Posts tagged MacBook

What happens when hardware and software works together perfectly? A great computer experience and that’s pretty much what the MacBook Pro delivers. Here’s my review after a few weeks of use.

Design

Who makes the most beautiful computers? Apple. Not much to say here, because the MacBook Pro is no exception.
The whole case of the computer is made out of only a few parts. One for the lit, one for the bottom, and the rest is just the “Unibody”. That’s what Apple calls it. It’s made of out a single piece of aluminum, which makes it feel very strong and sturdy.

The machine doesn’t have many ports. On the left side there is the MagSafe for power, Ethernet, FireWire, Mini Display Port, two USBs, SD slot, audio, and a battery indicator. On the right side we have the DVD-drive and a Kensington lock slot.
Some people might need more ports, but it hasn’t been a problem for me yet.

Trackpad, screen and keyboard

Trackpads, or touchpads, are terrible on most computers, They’re too small, too ugly and overall… just bad. Since the day I turned this MacBook Pro on for the first time, I’ve been addicted to Apple’s trackpad. It’s far, far superior to other touchpads.
It’s one big piece of glass, just like the touchscreen of the iPhone. You can use fingers for all types of gestures, including scrolling with two fingers and pushing all open windows away with five fingers.
I found out that a mouse was still needed for certains tasks, like working with OpenOffice Calc.

The keyboard is also great! The keys are soft and very nice to use. And, it’s even backlit! It looks very nice, but not something I would consider as necessary. It’s nice when it’s dark, otherwise it’s just a fancy feature, I think.

When it comes to the screen it’s pretty good. The colors look nice, even from the side and it lights up very fast.
One thing you should notice, which the white MacBook doesn’t have, is that the screen has a glass surface. Something that is very nice, because the screen won’t get scratched or anything like that.
Also, it is very glossy, almost like a mirror in sunlight, but that also makes it better looking, so that’s fine with me.

Mac OS X

I’ve used Windows for my whole life, so Mac OS X was quite new for me, and still is, actually. I can’t really say much, you’ll need to see for yourself, but it’s just… a dream. It’s fast, it’s beautiful and it works awesome with the hardware Apple makes. It took about a week to get used to.
One thing everyone considering to buy a Mac should remember, is not everything work on OS X. It’s possible to install Windows, but that kind of… ruins the whole experience. I might do it in the future because of school, but I wanted a Mac so much I was willing to risk that. And I’m glad I did.

Performance

So is this product fast? The base model, which I have, features an 2.4 Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 4 gigabytes of RAM and NVDIA 320M graphics, which is pretty neat. You can also buy a 2.66 model, and it can have up to 8 gigabytes of RAM.
It feels fast. I can have lots of applications open and it doesn’t slow anything down at all. It’s also turns on very fast, takes about 15 seconds, I think.
What about games? Unfortunately I haven’t really tried any games on this machine yet. If you’re very interested in more information about this, I’m sure you can just do a quick search on Google.

Battery life

Awesome. That’s what I can say about the battery life. I take it with me to school every single day, and I haven’t used the charger yet, only at home. When you’re just writing documents or surfing the web, the battery can easily last many hours. I’m not sure about how many exactly, but I’ve seen other reviews saying that 8 hours is normal. And this isn’t a netbook!

As mentioned earlier, it has this awesome battery indicator on the left side. Very useful, it’s stupid to turn on a notebook just to see if has been charged, right?

Wrap-up

It’s very hard not to recommend this computer. It just works. The hardware together with the operating system makes it a dream to use, waaaay better than anything I’ve ever tried. Not the hardware itself, not OS X itself, but together.

When people criticize Apple it’s often because of the price, and it’s true. It’s very expensive but you do get what you’re paying for. A computer that does everything in the best possible way. The normal MacBook is almost like the Pro-model but made of plastic instead. If you want to save a few hundred dollars, I’m sure it is still a great computer. Many of the specs are the same.
Others think Apple is only about “the design”. That is not true! It’s about so much more, I hope you understand that.

I know I haven’t metioned everything in here, but I didn’t want the review to be too long. Thanks!