Deeper Into the Cult: A New Member of the Family

Pluses:

• Probably the nicest looking display I’ve ever worked on.
• It’s not Windows. In fact, it doesn’t even come with MS Office Trial Edition pre-loaded. I don’t think there’s a piece of Microsoft on this thing.
• I get the free upgrade to OS X Leopard. I probably wouldn’t pay for it, but heck: free!
• Like every Apple product I’ve bought in the past three years, it works the way I expect it to. It’s amazing what a difference that makes.
• Syncing it up with my Mac Mini: genius. So easy. I just opened up my mini for sharing files across my (protected) wireless network and thereby I’m able to access all my Mini files through my Mac Book Pro. Took about 20 seconds to figure out how to make that work. I can’t imagine that working in Win regardless of time investment.
• Sharing iTunes was even easier.
• Has a better wireless antenna than any other machine I’ve had in this place (including the Mini and my work laptop). The signal from my Airport Express (in the living room) to the bedroom is actually *strong* and hasn’t crapped out once yet.
• It’s considerably lighter than similarly sized laptops I’ve used.
• Every time I’ve had to guess at how to make something on the keyboard work (e.g., using F-keys as F-keys instead of to perform pre-designated functions like turning the sound volume up), I’ve been right on the first try.

Minuses:

• I don’t love the keyboard. I love that it lights up, don’t love that it seems like you gotta try extra hard to get keystrokes to register sometimes, especially with double-letters.
• Still not wild about trackpads. But at least this is an extra-big trackpad that’s not ultra-sensitive and doesn’t do bizarre, unexpected things.
• Not much bass in the speakers. Good details, weak bass.

Anyway. It’s what I expected it to be, which is a very good thing. Glad to have one more tool in the shed!

bkd