MacBook Pro Review

I have been working with a 17" MacBook Pro for about three weeks now. There are some nice features about it and some that I think could be improved upon. Instead of creating a long boring document that details every last item, I am going to just simply put the pros and cons in a simple list.

The good!
+ Large 17" screen is bright and clear!
+ The large 17" screen is easy to open.
+ There is a power meter built in to the battery. Push the button and 5 LEDs show you the power level.
+ Illuminated keyboard. It is nice how the keys glow!
+ Duel Intel processors! Intel? Intel! Gee that still sounds odd! After all those years of Motorola it almost does not feel right. I guess it is now safe to stop bashing Intel? ;-)
+ Most applications having built-in spell checking! It appears to be an OS hook.
+ Long battery life. It appears like I can get about 3 to 3.5 hours of documenting and web surfing on a fully charged battery. The time may be longer if the keyboard back lighting or the screen were turned all the way down.


The Bad!
- The Large 17" screen is only designed to sit on a horizontal surface. The screen does not want to stay open if the computer is tilted at angles of around 25 degrees or more. This can make it difficult to use in a chair or bed if your feet are up.
- The large 17 screen is too small! Well at least the resolution. It is 1680x1050 which is not large enough to view 1080i HiDef QuickTime movies at 100% resolution. About 25% of the width gets cut off of the Car's trailer when viewing the 1080i trailer.
- The power meter that is built in to the battery may not be too accurate. The other day I shut down the computer and when I saw it started to close the desktop I stuck it in the computer bag. About 6 hours later I found the contents of the bag hot not to mention the computer. It must have hung during shutdown. Well, the battery was dead since it would not power on the computer but the power meter did show 2 LEDs.
- The keyboard. Not enough keys to perform the common tasks. Usually have to use modifiers, such as CTRL, OPTION, or APPLE which can be a pain at times, if there is even a mapping!
- The keyboard when booting Windows XP and you need to perform a CTRL-ALT-DEL to log on to the computer!
- Single button track pad. Many applications require the use of a right-click to be fully functional. I am finding that I have to hold down the CTRL key frequently when clicking in order to get my work done. Too much additional hand movements are required.
- The touch pad is too far away from the keyboard. You have to take your hand off the keyboard to use it, so it tends to waste some time. Same goes for the track pad button.
- PC Isolation! Ok, I have not tried to use XP too much in the last three weeks (give me a good reason why ;-) ), but here are a few things that irk me.
    - When the mac is up and running, I cannot copy any files to the PC partition. This dumb founds me! Perhaps it is a permissions thing...
    - When the windows XP is up and running, there is NO access to the Mac hard drive. So right now, there is NO way to transfer files between the OSes or even to share. Major pain!

Novel!
! The latch. Yeah it is neat! There are two metal spring loaded hooks that sit in the lid of the laptop (the springs hold them up). They are flush with the case and will not catch anything when the lid is open. But as the lid comes close to the base unit (as in closing the lid), there are magnets that pull the hooks down to engage in holding the lid close. Yes I know it is not a new gadget for the Mac notebooks, (I also have a g3 notebook with the same kind of hooks), but it sure beats those plastic fangs that are common place on the PC notebooks.
! The sensors to enable the keyboard lighting are two in number and located under the speaker grills. The first one is to the left of the power button almost around the 7 O'Clock position: Cover it with your finger. The second one is in the left speaker at the top, about one inch from the left. To find the second one, slowly drag your finger across the top of the left speaker grill cover. If all else fails, use your whole hand to cover both grills.
! The power connector! Good use for magnets (that and the lid latches). It is interesting that it actually is not plugged in, but just being held in contact with the contacts. It also self aligns so it simple to hook up. If they have a more powerful magnet, then it could plug itself in if the two connectors were in the same vicinity of say an inch or two: just lay the MBP on the desk and it auto plugs itself in... no docking! As it is, for the last week, when I have been getting the MBP setup on the desk, I just pass the top left corner near the plug as I set it on the desk and it does plug itself in automatically! No kidding! It does have to come within about 1/3 of an inch to perform this feat!
! When the computer is off, hold the open lid between your eyes and a strong light source with the LCD facing you. An image of an apple will appear on the screen. No it is not magic, but if you cannot think what causes it, I will not spoil your fun in trying to figure it out.

Enhancements / Features?
? The keyboard. There is the space...
? The rear hinge has a rubber strip which is about 55% the width of the computer. It would be nice to have a similar rubber strip running near the front of the computer on the bottom side. The case as it is, is thin and slick. It will make the computer a bit easier to hold on to.
? In keeping with the theme of magnetic power cable, can Apple come up with a magnetic docking station? Perhaps all they would need is Networking, phone, firewire, and USB. That can be done with a few simple connectors, right? ;-) Actually, if the connector is similar to the power with about 4 metal pins, then centered between a few of the pins could be optical connectors so the data transfer could be done via digital optics. I am sure low powered LASERs should be fairly cheap by now, and the bandwidth of one fiber channel should handle the bandwidth of firewire, USB, and networking combined! Yeah that's the ticket! They could even call it FiberDoc!