The MacBook Pro arrived just after we finished our “end of the year” performance reviews. It was like getting candy after going to the doctor’s for a shot.
I’ll talk more about it later as I unwrap its delicious layers of goodness, but for now, here are my first impressions.
For starters, it’s glossy. REALLY glossy. Probably too glossy. This is not a laptop I’d want to watch a movie on, or have to do any serious color correcting of photos. It does however, like a plasma TV, have very rich colors and a deep black, which I’m sure was their intention in doing this. For me, I’m indifferent, I’ll have to have it longer than 5 minutes to give you an impression.
Second, there is a distinctive lack of accessories. As you may know, they’ve gotten rid of the DVI port and replaced it with some crazy new mini-multi-monitor jack that looks like a mini-USB port to be quite honest. That’s wonderful for the aesthetic look of the laptop, but NOTHING uses this port except the brand-new cinema displays. Given that 99% of their users don’t have one of those when they buy a new laptop, you’d figure that Apple would include a short converter cable, or at least a connector, or something. Nope. If you want to hook this laptop up to a $4000 display that you already have, you need to shell out another $30 for an adapter at the Apple store. Seriously? You’re launching new technology and not giving anyone a simple $2 cable? That’s lame. Also missing from the box is the extension portion of the power cable as well as the small Apple Remote that until now, came with nearly everything.
The laptop, the power brick and a cloth to clean the screen were LITERALLY the only things in the box.
I know I’ve never owned a Mac before, but to be quite honest, I was expecting something a little more, I dunno, complete feeling. Maybe it’s the PC in me, but where are the cables, the manuals, the warranty card, the piles of crap I don’t need? While useless, having a pile of crap was reassuring. Getting basically an empty box makes me FEEL like I’m missing something. I know I’m not. I know it’s all here, and the presentation is nice, but it’s like getting a giant heart shaped box of chocolates only to find out that there is only one single piece of candy in the box and the rest is simply packing material.
That said, it is a laptop. It’s not supposed to come with a whole library and a free Big Gulp. It’s fast, it’s silent, it’s got everything on there, ready to go. So, I’m happy. Hopefully this will be a good experience.
Now, pardon me, I have to go to the mall to buy an effing video cable.
Matt out.
they started dropping the remote from the last-gen macbooks. it’s nice to have, but I personally never use it anymore, so it’s understandable they don’t ship it (plus hey, free extra income for them, why not?)
the mini-displayport is a nice technology, but kind of a pain in the ass at the moment. Hopefully when more companies come out with adapters for it (apple is allowing free licensing for it), it’ll be a nicer option.
there is a small box of cds and the like in the box too, right? at least you get a couple of Apple stickers 😉
That’s what all three of the other folks here said about the remote. I guess it’s more for people who do presentations or watch dvds from across the room, something I didn’t really plan on doing anyway. One of my co-workers even gave me their old remote, saying something along the lines of “here, you can have this one, I’ve got like 4 around here somewhere”. So, I guess that’s solved. I just thought I remembered Jobs saying a couple keynotes ago that the whole “Front Row” thing was going to be huge and that they were really pushing everything as “media centers”. It just seems odd to kill off that concept by removing the one accessory that would have actually realized that.
I mini display port IS a good idea, but I don’t think it was announced very well, or even explained. The first time I heard about it was literally 2 weeks ago when the laptops were first ordered for us. I went out to Apples website to look at the specs. I realize it’s new, and things will come out for it, but if you’re launching new connector technology you NEED to put an adapter in the box. If not, there really needs to be that brief “in between” stage where things have both plugs, or an adapter, or both.
But that’s just me. Obviously they don’t have any issues getting people to buy accessories, lol. It must be working for them.
And yes, I have a sticker now, lol. 🙂