iSwitchd

As you probably know, Apple launched new models of notebooks last week, and after watching the Keynote, reading different reviews and taking a short look at the Apple Store, I’d like to share my thoughts on these new products with you.

I know I’m late on this, and here’s why: when it comes to news, I don’t wanna rush and jump on conclusions too fast, so I take time to analyze. I’ve already read a couple reviews here and there, went to the Apple Store to quickly take a look at the notebooks, and I just watched the Keynote video, so now I’m ready to write about it.

The cool

• First, the new cases look great, and I’m really impressed by the way they’re built. My dad’s been working with aluminum almost all his life, I have to show him some pictures of the new MacBook.
• Giving the MacBook a good video card, that can handle video games, was something lots of people were expecting, myself included. I don’t play video games, but I’m frustrated by the poor performances of the old Intel video card.
• Putting 2 graphic chipsets in the MacBook Pro seems kinda weird, but it’s really ingenious. If you don’t need top performances, just use the basic one, you’ll save your battery life. And when you wanna play games or work with 3D software, just switch to the powerful one.
• The Display Port sounds really awesome. I regret that my current MacBook can’t handle 30 inch displays. The new ones can, thanks to the Display Port. I may upgrade my MacBook for that only reason.
• Bringing the multi-touch trackpad and the backlit keyboard to the MacBook is great. It’s nice to see pro features coming to the the consumer market.
• I really love the fact that the 24 inch display has cables (power, monitor and USB) for notebooks, that means a lot less clutter, and I really hate cable clutter (who don’t?).

The not so cool

• I don’t like glossy displays. It makes crazy reflections and it’s really annoying when you have lights around you. And the fact that there’s no way to get even a MacBook Pro with a mate display sucks. Lots of people are already complaining. This applies to the 24 inch display too.
• Talking about the 24 inch display, it’s way too expensive, who’s gonna buy it? You can have a really good one for half the price! And a mate one!
• Removing firewire from the MacBook is annoying. I like the MacBook, and I don’t need a MacBook Pro. Problem is I have a firewire audio card… What am I gonna do? I’ll keep my current MacBook and hope Apple will add a firewire port in a future revision of the new model.
  There’s also a lot of people who have firewire external hard drives, what are they gonna do? Get a MacBook Pro? If they don’t have the budget, they’ll go for a PC.

Final words
Overall I’m pretty excited by the upgrades, but Apple made a couple really bad moves (glossy displays all the way, no firewire on the MacBook) that make me think twice about purchasing any of the MacBooks… The guys at Apple seem to focus on the mass market more than ever, by removing a couple key features that professionals need…

Finally, it’s interesting to notice that the gap between the MacBook and MacBook Pro is getting smaller. The MacBook has become a really nice and powerful notebook.