Hi all,
So now i'm back up and running on my Macbook Pro (15" Penryn, base configuration w/ 4gb of RAM and a 7200rpm BTO hard drive). I've been Mac-less for the past month or so as I sold my previous Mac on ebay to prepare for this one, using my work PC laptop as a replacement. My mac history is as follows:
iBook G3 700mhz
iBook G4 1.2ghz
Macbook 2ghz (original model), 2gb RAM, 7200rpm 160gb drive
Current Macbook Pro
Just some thoughts...
Time Machine
What a painless process. I upgraded my Macbook to Leopard when it came out, and in December, I bought myself an external drive to use (Western Digital Passport 320gb). When I sold my macbook, I wiped out the hard drive. Thus, I was counting on the time machine backup to restore from. Got my new machine today and despite the fact that it said "3 hours" in the beginning, over 100GB of Data was copied over in less than an hour. I was VERY impressed. Recovering from a Time Machine backup seems to preserve everything from desktop backgrounds to system preferences settings, etc. Feels almost like I'm on my old macbook! Two thumbs up for Time Machine!
The Screen
What an impressive screen (i got the matte)! I felt the screen was fairly bright when I first started playing with it. Then I realized... it's on half brightness. Turning this thing up to max brightness is like staring at a flash light. Maybe the last gen of MBPs had great LED backlighting, but I can't really vouch for it, other than cursory looks at Apple stores and such. But this is great.
The Speed
It's very fast and snappy. All the apps seem to boot up very quickly. Firefox still isn't as fast as I'd like it to be, but there's some improvement. Apps that were always slugs, though, like NeoOffice, still are. I was hoping for a bit more improvement there. So while it's definitely faster than before, there's no "oh wow it's faster" effect. And this is coming from a Gen 1 macbook. Let me clarify. When I moved from my G3 700mhz iBook to the 1.2ghz G4 iBook, we were nearly doubling the clockspeed and moving to a new gen of processor. The speed increases were VERY apparent. Then moving from that to a dual core 2ghz Macbook was like woah, now os x is fast. Moving from a Macbook to here is really only a 20 percent clock speed increase, and I know it has more enhancements than just clockspeed, but the performance improvement is not as noticeable.
The Heat
This is the best part to me. So when I first loaded up this computer, I put this under some stress. I copied over 100 gigs of files. I downloaded a few weeks of missing podcasts. I imported over 100 new photos. I was browsing the web. I was installing vmware fusion, i was deleting parallels. etc. etc. etc. I was doing a lot. NEVER did the bottom of this laptop get above warm. If my macbook were put under this stress, it would get HOT. I've felt other newer macs and they all got really hot too. To me, the best part about the switch to Penryn is the heat. This thing stays between room temp and slightly warm at all times. This is in line with what i've read from other people.
Multitouch
eh - it's sorta useful i guess. Going back and forth between safari pages is fun using the 3 finger swipe. Also, rotating pictures in iPhoto with the touch pad is easier than clicking the rotate button. However, I don't think i'll really use these features. I know it's "the same" as on the iPhone, but... no it's not... haha. zooming in and out on an iPhone and watching the points on the picture scale exactly with your fingertips is totally separate from zooming in and out of finder windows. Your mileage may vary. Maybe you're in love with this feature. For me it looks great as a marketing bullet point, and it actually works pretty well, i just don't think it's that big of a deal
Let me know if you have any other questions for me. I'd be happy to answer!
So now i'm back up and running on my Macbook Pro (15" Penryn, base configuration w/ 4gb of RAM and a 7200rpm BTO hard drive). I've been Mac-less for the past month or so as I sold my previous Mac on ebay to prepare for this one, using my work PC laptop as a replacement. My mac history is as follows:
iBook G3 700mhz
iBook G4 1.2ghz
Macbook 2ghz (original model), 2gb RAM, 7200rpm 160gb drive
Current Macbook Pro
Just some thoughts...
Time Machine
What a painless process. I upgraded my Macbook to Leopard when it came out, and in December, I bought myself an external drive to use (Western Digital Passport 320gb). When I sold my macbook, I wiped out the hard drive. Thus, I was counting on the time machine backup to restore from. Got my new machine today and despite the fact that it said "3 hours" in the beginning, over 100GB of Data was copied over in less than an hour. I was VERY impressed. Recovering from a Time Machine backup seems to preserve everything from desktop backgrounds to system preferences settings, etc. Feels almost like I'm on my old macbook! Two thumbs up for Time Machine!
The Screen
What an impressive screen (i got the matte)! I felt the screen was fairly bright when I first started playing with it. Then I realized... it's on half brightness. Turning this thing up to max brightness is like staring at a flash light. Maybe the last gen of MBPs had great LED backlighting, but I can't really vouch for it, other than cursory looks at Apple stores and such. But this is great.
The Speed
It's very fast and snappy. All the apps seem to boot up very quickly. Firefox still isn't as fast as I'd like it to be, but there's some improvement. Apps that were always slugs, though, like NeoOffice, still are. I was hoping for a bit more improvement there. So while it's definitely faster than before, there's no "oh wow it's faster" effect. And this is coming from a Gen 1 macbook. Let me clarify. When I moved from my G3 700mhz iBook to the 1.2ghz G4 iBook, we were nearly doubling the clockspeed and moving to a new gen of processor. The speed increases were VERY apparent. Then moving from that to a dual core 2ghz Macbook was like woah, now os x is fast. Moving from a Macbook to here is really only a 20 percent clock speed increase, and I know it has more enhancements than just clockspeed, but the performance improvement is not as noticeable.
The Heat
This is the best part to me. So when I first loaded up this computer, I put this under some stress. I copied over 100 gigs of files. I downloaded a few weeks of missing podcasts. I imported over 100 new photos. I was browsing the web. I was installing vmware fusion, i was deleting parallels. etc. etc. etc. I was doing a lot. NEVER did the bottom of this laptop get above warm. If my macbook were put under this stress, it would get HOT. I've felt other newer macs and they all got really hot too. To me, the best part about the switch to Penryn is the heat. This thing stays between room temp and slightly warm at all times. This is in line with what i've read from other people.
Multitouch
eh - it's sorta useful i guess. Going back and forth between safari pages is fun using the 3 finger swipe. Also, rotating pictures in iPhoto with the touch pad is easier than clicking the rotate button. However, I don't think i'll really use these features. I know it's "the same" as on the iPhone, but... no it's not... haha. zooming in and out on an iPhone and watching the points on the picture scale exactly with your fingertips is totally separate from zooming in and out of finder windows. Your mileage may vary. Maybe you're in love with this feature. For me it looks great as a marketing bullet point, and it actually works pretty well, i just don't think it's that big of a deal
Let me know if you have any other questions for me. I'd be happy to answer!
