My first Mac: 13" MacBook Pro

Well I finally got one: The 13" MacBook Pro (basic 2.2 GHz, 2GB RAM, etc.) Technically I'm buying it because I need it for a new business opportunity, but I've kind of been wanting one for a while anyway

So far I really like it. It's running very cool - not even warm really (in a cool house), so I'm impressed there. And of course the touchpad is just amazing, the screen is very good, the battery life is excellent, the build quality etc.

My major concerns which I posted earlier in a thread for discussion it turns out aren't really issues, as I had hoped. The Mac OS scales fonts down really well so the lower screen res is actually fine because I just downsize fonts when I'm on a webpage, etc. that needs it. The touchpad is of course amazing, and definitely works for me (unlike 99% of non-Mac laptop touchpads). The keyboard's lack of pageup/pagedown/home/end keys is a slight inconvenience, but it's not a big issue so far.

Anyway, so far I give it 5/5 stars in my opinion . It's certainly not as light as my ThinkPad X300 but it's not bad at all, and the screen definitely has more contrast which is nice for movies, etc.

Also, some people complained about blurry fonts - I personally don't see it, but maybe it's a personal preference thing. Certainly they're slightly different from Vista/XP, but I don't see anything wrong with them.

One last thing: I'm glad I bought from a local apple store rather than ordering online, because the first one I bought had a dead pixel, a slight nick in the body, and the screen/chassis was warped very slightly so that the screen when closed would rock if you put pressure on the front right/left corners. Fortunately the Apple store manager was kind enough to replace it even though they said "technically" applecare doesn't cover one dead pixel (I didn't mention the other things because I didn't even know the rocking was unusual - even though I wasn't too happy about it). Anyway I have a pretty much perfect unit now so I'm happy

 

Glad you like your new macbook. I got the exact same spec and its great. Coming from a Windows background, the macbook is a great machine for os x and windows; currently running XP in a VMWare virtual machine; bootcamp works very well also but does get quite warm if doing demanding tasks.

The touchpad is brill; wish all laptops had them and I love the fact that is twice as big as other laptop touchpads, as manufacturers usually skimp on them which means your typing position has to change to use them properly; not the macbook though, feels great to type on and use.

 

Congrats! Glad you like it!


And,once again,feel free to post any questions regarding it or Mac OS X

 

just got the 2.53ghz model... first mac for me too.

slowly putting together all the apps to complete my switch from pc to mac.

one thing i find pretty annoying is navigating different windows-- i keep having to bring up the whole screen of windows and selecting the one i want.

another issue is that i have to use a third party to cleanly and completely uninstall applications. it seems as though osx should come bundled with the feature.

otherwise seems to work pretty well. but it's not as mindblowing as apple marketing/fanboys make it to be. i'm just glad that it can do the job.

 

Congrats on your purchase!

I also never noticed any problem with fonts. I will say, when Safari was originally released for Windows, the font was...very odd. But I never noticed such a problem in Mac OS X.

 

laughter95,it all depends on your expectations-I was anti mac when I got mine and was seriously impressed...

Anyway, you don't really need that application-just drag the icon to the bin,and Mac OS will uninstall it

 

"
another issue is that i have to use a third party to cleanly and completely uninstall applications. it seems as though osx should come bundled with the feature."

its the same (if not worse) in windows though, leaving registry files, and other files hidden arround the system ( Such as in the App Data folder which is completely hidden by default)

 

Congrats Hope you are enjoy it.

Lynn

 

congrats on your purchase and welcome aboard the group. i've become so lazy, having not reinstalled an os for such a long long time.

 

As far as changing windows, to me it seems quicker than Windows because a quick four finger swipe and a move left or right and I have the window I want, my mouse doesn't have to travel all the way to the bottom of the screen to switch... just my opinion though.

 

Some Good keyboard shortcuts to know...
CMD+Tab will switch between apps...
CMD+` will switch between windows in the current app
(thats the key above tab)

for uninstallation, I actually prefer an app called AppTrap which is a free download. You set it to run all the time, and it basically checks anytime you delete a .app off your machine, and finds all its associated files and prompts if you want them removed to.

 

thank you for the responses.

it's quite surprising that these posters are so willing to help out a newbie mac user on issues that have probably been answered a hundred thousand times. thanks again.

i'm currently using cleanmymac, added adium/growl, divx7 pro, firefox, sound studio and parallels.

it it really unnecessary for me to install anti-virus/malware or an error scanner on this system? if otherwise, could someone suggest the best program for better security? i've read other threads but it seems that there's a mixed response. if i really don't need it then i won't add it, esp if it would mean reduced performance.

 

sorry, i don't really understand. does the os actually self-clean reliably?

again, pc user so the idea of just deleting an icon to uninstall is completely backward to me.

 

Just a little update: I've been using my MBP 13" pretty much all day now on battery and haven't needed to charge yet. It looks like I'm gonna get about 8 hours, which is amazing. I've noticed that for non-intensive things like reading documentation and programming, it gets amazing battery life (if estimates are correct I could get up around 10 hours if I did nothing but light technical document browsing / reading). Watching online videos like youtube or hulu drains the battery much quicker but it still gets 3-4 hours of constant use even in that case. I haven't tried offline videos but I'd imagine it would be pretty good.

Overall I'd say I'm very impressed. My expectations were high but IMO this laptop is even more usable than I thought. It's strange because even though it's heavier than my old Sony SZ, it's more portable (as in, using it where and how I want - not in terms of how many lbs. it adds to a backpack) - the battery life, and build quality are definitely more important than weight in this area I think, so long as it's not too heavy to be carryable in one hand.

In fact, as amazing as my Thinkpad X300 is, I don't see a reason why I'd use the X300 any more over this for most practical purposes.

Believe it or not, the MBP actually runs cooler to the touch most of the time than my X300. It's impressive actually how cool it runs, and one of my favorite things is how the bottom is totally smooth so I can use it on the carpet and not have to worry about it getting dust and dirt lodged in tiny ventilation cracks. The cooling design is genius: it sucks air in the keyboard and blows it out the hinge near the screen. If it's on a soft surface, the air comes up out towards the screen, if not it can also vent out the bottom near the back. It will get very warm when watching a high-res movie though, but this is to be expected, and even then it's nothing that would ever be uncomfortable I think.

I remember though at the apple store the MBP 13" laptops were all cool but the MacBook Air's all felt hot to the touch, and it was a very well cooled building. Another reason why I would never buy an Air.

As to the OS, I think it's definitely miles better than Windows for laptops, thanks to the multi-touch and generally vastly superior touchpad and touchpad drivers. Scrolling is flawlessly smooth and easy, going back and forward with the three-finger swipe is effortless - even easier than the dedicated forward and backward buttons on my Thinkpad. And, the four-finger Expose swipe works perfectly to switch between apps. I think the MS Windows taskbar is better and faster for a desktop mouse with quick, precise dexterity, but Expose is so perfect for a laptop because it doesn't require a lot of mouse precision and is easy to use from the touchpad.

The only thing I would change in the OS is to add a full maximize button. It's like Apple wants you to keep your windows small on a limited size laptop screen to "show off" the windowing capability of the OS. I personally like to use my full screen space while I type/read long documents or code. It's not too bad though because I can always resize it manually, it just takes a little longer to set up initially (fortunately though Safari remembers the size and now all new Safari windows are "maximized" for me).

Anyway overall I'm very impressed with my first Mac. Apple in really going in a good direction IMO with their MacBook Pro's, and they're priced reasonably for what you get (their desktops are another story). The best way to describe this laptop is it has a sort of "polish" that no other laptop I've used has - everything is smooth and works as you expect.

 

Thanks for this - I was wondering how to keyboard switch between windows of the same app