teh TODDtastic webLog-a-majig

Let me just get it out there… these new MacBook Pros suck.

I was expecting them to make these things better… not worse.

I guess I can start with some things I like about them… so that I’m not all negative. Hmm, I guess I like the fact that it is using an nVidia chipset. The performance gains with the 1066MHz FSB and DDR3 (almost the first use of that in the laptop industry) are certainly good. The new manufacturing process is good, and I’m sure these laptops feel very solid. Also, the fact they are letting you swap out the hard drive now is a plus.

And that’s the only changes I like. I’ll move on now to the things I’m neutral on… the touch pad is very iffy to me. Sure, it’s nice that it’s bigger and multi-touch… but I know about having the whole thing be the button. This is something I will have to try and use in person to see whether I like it. The magnet latch is just fine, as well. The overall design and look of it is just a normal update… and I’m sure it’s fine.

OK, now the biggest section of my gripes. The following things suck:

• The battery — The battery is smaller… and you have to remove a whole door to get to it, should you want to swap out a second battery while traveling. A smaller battery means that the battery life suffers, and it does. Before they claimed 6 hours (and it got about 4.5). Now they claim 5 hours (so it’ll probably get about 3.5).
• The display — I have not seen a single glossy display laptop that I like. The glossy displays absolutely suck. Matte is 100 times better than glossy. Enough said.
• The keyboard — Sorry if you happen to like the old MacBook keyboards with the gaps between the keys… I personally don’t like the gaps… but that can be gotten used to, I guess.
• The display port — These wouldn’t be so bad if they fucking included the needed adapters. The fact that they charge $29 for each one (and there are probably at least 2 you may need), really sucks. Plus… I don’t think these new ports are industry standard. I think Apple really wants them to be.
• The Dual Graphics cards — First off… this is really dumb. They have the balls to put 2 separate graphics chips in these things… and NOT SLI them for improved performance. What the hell? Secondly… why not condense them into 1 chip (talk to nVidia a little more) and just use the 9600M GT chip?  To save battery life… all you do is dynamically clock the chip (which yes, is possible!).

I have to say the most important thing that sucks is the glossy display. And right behind that the battery. If they would have left those 2 things alone or improved them… I would have been sold. But those 2 things are the deal breakers for me.

Update: Interestingly enough, I’ve seen some benchmarks on these new MBPs… and there is no significant upgrade in performance… unless of course you get the 2.8 Ghz chip. In some cases, the previous generation is actually faster.

This will be my first hardware review!

As many of you know, I opted for the one, the only Apple MacBook Pro 15.4″ Matte 2.4Ghz. Some people that know me were surprised, and obviously questioned why. I’ll tell you why. I love it. I’m not going to lie, I just plain love it. Since I first saw it in 2006, I have wanted it so bad. In fact, for the last several years, since Apple started making more professional looking machines (bright colors and bubbly designs are OK for kids, not for professionals), I have loved the designs. But then, seeing them take the latest G4 laptop and making it even thinner and sexier, and significantly more powerful with an Intel chip, I have wanted nothing more.

Let me first start with the cost. I got a student discount of a whopping $200, but even then, that only covered the tax plus a little more. So, it ended up being nearly $2500, still. That is a lot of money, I understand, but I can tell you right now, it was worth it. Many of my friends opted for the dells, but they ended up having to go with the 17″ versions to match the chip in my 15.4 laptop. Going to the 17″, from what I’ve seen, makes it simply to big to carry around. One of those 17″ dell will not even fit in my backpack laptop compartment. I did not want a 17″ laptop, but I didn’t want any smaller than a 15.4″.

Now, lets review all its sexy lines. This thing is 1 inch thin. In that 1 inch, it fits a powerful 2.4Ghz Core 2 Duo, 2GB of RAM (which I will be upgrading to 4GB soon), an 8600GT 256MB, 160GB HD, 8X DVD Burner, and a whole lot more! This machine packs so much power into such a small, sexy package that you can’t help but to drool when you see it. It never slows down for me. I love the fact that is holds more power than my big desktop (currently). It maintains pretty good battery life; nearly 4 hours, depending on what I’m doing. The hardware amazes me every time.

One feature that is something that I know for a fact that Windows never pulls off consistently, if at all, is when I close the lid, the machine goes to sleep, and it stays asleep. I have never seen a windows computer do that every single time, and resume without issues, or stay off, for that matter. There is nothing that can stop my MacBook Pro from sleeping and staying asleep with everything I’m working on intact.

Now, the OS. I’m not going to say that Mac OS X is flawless, that is a common misconception. No OS is flawless, I don’t care what you say. I’ll tell you right now, Tiger has serious networking issues, but remember, Windows does, too. Connecting to networks is no problem, it just simply isn’t very friendly with windows systems, and when you go to a different network, such as school, it seems to get very confused about those shares (kind of yells “Where the fuck did it go!? What do I do?!”). But, overall, the OS is amazing. Why do I love it? Because it is fluent to me. It is unix based, and I can’t even explain to the average computer user how much I love having access to a unix terminal at any time. Also, the OS does hold more of a “It Just Works” type of rational than Windows does. When I plug in a flash drive, it just pops up in Finder. There is no stupid “Found New Hardware, Please wait while we figure this mess out.” It Just Works. Same thing with a mouse, camera, scanner, whatever.

Also, the OS does just have a certain theory about it that just says it was built for efficiency. The keyboard shortcuts are much better laid out in OS X than in Windows. I truly feel like I can get more done on it in less time. In addition, the GUI is designed in such a way that a novice user can use it easily, but also an advanced user, like myself, can customize it a lot.

So, you are a person that thinks I spent too much for this sexy machine. Well, I did do some shopping around. First of all, to even get this amount of power in a dell, you need to go to the small to medium sized business website, because their consumer line does not even over up to the 2.4Ghz chip. Then, to build a comparable machine, it will cost approximately the same, even today. And, it will still not be as sexy, it will still have a glossy screen (glossy screens are terrible), and it will also lack the wonderful Mac OS X.

But I can’t game much on here? Not true, again. Boot Camp, as you probably know, allows me to install Vista or XP on here, making it possible to be just as game friendly as any Windows laptop. Then, Apple is starting to collect game manufactures who are willing to write games for Mac OS X as well as windows. So, I really think Apples could be a future gaming competitor, which can actually be more easily achieved because Apple controls all their hardware, so incompatibilities will be very limited.

I am at this point patiently awaiting Mac OS X Leopard. I will most likely review that after I’ve been using it for some time.

So, in the end… MacBook Pro – Love it. Recommend it. 10/10, 5/5, whatever scale you want to use. Don’t need so much power, or don’t have so much money to spend? I’d probably recommend something else. Just ask, and I’d be glad to make recommendations!