review of my new macbook pro – laptop and egg skittle

A few weeks ago my 12inch powerbook, which had a little accident, died. Rather than waiting to hear back from the insurance company, I seized the opportunity to get a new 2 ghz macbook pro. It’s a lovely looking machine, although perhaps a bit big for inflight and on train fold down seat tables.

Both Richard and Nancy who posted guest blogger entries here have asked me about my experiences with the macbook pro so I figured I might as well post something here.

First of all, it’s lightening fast. The boot up takes a matter of seconds and is certainly the fastest boot up I’ve ever seen from a laptop or even desktop machine. I also haven’t had an problems with software compatibility or anything like that. Microsoft Office for Mac 2004 runs at about the same speed on this machine as it did on my last – think slow, ported over from Windows bloat-ware.

So it’s fast, but what else? The screen is GORGEOUS and I love having 15 inches rather than 12 inches. Yes, those extra inches mean this is more a desktop replacement than a true portable, but who cares when the screen is this great.

The downside? I seem to have a “revision C” machine which has, allegedly, addressed some of the issues that early purchasers had, including it getting REALLY hot. So how hot is hot? Well, mine, which apparently is one of the models that has resolved the issue, has been on my lap for about half an hour and is SO hot I’m starting to look for a pillow to put it on. How hot is hot? I happen to have one of those handy in-ear themomoters so I put it to the test. The first time I tried it a few moments ago it was 41.4c, second time 41.3c and third time 41.4c: that’s around 106.5f. If you don’t have kids, and eventually want some, you don’t want to use this on your lap if ya get what I’m saying.

There’s also an audible whine that makes the macbook pro sound like, well, an intel machine. It’s easy enough to solve – just open photo booth, the software for the new built in “embedded reporter” camera and the whine seems to stop.

So there you have it. If you want an extremely fast computer the macbook pro is ideal. Oh, and it looks great, has a wonderful screen and fantastic sound. It’s particularly great if you happen to also require the ability to fry an egg on it’s backside. I just tried opening up a few applications to see what the effect was and registered a whopping 42.5c on the thermometer (108.5 f) – ouch.