First Impressions of My new MB

Hi everyone, this is my first impression of my new MB as a first time mac owner.
First of all, I would like to start with how impressed I am with Apple's shipping. I have waited since Aug 5th for a laptop and I was happy I did because of Oct 14th, the day I order the new macbook. I received the package this morning at 11am (Oct 17th). Got to be impressed with three days it took them to ship out and get delivered, and this is half way around the world too. Sorry about that I don't have the pictures here, but you could find many pictures around though.

Specifications:
2.0 GHz (P7350)
2GB DDR3
160 GB

Out of the FEDEX brown package is a real small and thin macbook package itself, I find this case to be real dense as they have claimed to have reduced the package size by a significant percentage. I went on to do all sorts of things like calibrate the battery, install apps, and run bootcamp according to Sam's guides on this website.

Aluminum Case and Design - Got to love it. The new aluminum case has made the laptop real solid and even the thin screen feels solid with this new aluminum casing. The touch of it is hard to describe, but it makes you feel like this thing is even more expensive and valuable than it already is as compared to the touch of cheap plastics of my old laptop. For the design, it's so good that I forgot to appreciate what's inside (the new processor, graphic card, and ram)....that's all I have got to say about it.

Screen - I find the screen to be really bright, as I won't even go beyond half of the maximum brightness, so this should be a good news for people who are working with brighter lights in their background as the brightness of the screen should offset the reflections (of course the matte would be better at this). The screen is also crisp with the effect of the new glossy screen and I find the screen to be very much evenly lit.

Trackpad - I don't know what the mac users would say about this, but I have no problem with the trackpad at all and the right click is much better than the previous macs (two finger and a click) as I am able to click at the right bottom corner of the trackpad as my secondary click. I was able to make a click on most part of the trackpad except the top part where you cant easily make a click there like the bottom part does. The trackpad does not feel like it's made of glass like they have described but you can move your fingers smoothly over its surface the whole day. Another thing worth mentioning is that there is sometimes a small lag when using a one finger tap click instead of pushing on the trackpad click, I don't know if anybody has noticed this but my friend who is a longtime mac user confirms this too and suggests that I should get used to clicking instead of the one finger tapping. Still, all the gestures work perfectly well especially the four finger gestures that are really accurate and sensitive....I find this to be a really useful shortcut for Expose.

Noise and Temperature - This new macbook feels really great, the whole thing stays cool and really really quiet under normal load. What I mean by normal load is when the SMCFANCONTROL gives a reading of around 53 degree Celsius at the exhaust, but I feel no heat from the case at all except a bit of heat a the rear left end (laptop facing towards you). The noise from this system would only come from the super drive when it's loading a CD/DVD or running. Then under heavier load like installing Window XP, you will start the hear the exhaust working lightly and the same rear left end would get a bit warmer while leaving the rest of the case cool. I believe this has something to do with the metal case's ability to disperse the heat quickly thus able to cool down very quickly too.

For those of you who are considering a switch: I find Mac OS X to be very easy to get used to, everything is easy (like installation and settings) and easy to find (the Spotlight). Moving personal files to a Mac couldn't have been easier. Musics are easily imported by iTunes and photos are easily and quickly imported by iPhoto. All you have to do is just put you file into an external HD or USB with enough space. The hard thing to get used to would be the clicks though as I have mentioned earlier. However, I find Word 2008 for OSX to be inferior to Word 2007 as I frequently have to use the formula and equation tools to work on my lab reports and the Word 2008 is having problem with reading or creating them. So right now I am looking forward to using iWorks to see what they have to offer against the MS Office.

Sorry again that I haven't got my first impressions to be as detailed or fully covered as possible as I am in the process of calibrating the battery and getting myself used to the OS X and all those sorts of stuff. I hope someone would find my first impressions to be a bit useful or somehow interesting from a longtime PC user's perspective.

 

Wow , a lot of people got the new Macs! That's great, I haven't had the time to go to the Apple Store to check them out (haven't even seen the new iPod Nanos yet). Trackpad will definitely be most interesting for me, seeing how they're doing the new trackpad with glass. How's the feel, chen? Is it smooth, but not slippery?

 

Thanks for the interesting read.

 

It's not slippery at all yet very smooth, and the click just works like a button.

Your welcome and thank you for reflecting on it

 

Another new macbook owner!

 

Thanks for your impressions.

How is the bat life? I'm considering going mac due to the reported 5 hour bat life. ???

Thanks
JohnG

 

can you post some pictures.

 

the trackpad feel is absolutely perfect, perfect balance and feel.

not to mention the 3 wonderful 4 finger swipe shortcuts, makes the trackpad actually better to use than a mouse in many casual use situations.

 

Another happy convert! Welcome and enjoy your lovely MB.

 

Question:

I tried the Apple Macbook Pro at the Apple store. On PC laptops, I generally rest my thumb where the button would be. I do the same on the Macbook Pro. Unfortunately because the freaking track pad is so big (unnecessary IMO), my thumb would sometimes twitch and it'd move the cursor as I'm using my index finger.

IS it possible to disable the lower part of the track pad? That's one of the few things that's really stopping me from considering this new MB/MBP.

 

There are no options in the Preferences for disabling any part of the trackpad. sorry.

 

Can you do a quick run-down of the battery life? I'm getting conflicting reports from all over the place.

 

Chen:

I have also bought a MBP notebook and this will be my second mac device. Iphone being the first. You mentioned that you used the calibrate from Sam's Guide? Can you link to what you are talking about?

I plan to make a thread of the impression of most aspects that I deem curious since I am a first time user of the mac. But, Ill create a separate thread for that.