My MPB 17 (Week 23) Review
I'm a long-time powerbook user, and just upgraded from a 15" AlBook (first generation) to a 17" MacBookPro. Here is a brief list of the good, bad and ugly. I'd consider myself a power user (programmer & database development, lots of VirtualPC / Parallels use) so my perspective may not be that of the average user.
The MacBook:
17" with 120gig drive, one gig of RAM, matte display.
I upgraded to 2 gigs of RAM with a generic RAM stick from a local vendor.
The Good
• Delivery / Shipping -- was quoted 10 days from order to arrival, the MBP actually arrived within 48 hours. It made it from Shanghai to my doorstep in under 23 hours! Perhaps FedEx should get credit for this. However, my coworker's order did not fare so well (see below).
• Noise -- this is one of the quietest laptops I've owned or used (over a dozen in my life). Several friends (all who can hear the "Mosquito" sound that's been on the net lately) could not hear any high frequency noise. If you max out both processors, there is a very slight fan noise. Hard drive is whisper quiet. There is a very slight "morse code" sound from the CPU, but it's only audible if you put your ear to the macbook, and it is much, much quieter than the similar sound that my G4 AlBook has.
• Screen -- big & bright. In terms of brightness & saturation, it makes my apple 20" Apple LCD display look a little washed out. Previously, I would have called the 20" display "the best I'd seen". The viewing angle is, of course, better on the 20".
• Build quality -- the case is good, screen closes evenly, lid is even (but see below)
• Speed -- it's fast. Way fast.
The Bad
• Heat -- using CoreDuoTemp, I'm seeing temps of about 60C to 65C when idle, which seems high to me. However, if I max out both processors, the temp won't go above 85C, and I can hear the fans turn on. The bottom of the case gets blazing hot, noticeably hotter than my 15" AlBook (which I thought was hot). All in all, I can live with this -- in practice it means no using on lap while wearing shorts.
• Migration Assistant -- after transferring over 60 gigs of data, I had some problems:
1. My spotlight index was fubard. Searches in Mail would only find about a dozen mail messages for a certain keyword (where I know there are 1000s of matches).
2. Static IP address problems -- I had a couple of static IP address network configs which did not seem to work right after transfer. I re-built these from scratch which seemed to fix the problem.
• Delivery / Shipping -- a coworker ordered a CTO macbook at the same time, and his has now been in FedEx's system for 3 days, and mysteriously was routed to Indiana from Anchorage (for delivery to Southern California). Mine came directly from Anchorage to SoCal.
The Ugly
• Screen Hinge -- if I tilt the macbook towards me, at around 45 degree tilt the screen will start to close. If I'm not paying attention, and tilt it further, it slams shut with some speed. This makes it unusable when lying down in bed or on the couch. Reading these forums, it looks like this may or may not be a design or build flaw. I may call apple to get their perspective on a fix.
• Screen bezel is sharp -- yesterday, the screen slammed shut on me and actually cut my thumb! The inner lip of the aluminum bezel is very very sharp. On my 15" AlBook, it's not quite as sharp, and the screen stays open so it's not an issue. I'm not the litigious type, lucky for Apple.
• Freezes & Kernel Panic -- I've had two freezes and one kernel panic in 48 hours. All three incidents happened within 5 minutes of waking from sleep, and two of the incidents happened when using a non-Apple wireless network (an old netgear box). One happened before I added the 2nd RAM stick. I've turned off hibernate, turned off IPV6, and things seem a little better now.
Summary
If I can't solve the kernel panics & freezes, the machine will be unusable. I'm hoping that these are software bugs that can be fixed by 10.4.7. I'm not sure if I can live with the loose screen hinge. Otherwise, the machine is quite good. I'll report back in a week or so with more thoughts...
MacBook Pro 17 Mac OS X (10.4.6)
The MacBook:
17" with 120gig drive, one gig of RAM, matte display.
I upgraded to 2 gigs of RAM with a generic RAM stick from a local vendor.
The Good
• Delivery / Shipping -- was quoted 10 days from order to arrival, the MBP actually arrived within 48 hours. It made it from Shanghai to my doorstep in under 23 hours! Perhaps FedEx should get credit for this. However, my coworker's order did not fare so well (see below).
• Noise -- this is one of the quietest laptops I've owned or used (over a dozen in my life). Several friends (all who can hear the "Mosquito" sound that's been on the net lately) could not hear any high frequency noise. If you max out both processors, there is a very slight fan noise. Hard drive is whisper quiet. There is a very slight "morse code" sound from the CPU, but it's only audible if you put your ear to the macbook, and it is much, much quieter than the similar sound that my G4 AlBook has.
• Screen -- big & bright. In terms of brightness & saturation, it makes my apple 20" Apple LCD display look a little washed out. Previously, I would have called the 20" display "the best I'd seen". The viewing angle is, of course, better on the 20".
• Build quality -- the case is good, screen closes evenly, lid is even (but see below)
• Speed -- it's fast. Way fast.
The Bad
• Heat -- using CoreDuoTemp, I'm seeing temps of about 60C to 65C when idle, which seems high to me. However, if I max out both processors, the temp won't go above 85C, and I can hear the fans turn on. The bottom of the case gets blazing hot, noticeably hotter than my 15" AlBook (which I thought was hot). All in all, I can live with this -- in practice it means no using on lap while wearing shorts.
• Migration Assistant -- after transferring over 60 gigs of data, I had some problems:
1. My spotlight index was fubard. Searches in Mail would only find about a dozen mail messages for a certain keyword (where I know there are 1000s of matches).
2. Static IP address problems -- I had a couple of static IP address network configs which did not seem to work right after transfer. I re-built these from scratch which seemed to fix the problem.
• Delivery / Shipping -- a coworker ordered a CTO macbook at the same time, and his has now been in FedEx's system for 3 days, and mysteriously was routed to Indiana from Anchorage (for delivery to Southern California). Mine came directly from Anchorage to SoCal.
The Ugly
• Screen Hinge -- if I tilt the macbook towards me, at around 45 degree tilt the screen will start to close. If I'm not paying attention, and tilt it further, it slams shut with some speed. This makes it unusable when lying down in bed or on the couch. Reading these forums, it looks like this may or may not be a design or build flaw. I may call apple to get their perspective on a fix.
• Screen bezel is sharp -- yesterday, the screen slammed shut on me and actually cut my thumb! The inner lip of the aluminum bezel is very very sharp. On my 15" AlBook, it's not quite as sharp, and the screen stays open so it's not an issue. I'm not the litigious type, lucky for Apple.
• Freezes & Kernel Panic -- I've had two freezes and one kernel panic in 48 hours. All three incidents happened within 5 minutes of waking from sleep, and two of the incidents happened when using a non-Apple wireless network (an old netgear box). One happened before I added the 2nd RAM stick. I've turned off hibernate, turned off IPV6, and things seem a little better now.
Summary
If I can't solve the kernel panics & freezes, the machine will be unusable. I'm hoping that these are software bugs that can be fixed by 10.4.7. I'm not sure if I can live with the loose screen hinge. Otherwise, the machine is quite good. I'll report back in a week or so with more thoughts...
MacBook Pro 17 Mac OS X (10.4.6)
Mac OS X (10.4.6)
