ok, so i've had it for a bit more than two months now, and finally post something substantial about it. i definitely like it a lot more than all the windows systems that i have to use, the file system is a million times better, and it does just seem to look and feel better. another good thing is that the os is based on unix, so it means i get to improve my command line skills as i go. software wise (with a couple exceptions), everything just feels better.
my gripes on the software side are a bit grey, first, eclipse seems to crash a bit, and also behave in a strange way when editing files sometimes, but that's more of an eclipse issue. the application menus can be a bit of a bother, for example with firefox, they don't have control over that, so middle and right clicks don't work properly. spotlight is very cool (i haven't tried quiksilver, don't see a need at the moment), as long as i can remember to use it. the other thing is that a lot of the free/open source apps that are available for windows aren't for mac, there are usually alternatives, but they're not always as good (or take a bit of time to get used to). my one real gripe has been installing php, partly because it's a 64bit system, partly because it's a mac, i still haven't been able to get it working the way i want. it means i have to have apache compile as a 64bit binary, mysql as a 64bit binary, php as a 64bit binary (or all as 32bit binaries). so far, i just haven't been able to crack the code to get it up and running, i'll get around to it eventually.
on the hardware side, just one minor quibble (and it may be because i haven't set it up properly), mouse actions (mostly in firefox) aren't quite the same as windows, i've got a fancy mouse with lots of buttons but half of them do the same thing.
on the plus side, it's got a lot better hardware than anything else i'm using at the moment (2.4ghz dual core intel, 4gb ram (installed myself)) which is good because some of the photo processing i'm doing definitely needs all that power, and the os can actually utilise all that ram, and other software will be able to as long as it is 64bit. it's dead quiet (except if playing a dvd), all passively cooled so i can leave it running over night next to me. i'll have to wait a while before i can see how it handles the hot weather of melbourne. i've never really tried running it in the most efficient mode possible, but it gets about three hours (non stop) running off the battery, doing some intensive stuff, like photo processing playing mp3's etc.
the wireless network was ridiculously easy, it detected the network when i started it for the first time, but one glitch, it does seem to hang a bit when the connection drops out (which is my netgear router's fault, not getting one of them again).
i've got a dual monitor setup with a 22" monitor to take care of all the multimedia stuff, but the 13.3" (1280x800) glossy monitor is very usable, but with a big monitor things are a lot easier. so in conclusion, i'm very happy with the macbook, and it will make a very useful companion when travelling i think, as well as being very capable on the desktop. so it's not as upgradeable as a pc (hardware wise), that's all right, i'm sure when the time comes, i'll be able to upgrade, and/or setup an additional server pc.
pic stolen from the apple site.
#33 dtra (david tran)
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