, as much as 5.5hrs can be obtained, but as of yet I haven’t tried it. The only other complaint I have is that Apple has seen fit to disable the ability of the power button on the old-style Cinema Displays to power up the MacBook when closed. It’s a nit-picky issue that’s easily worked around through opening the lid briefly, hitting the power and closing the lid, but I always thought that was a slick feature and would have liked to see it carried forward.

All things being equal, I love this machine. It’s responsive, attractive and just an overall pleasant computing experience. For those looking into moving into a new Mac laptop, the time is come…

If anyone has any questions I haven’t addressed here, please email me at philm@mycoffeecuphasfeet.com or call me at the office at (302) 674-4064 x102.

Happy Macing!

Phil Malmstrom
philm@mycoffeecuphasfeet.com

Thank you God… I survived. I think if any further insanity had occurred today, my reaction would have resembled something from one of the Exorcist movies. For those who value a good sob story, read on.

<Begin Whining Here>

The fun started at around 1:30am when I apparently twisted wrong in bed and was shocked awake to searing pain stemming from a knee injury that occurred while taking down this year’s holiday decorations. The following few hours were spent trying in vain to find a comfortable position in an attempt to get at least a few hours of rest. When the alarm rang for a second time (a fail-over put in place for just such a night), I gave up, and got up. The next 15 minutes was spent scavenging for clothes to wear from the multiple piles and drawers that encompasses our current laundry routine. As we’re way behind on laundry (it’s been a very busy week..) I once again gave up and settled for some old jeans and a collared shirt that required a tie. (Any of you who know me, realize this isn’t a good sign). Either way, I finally made it out the door around 7:15am (about 25 minutes later than usual).

Then all heck broke loose.

Now, I usually like it when we’re hectic. I generally thrive on chaos and the phones ringing is usually a sign that business is booming. Well, today the phones were ringing;  But for every fire that was squelched, another one took it’s place. On days like that, nothing else gets done which pushes existing projects even further out. Combined with the fact that I started out the morning grumpy and tired, it was not working out to be a good day.

Then came the network installation. Two of my key techs spent the day performing a network migration at a client’s site to a new domain server. All went reasonably well, but due to issues with reliance on depreciated versions of software on the client’s Macs and some other unforeseen compatibility issues with the accounting software, the install ran much longer than expected. This happens now and again, but what really fried me was the call I got from the client’s Office Manager that the Owner was quite upset at the fact that she had to pay for labor on top of the cost of the server itself. Now, if this had been a “handshake” deal where we just went forward with things based on a simple conversation, I could see there might be room for some misunderstanding. However, in this case (and in every proposal I do for that matter), the terms and costs were clearly delineated in writing and signed off on by the client prior to the work being done. I never do fixed-quote installs, and to avoid ambiguities like this I make sure the proposed installation is very clearly noted in writing before we get started. On top of it, this was a client that we’ve done work for years and who should at this point know the way we do things. Either way, it really pissed me off that she was upset with me that she hadn’t read the letter completely.

To add insult to injury and to cap my day off, on the way out of the office (at around 7:15pm), one of the toilets overflowed causing a pretty good-sized flood. With no mop to be found, cleanup was fun (Note to self: tomorrow buy a mop and bucket for the office).

<End Whining Here>

Sorry about that… I needed to vent, and while I don’t normally use the blog for it, I needed to do it all the same. I’ll try to refrain in the future…

Probably.

On one positive note, I’m typing this on a new MacBook Pro Intel Dual-Core 2.16Ghz with 1Gb RAM and a 7200RPM 100Gb Hard Drive. I’ve been waiting for this little beast since they were announced, and from initial impressions, it was well worth the wait. After I’ve had it a few days (I got it yesterday), I’ll post a better review for those who have interest. So far though, suffice it to say that it rocks.

For those who sat through my rant, thanks.

Phil Malmstrom
philm@mycoffeecuphasfeet.com