MacBook Pro 13.3: So far so good!
Thu, June 18th 2009 at 05:20am
Last weekend I decided to take the plunge and buy my first Apple computer. The recently announce MacBook Pro 13.3 seemed like the perfect fit for me. I have been looking for a small laptop for a long time, I even bought a Dell XPS 13.3 and had to return it. So when the new updated MacBook Pro’s were announced at WWDC I just decided to order the next day.
After using it for a couple of days I thought I would post some inital thoughts on the system, and compare it to my limited experiences with the Dell XPS 13.3.
The first thing that hits me as a new Apple owner are some of the intangible things. For example, just opening the box and seeing the well designed and thought out packaging made me excited. When you open the lid of the box you are presented with your system right on top, no flyers for free virus protection, or extended service. Just the clean lid of your system with a little pull tab to help you gracefully lift your system out of the box.
Then when you start up your system you are presented with a short movie which serves no purpose other than being a flashy intro. But it works well because when it was playing I was drooling at the glossy screen. In short it is a stunning screen, I have the system next to my two Dell 24in monitors right now. The Dell monitors look flat and soft compared to the MacBook Pro. Ofcourse they do not produce any glare though, which the MacBook Pro does.
The only other things that stood out in my short time are the keyboard and trackpad. The trackpad is amazing, it’s a little stiff to click the whole thing, but I quickly fixed that. In the System Preferences you can simply set “Tap” to be a click. So now I just tap the trackpad with one finger and it’s the same as a click. Also gestures are very nice. Whenever I saw the demos of gestures I thought they looked cool but a little gimmicky. But even after a day I am already used to using several gestures all the time.
Two fingers to scroll windows is the most useful gesture yet. And makes using the trackpad almost as useful as a mouse. Other nice gestures are the four finger swipe for Expose, and for the app switcher. I have not found much use for pinch or rotate yet, hopefully when I play with Photos a little that will come into play.
The keyboard scared me a little when I first started typing on it, just because the keys seem to be so widely spread. There is atleast an eighth of an inch between each key. At first I found my self hitting the dead space between keys quite a lot, just because I am used to tightly spaced keyboards. It seems to be another none issue however, because as I type this post I am gaining speed all the time and find it quite comfortable to type on.
That’s as far as I have gotten so far. Installed Windows 7 via Bootcamp, and that worked well. So now I am just going to try and configure everything the way I like it and will post some more updates as I go.
Oh and for people who remember my problems with the Dell XPS 13.3″ you will be pleased to know that this system is near silent. I can barely hear the hard drive, and even the DVD drive is pretty quite. This fact alone made my day.
