Snow Leopard Observations
Tue, September 1st 2009 at 09:35pm
Seeing as I am pretty new to the whole Apple and OS X I am not going to try and write a review, but just some of my limited observations of the past few days. When I first got my Macbook Pro several weeks ago I was (and still am) very pleased with the overall package, but there were a few nagging things that I did not like. None of the problems were close to the problems I had with my Dell XPS M1330 I bought a few years ago though.
Performance
On paper the Macbook Pro 13″ is a good system, and should have more than enough power to do everything I wanted. But after getting it home I noticed that Firefox was sluggish, especially when trying to play flash video. When opening lots of tabs (like I do very day when I start up my browser) there would often be hiccups for a couple of seconds when the computer thought about opening them. I gave Apple the benifit of the doubt because my desktop system sometimes has some problems with Firefox and Flash video too.
After doing a clean install of Snow Leopard everything is faster, and I was especially happy and a little surprised that Firefox and Flash are a lot faster too. On top of that all apps and general system usage seem to be noticeably snappier.
Printer Support
I am running a Windows Home Server as a file and print server and have had a lot of problems getting everything to play together. For some reason my Brother Laser printer would never even show up in the Leopard print setup dialog. After installing Snow Leopard I went to install the printer again and had my samba address and printer name ready. To my surprise the server was already listed, so I just clicked it and went all the way to the Brother Printer. I was then prompted to select the printer from a very long list of printers. The driver was then installed and it work right away.
Heat and Power
Another thing I did not like in Leopard was the heat and power usage. I had decent power usage, but I noticed that after being off power for just a half hour the meter said I only had three hours left. With Snow Leopard I have been using my system for over an hour and a half and it says I still have five and a half hours left. Now I am not sure if this is an actual change in battery drain, or if they just tweaked the battery meter code. But either way it makes me feel much better about my battery.
In Leopard I also noticed that the fan would come on quite a bit when the computer was idle and would get quite hot from time to time. Now I have not heard the fan get loud enough to hear one, and the weather here is hotter than ever. The system feels a little cooler too.
My Thoughts
As you can tell from my comments so far I am happy with Snow Leopard so far. Personally I only paid $10 for shipping so I have been looking forward to it for a while. But to be honest I would have been happy if I had paid $30. Maybe because I have programming experience I appreciate smaller more efficient code just as much as shiny features.
A few caveats though, I do not have a large library of Apple software I use all the time. Everything I use is pretty common and frequently updated. Also the Macbook Pro 13″ is very new, so it was unlikely it would have any compatibility problems. So after doing a clean install I had no issues with compatibility or stability.
If you have a lot of legacy software or hardware devices it would be a good idea to research support for your stuff before wiping your system. But when you are pretty sure all your stuff will work Snow Leopard is well worth the $30.
Tags: Apple, Review, Snow Leopard
