Post your MacBook performance experiences here

According to the Terms of Use, general polls are not usually allowed in the Discussions:

Don't post non-constructive complaints, polls, or petitions.

You're the only one who can award points in your own topic, no one else can.

-Doug

Man, it's like the wild west in these forums!

Anyway, this thing is awesome!! Just got mine this morning and have been using it a lot. No noise. No heat (I've had mine on my lap for quite a while w/o dicomfort.) The screen is awesome. I have been using the MB by my windows in my apt. and from the wrong angle I get too much glare but if I adjust the screen angle it's totally correctable. Haven't had a problem with the 512 ram yet though I have a lot of page outs but not more that page ins. If I need more I guess I'll get some. Only bad thing:

This not a poll.

Positive:
My new MacBook boots up faster than any other Mac I ever owned since my SE.

Negative:
It warms up almost to uncomfortable sitting in the lap, but this is my first notebook so I cannot compare it to any other.

That's my microwaved in-a-nutshell condensed reader's digest cliff-note wrap-up.

This is not a POLL but very useful for the people like myself that are on the edge of buying one.

Just amazed that someone (I assume a forum moderator) would jump on you for this thread.

No wonder this forum get so much bad press in the oustside world.

Keep the info coming... nice thread (once it gets going)

this is good to hear, cheers

I had to post this on other web-blogs because so many people are bashing apple about laptop heat issues: Note - Dell has the same issues; so it is not an apple issue

my blog -
Hey guys, before you bash apple for the heat issues with the macbook and macbook pro, one should really look at Intel for the problem - if the CPU is really the problem. First all laptops run hot, but I have been reading other blogs. There are postings about the Dell laptops running hot with the Intel Duo Core processors. why do you think there is a huge market for laptop coolers, oh and buy the way - those coolers really only help the bottom of the notebooks and the comfort level on your lap. Does nothing for the temp inside the machine - except maybe 1 degree (I have been looing at reviews for laptop coolers). Also, here at my job we may the stupid mistake a few years ago of buying Ezgo (similar to a mac mini, but totally tweaked out for the PC world - completely made from laptop parts) - I think they are now called Latte's. Anyway we bought them for business purposes to leave on 24 hrs a day. We destroyed about 100 of these due to overheating. Some were so hot, the thermal paste melted. You could fry an egg on it.

So bottom line: The more confined the space, the hotter. Laptops are really only made to be used for a couple hours at a time and not for hardcore gaming or maxing the CPU and harddrive use. Yes my company even made the mistake of buying an IBM server with a 2.5 laptop drive as the main hard drive - blew the drive in about 30 days.

also, as far as heat goes - look at your hard drive as a contributor. when my 5 yr old toshiba laptop is heavily using the hard drive (like when transporting large amounts of data from my desktop to my laptop) - the thing really heats up and my fans kick to high. does not heat up when using heavy applications. It then cools down when the hard drive stops being used heavily. Also, on my desktop machine, I have an IDE drive in an external drive enclosure. After an hour of just being turned on, the external enclosure is scorching. So as a rule, anything in a super tight enclosed area will heat up. It is the airflow internally that cooles things down. For years some people have also been complaining about desktop heat - that is why there is a huge market for custom cases and cooling products. Some people have even put bags of ice inside their desktops (yes that is even posted on some blogs).

So in closing - tight spaces, poor airflow, and heavy usage constitutes heat build up. Also, given the fach that Dell users are also complaining makes me think that Intel may have a flaw and the problem is INTEL, not APPLE. Or could it be we are just craming too much into a laptop as we are wanting them to be just as powerful as our desktops and looking to be as powerful as servers.....
Here’s a quote from a Dell Blog:

Re: Dell Inspiron 9400 With Intel Duo Core Available (specs)

Quote:
Originally Posted by Flame X
you go to www.tweaksrus.com and look for the mobile forceware drivers.

I have a question...my comp is running at 82 degrees right now (which is boiling), how do I turn my fans on manually? I checked the "fans always on" option, but they arent turning on...

Ive turned off all overclocking settings, and this is in its IDLE state.

I wouldnt' worry about it too much. Mine does the same thing. It goes to about 82 degrees and then the fan kicks in and it drops back down to 64. It just waits till it gets hot enough before the fan kicks in.
Inspiron 9400 T2400 Duo Core 1.83|2GB 667Mhz DDR2|7800Go PCI-X16|Windows MCE 2005|17" UWXGA+|9-Cell Battery|5400 RPM 80GB HD|3DMARK06: 3000|Sony DVD-RW DL| Xbox 360, 3.2Ghz Triple Core CPU, 700Mhz DDR3, ATI X1800 equivalent GPU with 48 unified pixel shaders

I'm not a "forum moderator", I'm just a user like yourself. However, since Barry's post is not, technically, a question he has about using his MacBook and it appeared to me that he was asking other users to simply run tests and report back results that would not help him solve a problem, it sounded like a "poll". I often remind folks of the rules in case the Hosts/Moderators decide to remove or lock the topic. You will get a pretty generic e-mail from the Hosts/Moderators that may not clearly explain why your topic was removed or locked. My post was simply a friendly reminder that polls are not allowed and if it gets locked or deleted, that may be why. He did, in fact, form this topic as a "question" and later marked it "solved". It's possible when you make a post to remove the "question" format and allow it to remain as only a post.

I also reminded him that he's the only one who can hand out "Helpful" stars. Only the person who starts a topic can hand those out. So, his note about other people being able to rate your post as "Helpful" in his topic would not actually be the case. Again, this was just a friendly reminder of the way things work.

-Doug

Purchased the 1.83ghz MacBook this morning.
Thus far I have not upgraded the RAM or increased the HD.
I bought the 1.83 because I didn't need the Superdrive (have one of those on my iMac).

Wonderful so far, I love it!
Is there heat - Yes but I use my newly purchased ilap and I'm quite comfortable.
Is the heat more than my Tablet PC - yes, definitely!
Have I heard the Moooing - Yes, when I was installing Office for Mac
Desktop falling asleep - yes too quickly
Crashes - No

Currently I don't feel a need to increase the RAM, it's doing quite nicely but chances are I will increase the RAM to 1GB in the near future just for the sake of doing it.
At the current time I have the following running: safari (3 windows open), adium, entourage, word. Some heat (all around), no mooing, good response.

Overall, I'm quite happy with my purchase and plan on learning more during this long weekend.

This forum and it's contributors have been a wonderful resource for my purchases - thank you all!

I have had my MacBook for a little less then a week and I LOVE IT! It does run a little hot but it isn't hot enough to really bother me. I have also tried Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 on it and I was actually impressed. I still haven't had a chance to play more demanding games like Halo or Quake 3 but I will report back when I do. Overall the computer is fast, sleek and beautiful you will love it.

(Note: I have the 2.0 GHZ MacBook with 1GB of Memory)


MacBook 13" Mac OS X (10.4.6)

Long time pc user who just recently switched to Mac. The Macbook is my first notebook/laptop computer (I've wanted one for a long time, and I think it's fitting that my first should be a Mac!)

I love it! The size/weight is just right for me (keeps it portable). It's fast/responsive even with the 512MB stock RAM. The screen is beautiful, but you must tilt it back a little to get the right viewing angle. I've had the heat and mooing issue, but the heat isn't bad for most lite applications [idle is around 52C even cooler if the ambient temp drops] and when the Macbook is used on a hard, flat surface.

The thing just works great (I like the keyboard too). I really don't have any concerns, and based on my experiences, I wouldn't have a problem recommending them at all.

Took a look at a few MacBooks, boot time seemed normal, wasn't any faster than my rig but that's to be expected.

A black MB on display seemed to have a heat related problem, it was sitting flat and was very hot underneath, the machine froze up and required a hard boot.

iTunes visuals seemed fast.

I didn't like the glassy display, it forces you to open the screen to match your line of sight or one gets a reflection. The black case is nicer, the white seemed to get dirty in a hurry.

The keys on the keyboard seemed kind of big, they are not curved so one needs to mind their fingers more than a keyboard with curved keys.

I liked the Mag connector, think that's a big improvement.

I didn't like the heat any of the laptops produced, I need a cool 12" Mac in black or silver with optical audio out ports. Even if it has one processor that's fine, it has to be cool. It's going to be running iTunes for audio work as iPods "soundcheck" is severely lacking, as well as engineering the audio.

All my heavy lifting is done at my desktop machine, all I need is a cross between a PDA and a small laptop.

(yikes, did I just stumble across something?)