maxplanar: on the MacBook


maxplanar: Feck all that cobblers, how are you enjoying yer MB?

In response to my good mate maxplanar:

Ah, the MacBook. Now there’s a thing. This particular machine is a Black MacBook 2.16 GHz / 2GB ram/ 160 GB drive.

For the price, it’s a great little machine, does what it says on the tin and more besides. Mind you I wouldn’t want to be re-reduxing Apocalypse Now Redux, the screen real estate is a bit snug for that, but for lashing together an assembly it’s fine on FCP. For doing anything internet-related, it’s brilliant. GIMP, PhotoShop all great except for the snugness of the screen. Writing documents – great. Compressing movies – fast and efficient. I came across some competitively priced RAM and nudged it up to 2GB, so running half a dozen applications simultaneously is no bother.

Pros:
Relatively cheap
Clear, crisp bright screen
Comes with the usual good stuff from Apple
Easy and intuitive to use

Cons:
Slightly cramped screen real estate (solvable by adding an external display)
Slightly noisy when the fans kick in for processor-intensive tasks
Keyboard takes some getting used to.

Of course, I felt obliged to get the more expensive black version because, I just had to. There was no choice. I suppose if I had loads of money, I would have gone for the Pro version, but I don’t so I didn’t.

2 Replies to “maxplanar: on the MacBook”

  1. Jaysus, $200 more for black! You must be eating Euros for dinner. A refurb’d MBP would have been a better buy, though admittedly even more money.

  2. Not exactly €200 because you get a bigger drive. It’s a 160 GB as opposed to a 120 so you get a whopping exxxtra 40GB as well as the unspeakably cooler shade. I like the black for reasons known well to you.

    Companies don’t generally purchase refurbed models; my company is no exception. Refurbs are fine for individuals but my company couldn’t be persuaded.

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