My MacBook Pro
I promised I would write a review about my new MacBook Pro, so here it is.
Pricing
Let’s talk about the pricing of the MacBook Pro(MBP). Priced at SGD$3488, it is one of the most expensive laptop in the market. However, it is also the most powerful laptop, what Dual 2.16GHz Intel Chips. The fastest I have seen is a Dual 2.0GHz laptop by IBM, and it also charged at around SGD$3200. Some friends say Apple laptops are scamming people of their money, but personally I don’t think so. From the above example, I have shown that Apple laptops are competitively priced, though they may not be able to compare with brands like Dell, which compromise hardware components for consumers to buy a cheaper price. Don’t ever buy a Dell laptop! Slowdowns can be expected within 3 weeks of purchase!
Design
When we talk about Apple Products, we must talk about the Design. Sad to say, there is only the Brushed Metal theme for the MBP. I would love to have the Black Theme for the MBP, since it highlights the lighted Apple Logo due to the strong contrast in color. But still, Brushed Metal gives a very solid look to the MBP. As with all Apple Products, the design is elegantly simple, with no frills. People may say that the Sony Vaio may match up to the MBP in terms of design,but I’d say no, After all, the impact of a simple “bitten apple” logo on the cover of your computer should definitely be greater than that of the reflective words of “VAIO”.
Hardware
The internals of the hardware of a MBP is so powerful that hardly any laptop in the market can match up to it. With a Intel Duo 2.16GHz core, I have not seen a laptop in Singapore that is more powerful than that. Of course, a personal user hardly need such a powerful laptop, but I am a power user, often running intensive applications like Dreamweaver CS3,Flash Pro CS3 and Photoshop CS3. Hence, I do need a powerful laptop and the MBP fulfills this need. The included 1GB RAM seems quite little and I am thinking of upgrading it to 2*1GB when I have the time. As for the Hard Drive, the 120GB is currently sufficient for my use, though the loaded OS takes up lots of space. I shalln’t talk much about other aspects of the laptop hardware, as I am not exactly knowledgeable in this area
Innovations
Apple has not disappointed me with its numerous innovations installed in the MBP. The most famous would be the MagSafe Adapter, which allows the user to connect the power cable magnetically to the laptop, to prevent damage to the laptop should some one trip over the power cord. Surprisingly, even though tripping over power cables is a common problem, Apple seems to be the 1st company to actually come up with a solution. Preharps it is best for me to refer to this video:
As for other innovations, there is the backlit keyboard, where the keyboard will light up in dark conditions. This is especially useful on a darkly lit plane where you may not be able to see the keys, though it is not much of an issue for me, as I roughly know the position of the keys on the keyboard. Also included in the MBP is a light sensor under each of the two speakers(unconfirmed, but I think that’s the place). This light sensors provide information to the computer to automatically adjust the screen brightness according to the environment to prevent over glaring. The Backlit Keyboard is also dependent on the Light sensor.
There is also the Sudden Motion Sensor(SMS), which stops the hard drive spinning should it detect suddent motion to prevent again data loss. This is included in quite a number of laptops, and is not Apple exclusive
Software
The MBP comes loaded with Mac OS X Tiger. I was a Windows user and after I have switched to Mac OS X, I have not really looked back. True, I did install XP on my MBP with ease using Bootcamp, but that’s only pretty much for playing games and developmental testing. One thing I love about Tiger is the numerous shortcuts. No more moving my mouse. Also, Tiger is based on a UNIX system, which means there are hardly any viruses for it. (In fact, as far as I know, there are NO viruses for Tiger). However, Tiger is not as good as I had expected, after all, many applications have crashed in it. But the good thing is that if an application crash, you can just Force Quit without lagging your computer. Tiger seems to always leave some processing power and RAM to force quit an application. So, no more hanging of the computer and having to restart. Also, in the 1 month I brought the laptop, I have already repaired it once, but that was because I accidently removed Rosetta, a Power PC emulation program for Intel Macs, while I was trying to save some disk space. Repairing Mac OS X is really simple, and no data was lost at all.
However, I have encountered a corrupted disk 3 times already, since I installed Windows on my MBP. I am currently looking into the source of the problem.
The MBP does come with some good software. Basically, when you open the box, you can just switch on the power source and begin using the computer. Unlike Windows that come with lousy applications like Calculator, the MBP ships with the entire iLife suite.
Since Windows XP is retiring anyway, and I don’t really desire to switch to Vista due to numerous bug reports, I suppose switching to OS X is the best option. However, I do regret not waiting for Leopard’s release. There does seem to be some interesting features in Leopard, like the Core Animation, that actually counters Vista.
Conclusion
Overall, my conclusion is that the MBP is definitely worth what it is priced at, and seriously, if one can afford it, one should switch to Mac. However, it is the price that makes Mac such a premium product. There are many aspects that I have not posted about, and I may do so another time
Till next time,
Cheers
