macbook unboxing and first impressions.
The tech world buzzes. Excited geeks hold their breath after muttering about rumours for months. Finally, the moment comes when the Apple announcement gets underway- in this case, a new uni-body series of Apple Laptops, including redesigned Macbook Pros and Macbooks.
In the days after, you can find Macbook Pro unboxing shots, Macbook Pro reviews, and other Macbook Pro information. I happen to think that the 13 inch Macbook is pretty exciting too, as it has a back lit keyboard, 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo Processor and other goodies. It is perhaps the answer to the people complaining about the lack of a 12 inch Powerbook, which had power and portability in a silver case. The only obvious things that make the new Macbook Pro different from the new Macbook are:
- Size. The Macbooks are 13 inch, and Macbook Pros are 15 inch.
- Video Cards- the Pro has an extra one.
- Firewire Port. The regular Macbook doesn’t have one.
You can max out the pro with a faster processor speed, but they do share the 2.4GHz level. The top level Macbook has become the lowest level Macbook pro.
So, after not having a computer of my own for a while, and needing a new computer to do university work, I decided that I would like Macbook, mostly because of price and form factor. My parents were very nice and got me an early birthday present. Here are a few Macbook unboxing shots, more on my flickr.
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Some First Impressions: it’s light. While it isn’t as light as the Air, it is still pleasant to pick up. I thought: “it’s an Air with a CD drive.” It’s curvy, very appealing. It is very glossy, but the screen is bright. The reflections are noticeable, but I’m not the kind of person that gets annoyed with stuff like that. I haven’t tried to use it outside yet, but so far I haven’t had to move to see the screen. The battery life is great, the keyboard is nice to use, and the backlight is something I’ve hoped for in a macbook for a long time.
However, it’s not complete. While OSX is a great operating system, it does lack a little. These are the first things I downloaded to make my computing experience a bit more comfortable. An interesting thing here is that all of these I downloaded from the internet for free, no install CDs at all have been used to set up this computer. This is also a handful of software- most of the things I use on this computer are web pages. At the moment I’m happy with iTunes for music playing, so that side of things is covered from the first boot.
- Firefox is my internet browser of choice. I prefer it over Safari- if I can, I only use Safari long enough to download Firefox! I also downloaded
- NoScript, to take back control over what javascript is allowed to run;
- also the Australian and Spanish Language dictionaries.
- To easily switch between these dictionaries, I also got the Dictionary Switcher extension.
- Adium as a multi protocol chat client, so I can talk to my friends on gtalk and msn (and many more!) It’s cute and friendly, with a duck icon. I am currently using the “Decay 2.0″ style, with the message style “Gone Dark- undersea”.
- OpenOffice.org because sometimes you need to do serious work too! While google docs is great, sometimes a complete suite on the desktop is what you need. Notably, it will open spreadsheets when gdocs is throwing a tantrum for some reason. Open Office has really matured since I last looked at it, and it is a good option for a grown up document editing.
- Seashore is a simple image manipulation program, based on the GIMP. It is different to the GIMP because it doesn’t rely on X11 to work. It has the basic “photoshopping” toolkit, like a stamp/clone tool, as well as various brushes for plain painting.
- Growl should be part of OSX. It’s a clever notification system that really fits in, and when it wasn’t there, I began to look for what was broken. Then I realised I had to download it! You should too- it’s great.
- Skype is handy to have for long distance phone calls.
- I also downloaded java 6 and drjava for some university stuff, as well as twitterific and some other apps to play around with.
As well as looking good, the new Macbook works. It works well, and in the end, that’s what you want from a computer. I am very happy with it.
COMMENTS
reflections on landing
So, here I am, sitting in a house that my family owns, yet we haven’t lived here for ten years. It’s rather bizarre- I think it will make any moving out that happens in the next 10 years easier as it doesn’t quite have an emotional tug on me.
Anyway, here are some thoughts on “landing” and how I think I’ve changed, perhaps because of growing older, or perhaps because of the past year of travel. (exactly where that was, I will elaborate in another post.)
So, the new macbooks have been announced (finally) from Apple. I will need a computer of my own (Dad will have his back without me borrowing it so often [writing this case in point[) for university, and for other stuff like email etc. Of course you can share a computer, but for proper work, I’ve found that you really need your own computer. Yes, I will probably get one.
For proper procrastination you need a computer of your own too: I haven’t read very many blog posts apart from the same ones I was following a year ago, and I haven’t been reading them every day either. (Hooray for that, no need to worry about a post a day!)
So, socially on the ‘net I have become the person who reads the facebook news feed and comments on occasional items. I don’t look at every photo album, or every photo in a photo album. Twitter is also good- I miss that you can’t get the texts to your phone in Australia. I feel that perhaps I’m missing out on stuff, but I don’t mind too much.
I also feel like I’m behind the news- this is a both a symptom of traveling and not being on the internet all day to watch the world unfold. Tech stuff moves fast, I was shocked to know that there was a new java version out that I had no idea about, and I’m supposed to be a java coder. It looks like I have some catching up to do, especially for the computery side of my degree.
Of course, there are other reasons why I’m not spending time finding out stuff- the biggest one being the huge mess that putting 10+ years of stuff into one small house makes. Hopefully by the end of this month I’ll have some more storage space and be able to be more organised. Materialism, Sentimenatlism and Pack-ratism are not the favourite isms at the moment.
Tiredness has an interesting effect on coherency, don’t you think?
I do like the internet and the interactions that I can have there/here. I think that my internet habits will change, but I am not becoming a luddite either.