My favourite piece of technology I've ever owned. (Apple MacBook Pro MB990B/A)

Member Name: Penguin_Cube

Product:	Apple MacBook Pro MB990B/A
Date:	25/10/09 (106 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Aesthetically gorgeous, operating system, glass trackpad, beautiful screen.

Disadvantages: Loud click on trackpad, expensive, close USB ports,

*~*~*~*~{Introduction}~*~*~*~*

When I was initially looking into a laptop I was first drawn to the pretty looking MacBooks. After awhile I convinced myself that I could get a pretty awesome gaming laptop for the same price. While travelling through America the ubiquitous Apple Stores always caught my eye and I would always enter. Every time the MacBook Pros would draw my gaze.

After asking around friends, colleagues and people on Twitter I came to the conclusion that I should go for it. I purchased the low spec 13" MacBook Pro (2.26Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GB RAM, 160GB HDD). After owning this laptop for a month now I must say that it is the best piece of technology I've ever owned. It is as beautiful as it is functional. It is carved out of a block of aluminium and looks stunning.

*~*~*~*~{ Packaging }~*~*~*~*

The box that the laptop comes in is elegant and simplistic: it is white with grey Apple logos on each thin side and on the main face is a picture of the laptop folded downwards to emphasise the thin and sleek design. On the back of the box shows the laptop with the screen folded upwards which looks inviting.

*~*~*~*~{ Operating System }~*~*~*~*

My MacBook Pro 13" arrived with Mac OSX Leopard (10.5) installed on it. I must honestly say that it is the best operating system I have ever had the pleasure to use. It is as beautiful as the machine itself is and everything is intuitive and works. Coming from Windows, some things can take awhile to figure out, but once you know how, it makes much more sense. For example, the red x on a window, does not close the program... It closes that session of a program and is still quietly running in the background. To close a program fully you need to press 'Cmd + Q'.

This operating system (Leopard) supports a great little feature called 'Time Machine'. This program backs-up all of your files & system changes every few hours (or whenever you plug in your designated external hard drive). To do this you need to attach an external hard drive and use the setup wizard. This is a great feature, as when you enter time machine you can go to a date and time that a backup occurred to retrieve, for example, a file you deleted a few weeks ago.

Another nice touch is expose which can be activated by pressing F3, it shows all your open windows, which is useful as you can have a large number open at one time.

I think that all Macs bought now should come with Snow Leopard (10.6, an updated edition of Leopard). But if it doesn't and you have bought your Mac since June 8th 2009 then you are entitled to an edition of Snow Leopard for just £7.95 (RRP £24.99) with Apple's 'Up To Date Program'.

http://www.apple.com/uk/macosx/uptodate/

*~*~*~*~{ Pre-Installed Software }~*~*~*~*

I believe that all Macs should come with iLife '09 pre-installed. This is Apple's fun and creative package which includes iMovie '09, iPhoto '09, iWeb '09 and Garageband '09.
iMovie is Apple's base level video editing software, and is head-and-shoulders better than Windows Movie Maker. iMovie '09 contains professional looking effects and a nice interface.
iPhoto contains a basic image editing tool, but its main purpose is to act as a great album of all your photos. It allows you to add 'faces' to your photos where you can select the faces people in the photos as give them a name. You can also use GPS to make a map showing where each photo was taken. I have not needed to use this piece of software for any substantial amount of time...yet.
iWeb '09 is a website creation tool , and when I first tried it out, it was easy to design a webpage, with quite good results.
Garageband '09 is the gem of this software package. It is an amazing audio editing tool with great features, library of sounds and virtual instruments. A great feature is the podcast-editing feature, which allows you to edit it, add artwork and then publish it directly to iTunes. I have just scraped the surface of what this piece of software can do.

This laptop also comes with Safari (Apple's web browser), which is a pretty average browser. I'd personally recommend downloading Firefox. If were a Windows user and have had good experiences of using Google Chrome, then there should be a version of Google Chrome for Mac before the end of this year.

There are many other bits of pre-installed software, but these are the most interesting and useful in my opinion.


*~*~*~*~{ The Laptop Itself }~*~*~*~*

The 13" Macbook Pro is equipped with an SD card reader, two USB slots, headphone/audio out 3.5mm jack, FireWire 800 MiniDisplay Port and a slot-loading SuperDrive. All of these work as expected, though the SuperDrive can be daunting at first use as you don't want to force the disc in. NOTE: You have to push it in quite far yourself before it 'swallows' it.

The screen is beautiful, constructed out of a layer of glass (glossy screen) and has a native resolution of 1280 x 800. Within the housing for the screen (black border in the picture) is a hidden webcam, or as apple call it an iSight camera. When the iSight camera is on a little green light appears next to it.

The keyboard has black keys with a white font on them, these keys are backlit, and you can change the brightness. By default the ambient light sensor dims both the screen and the backlit keys in different lighting situations. If someone turned the light off (or if there was a power-cut) in a room you were working in, the screen would dim and so would the keyboard as to not hurt your eyes. The keyboard is well-constructed n the keys feel good to type on. One problem is that some of the keys are different than a regular keyboard; so finding things for the first time can take awhile.

Next we have the trackpad. I've used other laptops and none of them have had a trackpad as good as this one. This trackpad is made from glass and supports many clicking and flicking motions. Using a USB or Bluetooth mouse with this laptop seems to be a waste (although I sometimes use a wireless mouse if I'm using the laptop for extended periods of time) as some of these neat timesaving features accessed by two, three or four finger swipes in different directions. You can also right-click using this trackpad by clicking while another finger is resting on the trackpad. Here are some of the different things that can be accessed by finger movements on the trackpad:

Two-finger swipe - page scrolls in the direction of the swipe
Three-finger swipe upwards/downwards - quick access to the top/bottom of a page.
Three-finger swipe left/right - backwards/forwards in a web browser
Four-finger swipe upward - all windows move to the side and reveals the desktop.
Four-finger swipe downwards - activates expose
Four finger swipe left/right - the same as 'alt + TAB'

Although this trackpad is brilliant, it does seem a little loud when you press it to click.


*~*~*~*~{ Other Features }~*~*~*~*

This Macbook Pro has Bluetooth and Airport (Apple's name for WiFi). The WiFi is as you would expect, and seems to have quite a good range. The Bluetooth can be used for mice and keyboards. I currently use the Logitech V470 Mouse (will be a review up shortly) and the Bluetooth capabilities of the laptop seem fine.

The charging lead uses apple's 'MagSafe' technology, in which the charger is attached to the laptop via magnetic attraction so, in theory, if someone is careless enough to trip over your charging lead, the charging lead will pull out of the laptop, instead of the laptop ending up broken on the floor. This is a nice idea, but luckily I've never had to test it. The charging lead also comes with an extender, which is a nice touch.

*~*~*~*~{ Macbook Pros }~*~*~*~*

Aesthetically gorgeous.
13" Screen is a good size
Advanced, and easy-to-use operating system.
iLife '09 Software Pre-installed.
iSight Camera
Bluetooth
Firewire 800
Superdrive
Bluetooth
'MagSafe' charging lead.
Built-in microphone

*~*~*~*~{Macbook Cons }~*~*~*~*

With prices starting at £899, it may be a little pricey for some people.
Closely spaced USB ports, this means that some awkwardly styled USB Drives can't be used when another USB device is plugged in.
So beautiful that one has feels as if one needs to treat it with much care.
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FULL SPECIFICATIONS:
http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/specs-13inch.html

There is so much to say, that I might've missed some things out, if you have any questions regarding this product send me a message or leave a comment.

Summary: This is a great, well-built laptop, packed with features and easy to use, even coming from Windows.

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