It's been over a week since I've gotten the MacBook Pro, but I was busy on a project that required my old PC laptop so I haven't had as much time as I'd like on the notebook. While it is still "early", I thought I'd share some more observations, especially for those who may be thinking of switching:
The size of the MBP is very different for me. For the past two years I've used the first generation Dell XPS. The XPS weighed over 8 pounds and was close to two inches thick. The MBP is maybe one inch high and around five pounds. I cannot describe how much better the MBP feels on my lap compared to the XPS. But to be fair - the XPS wasn't really meant to be super portable. It was a gamer's machine and it rocked at that.
More on hardware: The keyword is still a bit weird to me, but I'm getting used to it. What I haven't gotten used to yet is the key combos for stuff like Page Down, Home, etc. I'm sure I will. One thing I love - and I don't think it is unique for MBP's - if you put two fingers on the trackpad and move, it acts like a scroll operation. So I can view a blog and "strum" my fingers over the trackpad to slowly move it down. It feels completely natural and works great. The graphic display is also very nice. Text is smooth and a pleasure on the eyes.
Software: I had some difficulty with Eclipse. Specifically the RDS and FTP support from CFEclipse. However, I just mapped the PC drive and opened a new project and I was good to go. I still need a good FTP client, but so far, my only disappointment is OpenOffice. It does not work well. I can't get cut and paste to work, and it more than a little ugly compared to the rest of my Mac apps. I know there is a MacIntel project in the works, so I'll bide my time, but I refuse to by MS Office again.
Speaking of Eclipse - how can I make my Mac reconnect to my PC drives on startup? How about after my Mac goes to sleep?
- OS: What can I say - maybe I've got "Windows Fatigue", but OSX just freaking rocks. I love that I can open a terminal window and "ls". While I'm not Linux guru, I just love that this is the OS I'm on now. I can't remember the last time I was happy with my OS. This is not to say Windows sucks. Windows XP is a very stable, strong, operating system. But to be honest, I've grown tired of it. For example - I hate the fact that, on random occasions, I'll right click to do a simple Open With, and I wait a random 30-45 seconds while.... "something" goes on in the background. Explorer is just wacky at times - with random slowdowns.
What do I not like about OSX? Why is it that the maximize operation doesn't maximize? Is it leaving room for the dock? I guess that makes sense. But I have my dock autohiding, so maximize should take the entire screen. I can expand it myself, but why?
Oh - and one thing that really bit me: In Windows, if you paste in a folder and the folder already exists, Windows will overwrite and append. So if the folder pasting in is just new files, you have nothing to worry about. In OSX, it replaces. Now - OSX does warn you - but did I read that? Of course not.
All in all - I am very happy with this notebook. I think it is one of the best purchases I've ever made, and I think I'll end up making my next desktop a Mac as well. (Especially now that you can run Parallels or BootCamp on it.)