03-26-2008, 03:01 PM
As well as my Windows and Linux PC's I have splashed out on a lovely new Mac Book (1GB of RAM, Combo Drive, 2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Proccesor, Combo Drive), and shall be writing a review on not only Leapord, but also how the laptop performs.
First thing first:
Unboxing
Apple has made a real good effort with it's packaging, and design of packaging. You could probably fit a 17" laptop in the box, with little space. The box feels tough, and looks polished. There is a plastic carry handle on the top. The box fits with Apples design, very minimalist. The box is all white, with gray text (Myriad Pro? Geneva?)
The laptop itself can be found between two hard pieces of polystrene style material. The laptops is then in a bag (not a bag to carry it in, just a piece of prtoective material). Under the laptop is the manual, the OS X re-install discs and the power adaptor (45W mag safe). The strnge thing is that the adaptor comes with two connectors (both a UK socket).
Turning on for the first time:
Turning the laptop on for the first time is a joy. A un familar noise is made (the CD - Drive spinning up (which is very loud, BTW) and then a small burst from the speakers). The Mac then launches into it's welcome video (30 seconds long), before you are on your way with the set up. If you have another Mac you can move all your data to it easily. If you don't have another Mac, the process is simple, and shorter than the Windows equavilent.
Once the laptop has been started, you are free to use every bundled app, without any more restarts. The two aps that require any form of setup are iChat (AV) and Mail. The Mail client provided is a lot better than any other for Mac (Thunderbird doesn't like to import Mail's setting strangely enough). Safari came with the Mac to, but was an old version (no tabs). A quick update was required. I prefer Firefox or Camino though, as I can have del.icio.us and other extensions built right into the browser.
The iLife suite also comes with a new Mac, and this works well. You can edit home movies effortlesly (iMovie) (which is a lot better than Windows Movie Maker), turn them into a DVD with iDVD, listen to songs with iTunes create a web site with iWeb or perform simple photo editing with iPhoto.
The keyboard of the MacBook is generous, as is the trackpad. Two minors points:
There is only one trackpad button.
The " is where the @ key is on a PC. So Shift + 2 is @.
Leapord, as an Operating System amazes many. The dock, depending on which way you look at it is either cumbersome, or a space saving idea. Spotlight (searching) works well, and can find anything very quickly. Lots of freeware and shareware programs are available for Leapord to enhance the way it works (SofaControl being a favourite). One feature with all Mac's that annoys me is the fact that when one hits the red X to quit a program, the program doesn't actually quit. To do this you either have to Press cmd and Q with the application you want to quit open, or right click (as I explained the trackpad only has one button, so you have to press ctrl + the trackpad button) on the icon of the program in the dock, and click Quit.
Leapord looks great and performs great in many areas, and is great for the novice user, or for experts.
Updates from Apple are often, and are almost always very big!
First thing first:
Unboxing
Apple has made a real good effort with it's packaging, and design of packaging. You could probably fit a 17" laptop in the box, with little space. The box feels tough, and looks polished. There is a plastic carry handle on the top. The box fits with Apples design, very minimalist. The box is all white, with gray text (Myriad Pro? Geneva?)
The laptop itself can be found between two hard pieces of polystrene style material. The laptops is then in a bag (not a bag to carry it in, just a piece of prtoective material). Under the laptop is the manual, the OS X re-install discs and the power adaptor (45W mag safe). The strnge thing is that the adaptor comes with two connectors (both a UK socket).
Turning on for the first time:
Turning the laptop on for the first time is a joy. A un familar noise is made (the CD - Drive spinning up (which is very loud, BTW) and then a small burst from the speakers). The Mac then launches into it's welcome video (30 seconds long), before you are on your way with the set up. If you have another Mac you can move all your data to it easily. If you don't have another Mac, the process is simple, and shorter than the Windows equavilent.
Once the laptop has been started, you are free to use every bundled app, without any more restarts. The two aps that require any form of setup are iChat (AV) and Mail. The Mail client provided is a lot better than any other for Mac (Thunderbird doesn't like to import Mail's setting strangely enough). Safari came with the Mac to, but was an old version (no tabs). A quick update was required. I prefer Firefox or Camino though, as I can have del.icio.us and other extensions built right into the browser.
The iLife suite also comes with a new Mac, and this works well. You can edit home movies effortlesly (iMovie) (which is a lot better than Windows Movie Maker), turn them into a DVD with iDVD, listen to songs with iTunes create a web site with iWeb or perform simple photo editing with iPhoto.
The keyboard of the MacBook is generous, as is the trackpad. Two minors points:
There is only one trackpad button.
The " is where the @ key is on a PC. So Shift + 2 is @.
Leapord, as an Operating System amazes many. The dock, depending on which way you look at it is either cumbersome, or a space saving idea. Spotlight (searching) works well, and can find anything very quickly. Lots of freeware and shareware programs are available for Leapord to enhance the way it works (SofaControl being a favourite). One feature with all Mac's that annoys me is the fact that when one hits the red X to quit a program, the program doesn't actually quit. To do this you either have to Press cmd and Q with the application you want to quit open, or right click (as I explained the trackpad only has one button, so you have to press ctrl + the trackpad button) on the icon of the program in the dock, and click Quit.
Leapord looks great and performs great in many areas, and is great for the novice user, or for experts.
Updates from Apple are often, and are almost always very big!