Well, my iBook G4 is now just over four years old and was starting to show its age, especially with more CPU-intensive modern video and the ever-increasing appetite of newer apps for more memory. So, I had to get it a buddy:
And by buddy, I mean replacement of course, since my iBook will probably now sulk in the closet while a fine layer of dust accumulates on top of it.
It’s just the base 15″ version, since I wasn’t really looking for a full “desktop replacement” model. I debated a bit about whether to get an upgraded plain MacBook or the Pro; the main functional difference between them now is that the Pro has a much better video chipset, but was that really worth the $700+ price difference… I finally figured that having the better video would probably let me squeeze an extra year or two of life out of it and in the end the per-year cost would be roughly similar anyway, so I may as well get all the frills of the Pro.
There are some things that are going to take a bit of time to adjust to, simply because they’re different. The bottom of the keyboard has a hard edge rather than a smooth ramp all the way up to the top, for example, and the gap between the keyboard and the trackpad is a little bigger than I’m used to. There’s no gap between some of the function keys like there was on the iBook, so my usual reference for finding F5 (the all-important Refresh key) is gone. The ports are laid out a bit nicer for the way my living room is set up though, so I don’t have to criss-cross network and mouse cables in the back when I’m using them.
As for new features, the multi-touch is nice, though I’m going to have to get into the habit of using it, since I often find myself still going to the scroll bars. The magsafe power port caught me a bit by surprise since it takes quite a bit of force to pull directly out, until I caught on to the bend-it-away trick. And I haven’t done much with any new Leopard features yet, though I did notice that Terminal has improved a lot, to the point where I don’t feel like I need iTerm anymore. I might not even bother with Time Machine, just sticking with my rsync-to-the-Linux-server scripts instead.
Now I still have to finish migrating most of my data over…
Is that the Macbook Pro? Cuz I bought one, a few days ago. Gonna sell my two other machines. I got the mid-level one.
Yeah, mine is the lower-level Pro. Yours should look exactly the same, but with a slightly faster CPU, more video memory, and a bigger disk.
Not happy with the iMac, or was it just too old now?
Just kinda too old. I wanted one unit for all the stuff I do, i.e. surfing/photography/games. I could get it out of this one. We’ll have to make sure not to get them confused.. :-)
How are you liking yours?
> How are you liking yours?
Well, that’s what these entries are about… :P Good so far, though; no major problems outside of the usual Boot Camp quirks.