My Thoughts on My New MBP

So I've now had my MacBook Pro for a few weeks now, and I realized that I haven't really posted any reaction to it. I thought about doing a proper review ... but that sounds like it'd be too much work to do it properly. So I'll just give you a few thoughts on the good and the bad.

First of all, the trackpad is AMAZING! It really IS something that takes some getting used to. It took me a couple days. But once you get used to it, there is NO going back. The sheer ease of clicking anywhere, the multi-touch, all of it. Navigating the web is amazing with the two-fingered scroll. Reading manga is a dream because of the pinch-zoom-thing. And the best part about the multi-gestures is that it knows when you want to use them and when you don't. For instance, the bottom part of the track-pad is more "clickable" than the top. So when I want to drag a file, I can click on the bottom with one finger, and then drag with another finger, and it knows that's what I'm doing and doesn't try to scroll or zoom or whatever. Great stuff. Well done, Apple.

And of course I got it all souped up with the fastest proc (at the time) and all that, so I can do anything from video editing to watching HD anime, all while having Safari, Adium, Entourage, iTunes, and Vuze running in the background. Truly great stuff.

I also installed WindowsXP on it with BootCamp (I know, I feel properly dirty for doing so) so I could play Windows games (something I've been sorely missing). And I've installed Portal, HL2, and Supreme Commander thus far, and the MBP handles them all like a pro. Way better than my native Windows box I had previously. The graphics card in this thing can handle whatever the current gaming scene can throw at it.

The only thing that is sort of a negative with the thing would be the heat issue. It hasn't really overheated, but one must realize that the entire bottom of the laptop is the heatsink. The way it's designed to work (I had to think hard about this, since I couldn't readily find any fan outlets) is that air blows down out of the joint between the keyboard and the screen in such a way that it is supposed to hit whatever hard, flat surface the laptop is sitting on and then blow across the bottom of the laptop, cooling it down. Where this hits a snag, then, is when the laptop is ... on my lap. The air isn't directed properly, and if I'm doing anything processor-intensive, the bottom of the laptop heats up pretty quickly. In such cases, my flesh of my leg becomes the new heatsink. :-P

But overall, it is a REALLY nice laptop. Sturdy. Dependable. Fast. All the things you'd come to expect from a Mac. And as I said, once you learn the multi-touch trackpad, you'll be hard-pressed to go back to a normal trackpad. (My Pastor brought in his laptop for me to look at a problem it was having, and I tried to click the trackpad and was confused for a second when nothing happened. It just becomes that natural.) A recommended purchase for anyone looking for a powerhouse in a manageable and portable package.

On an unrelated note, I'm catching up on Toradora!, since I can watch HD anime with no hassle again. I'll post more about that when I get fully caught up ... maybe. And more on Naruto as the plot unfolds. Ja ne!