PureGin.org

I've been using my new 2Ghz 13.3" Black MacBook for about a week now, figured it's time to write a few first impressions.

Case: The case is almost 2 inches wider than my 12" PowerBook G4, only a smidge deeper. It's actually thinner than the 12" PowerBook - more the thickness of the larger PowerBooks. It fits into the sleeves/cases designed for the 14" iBooks, with about a 1" gap because the iBook is deeper (and a bit thicker). It's also a tad heavier. I do miss the ultra-portable form factor of the 12" PowerBook. Somehow the 13.3" form factor strikes me as a compromise.

The plastic has a matt finish which I find annoying, because it shows greasy hand and finger prints as soon as you pick it up. On the other hand, I suppose that a glossy black case would show scratches. Hmm. Black is a high maintenance color for laptops and cars.

Display Lots of people (including me) speculated that the glossy screen would have problems with glare and reflections, but I find that it's not been a problem. It's great to have the extra brightness and pixels. However, as of this morning, I'm having the same kinds of garbled display problems that have been reported by others. For me, these seem to appear in some instances where the windowing system places a shadow, such as beneath the menu bar at the top of the screen, and around windows. The garbled rendering of the shadow follows the window if it is moved. The problem is intermittant, and can be fixed by switching display modes (e.g. to 800 x 600 and then back again). I believe that this has to do with the drivers / Quartz support for the Intel GMA-950 video hardware, and is not related to overheating issues as reported in the previously referenced posting. The problem did not manifest for several days. It's possible that it's related by my having installed Windows XP using BootCamp - perhaps the Windows driver for the hardware put it into a state which the Mac drivers do not deal with.

Keyboard: Initially I found the key spacing to be a little disconcerting - the gaps between keys are wider than the PowerBook 12". I like the idea of the backlit keyboards on the larger PowerBook models (also on the MBP's?) so it's too bad that this feature wasn't included.

Heat: The 13.3" MacBook is quite a bit hotter than the 12" 1Ghz PPC Powerbook - but not unbearably so, even when doing a fink update-all, for example.

Battery: After the first full charge, the battery indicator showed almost 6 hours charge remaining. This seems reasonably accurate - but no doubt this will drop off with use - especially since this unit runs quite warm, and Li-Ion batteries are notoriously sensitive to heat. The battery pack is about twice as long, a little less deep, and about 2/3 the height of the 12" PB. Hope that replacement units don't cost an arm and a leg...

Disk: I had a 40GB disk on my PowerBook, which was getting close to capacity. Transferring the contents to the new machine couldn't have been easier, but I was surprised that the new system plus all of my files and applications added up to about 50GB. I guess the Universal binaries account for quite a bit of that. Setting aside around 15GB for the XP partition for BootCamp, there's not much space left! I'd definitely recommend the 120GB drive. Also, the drive is still a 5400 RPM unit, SATA though it be, it doesn't really match the performance of the 7200 RPM 80GB Seagate drive I just bought as a portable backup. I can see myself upgrading in a few months...

Bootcamp: Works like a charm - incredibly easy to set up and configure. I was adventurous and decided to try to install with XP service pack 1a. Using the instructions here as a starting point, I was able to install the required drivers for the ethernet and wifi hardware and other bits and pieces. In the end, I think I'll probably just get buy an OEM XP disk and avoid future hassles. No doubt someone somewhere is working hard to get virtualization happening :)