Base Model with a 4GB ram upgrade on the way. Bootcamp'd running Windows XP Pro.
General
This is my Mac computer and I was very excited about making the transition from Windows. So far I am having a great time trying to learn every detail about Leopard. I find that it has some great tools that Windows lacks, but it also lacks some very basic functions that Windows offers. For example, an icon changer? hello? I found that I needed to install third-party software to change icons in Leopard, but even then I could not change the icon of the only one folder I wanted to change unless I changed it for all generic folders. Small things like that.. or perhaps I've yet to figure out how take advantage of that feature.
Another issue I had is with the clock. It seems to reset itself after every boot to some random time and one day in advance. I don't know if leap year put Leopard in a twist or what.. but it is really annoying having to reset the clock every day. Also, I plugged in my iPod and the MBP set the clock on the iPod to the non-accurate time... not so awesome.
Small issues that will be fixed no doubt.. so far I am loving it.
School
As for schoo and/or work, my first experience with iWork was a rather quick install and uninstall. Keynote is a horrible program for anyone who needs to do college level material, if you are a math or science students and need to include long and dreadful formulas into your papers... keynote cannot do that in the way Word '07. Also, if you need to make graphs that have X-Y graph correlation, polar graphs, curves, and other functions that excel can easily handle. iWork is a definite 'do-not-buy' if you are a student.
So what about Office 2008? No VBA really made me skeptical about buying Office 2008. However, with no trial version available, iWork being disappointing, and my personal want for an office-like I can run in Leopard, I had no choice but to buy Mac Office 2008. I received a great deal from my university which made the choice to buy a whole lot easier ($75). The interface is very pretty, but the program itself ran very slow and especially slow on the initial launch. The no VBA gave me issues right away when I needed to create thorough statistical analyzes and histograms. I had Word crash on me a few times while running multiple programs such as iTunes in the background. I guess Office 2008 was not created with the mindset that people listen to music while they work.
At the end of the day, Office 2008 ended being just a power point reader for my lecture slides and iWork was just a waste of time. I installed Office 2007 on the Windows XP partition, and I am sad to say I won't be able to do my school work while running Leopard. As a result, I find myself using Windows XP more so than I do Leopard.
Games
I created my Windows partition for the sole purpose of it being my gaming partition. I won't include benchmarks since they can easily be acquired through some google searchers, but so far World of Warcraft runs like a camp @ a steady 60 FPS. Guitar Hero III runs great at low settings but it has some FPS-spikes on high settings, however, the game does look great on low settings. Call of Duty 4 also runs surprising smooth(40-60FPS), but do not expect to play competitively on a MBP (requires 100+ FPS). The multiplayer iin Call of Duty 4 can become a bit hectic and very graphic intensive so I noticed the FPS go into the 20s. Age of Conan Beta ran surprisingly smooth @ 50-60 FPS. I expect the performance will increase once my 4GB of ram arrives.
Overall, the base model of the MBP performs like other "gaming" computers within its price range. Buying an Apple you have to go into the deal willing to give up some gaming performance for other features, so if gaming is extremely important to you than you might be better off being an Alienware.
Final say.... great buy.
PROS
CONS
General
This is my Mac computer and I was very excited about making the transition from Windows. So far I am having a great time trying to learn every detail about Leopard. I find that it has some great tools that Windows lacks, but it also lacks some very basic functions that Windows offers. For example, an icon changer? hello? I found that I needed to install third-party software to change icons in Leopard, but even then I could not change the icon of the only one folder I wanted to change unless I changed it for all generic folders. Small things like that.. or perhaps I've yet to figure out how take advantage of that feature.
Another issue I had is with the clock. It seems to reset itself after every boot to some random time and one day in advance. I don't know if leap year put Leopard in a twist or what.. but it is really annoying having to reset the clock every day. Also, I plugged in my iPod and the MBP set the clock on the iPod to the non-accurate time... not so awesome.
Small issues that will be fixed no doubt.. so far I am loving it.
School
As for schoo and/or work, my first experience with iWork was a rather quick install and uninstall. Keynote is a horrible program for anyone who needs to do college level material, if you are a math or science students and need to include long and dreadful formulas into your papers... keynote cannot do that in the way Word '07. Also, if you need to make graphs that have X-Y graph correlation, polar graphs, curves, and other functions that excel can easily handle. iWork is a definite 'do-not-buy' if you are a student.
So what about Office 2008? No VBA really made me skeptical about buying Office 2008. However, with no trial version available, iWork being disappointing, and my personal want for an office-like I can run in Leopard, I had no choice but to buy Mac Office 2008. I received a great deal from my university which made the choice to buy a whole lot easier ($75). The interface is very pretty, but the program itself ran very slow and especially slow on the initial launch. The no VBA gave me issues right away when I needed to create thorough statistical analyzes and histograms. I had Word crash on me a few times while running multiple programs such as iTunes in the background. I guess Office 2008 was not created with the mindset that people listen to music while they work.
At the end of the day, Office 2008 ended being just a power point reader for my lecture slides and iWork was just a waste of time. I installed Office 2007 on the Windows XP partition, and I am sad to say I won't be able to do my school work while running Leopard. As a result, I find myself using Windows XP more so than I do Leopard.
Games
I created my Windows partition for the sole purpose of it being my gaming partition. I won't include benchmarks since they can easily be acquired through some google searchers, but so far World of Warcraft runs like a camp @ a steady 60 FPS. Guitar Hero III runs great at low settings but it has some FPS-spikes on high settings, however, the game does look great on low settings. Call of Duty 4 also runs surprising smooth(40-60FPS), but do not expect to play competitively on a MBP (requires 100+ FPS). The multiplayer iin Call of Duty 4 can become a bit hectic and very graphic intensive so I noticed the FPS go into the 20s. Age of Conan Beta ran surprisingly smooth @ 50-60 FPS. I expect the performance will increase once my 4GB of ram arrives.
Overall, the base model of the MBP performs like other "gaming" computers within its price range. Buying an Apple you have to go into the deal willing to give up some gaming performance for other features, so if gaming is extremely important to you than you might be better off being an Alienware.
Final say.... great buy.
PROS
- Leopard is a very intriguing OS for a new user. Having a blast learning the OS.
- Stacks, Quicklook, and spaces is sweet.
- Looks sexy.
- Best of both worlds. Leopard + XP Pro = win.
- Performs like a performance laptop within its price range.
CONS
- Horrible WiFi connection.
- Computer clock resets to a wrong date / time.
- Touch pad has some scrolling issues in Windows.
- Leopard seriously lacks any word processor, spreadsheet, or power point program that is adequate for college level material.
- Due to the issue above ^^^, I find myself using Windows OS more than Leopard. Only reason to buy a Mac is because of OS X... shame.
