MacBook
Written at 19:46, on Wednesday 20 September 2006. Tags: personal .
I’m now the proud owner of a white MacBook. My PowerBook was owned by the company I worked for, and thus I returned it when I quit. Here are my first impressions based on a week of use.
What I like about it:
- Glossy display! The screen is a lot brighter and finished with a glossy surface. It adds depth and saturation to imagery and photos. It’s also easier to sit outside with it.
- Good battery life. I get about 3,5 hours with regular use (text editing, surfing, mailing) with an allmost completely dimmed screen. It’s not great though; there are laptops which get 6-7 hours of battery life.
- Intel Inside. Not that I care much about the performance gains, although that’s a nice bonus as well, as long as you make sure to use Universal applications. No, the great thing about Intel processors is virtualization, which allows you to run operating system inside operating system! I’ve already installed a copy of Ubuntu 6.06, Windows XP and Windows Vista RC1, and with the exception of the latter (which I’m sure is due to beta-support of a release candidate), they run just as fast as natively. And combined with VirtueDesktops it gives you the ultimate web development environment.
What I don’t like about it:
- The fan is used more often. While the MacBook doesn’t run as hot as the PowerBook and is very usable on your lap without risk of burning it, it also starts the fan earlier. The first time I heard it I thought it was going to fly away! Using Photoshop is enough to get it running and it’s quite noisy (I’m really looking forward to the Universal binary).
- I also have to get used to the louder clicking and more tactile feeling of the keyboard, although I’m sure there are lots of people who love this. A great improvement is that the keys don’t touch the screen anymore when you close the lid, so your smudgy fingers won’t spoil over your screen.
All in all, this is a great laptop with lots of extras, such as the integrated Front Row with remote control, the magnetic power cord and the integrated iSight camera. And it provides great value for money, which makes me consider buying an iMac for extra power, storage room and big screen, with the same budget as it would cost me a MacBook Pro.
Comments closed (2 total) | Permalink
Goede dag! <div class=“write-only” value=“two cents”>This is completely off-topic and was certainly written by others before, but for someone who pretends to have a “strong focus on usability (and) accessibility” your choice of VERY low-contrast default colors and tiny fonts is somewhat disappointing. I found out later that there is a “light switch” on the top (and alternate stylesheets hidden deep in browser menus), but I would not call that a usability enhancement and it gives a poor first impression anyway.</div>
Your criticism is the exact reason I added a stylesheet switcher. Note that I’ve included an additional font resizer, even though the fontsize can be changed in any browser. And the low-contrast design is an experiment in monochromatic color palette, and for people who’d rather have a high-contrast design, I included the light switch. I guess I could make it more obvious, but then again, this is just my personal website, I don’t pretend this to be the showcase of good usability or accessibility work. It’s more intended as my playground, where I can experiment with design and code, to seek boundaries and test what works and not.
I appreciate that you take the time to leave a comment, and I’ll try to clarify the goals for this site better. Don’t be afraid to leave your name next time ;-)