Got the new macbook pro! First impressions...

Hey all! Wound up splurging for the base model mbp. Got it for the old student discount of $200 for a final of just over 1900! hooray

I'm using it now and my initial impressions are:
1. keyboard is good, better than the macbook keyboard of old.
2. touchpad will take getting used to. there's a gradient of force needed to push the button down that decreases from the top down (i.e. easier to "click" towards the bottom of the trackpad)
3. screen is BEAUTIFUL (i'm sitting in a room with no glare) and hella bright
4. speakers are decent. nothing to write home about
5. its thin as hell and i actually really like the black border/black keyboard/silver everything else combo
6. the packaging is magnificent, as always.

if you have any questions, feel free to ask!

EDIT: Pics available on page 2

Also: I question the positioning of the battery health indicator... kind of stupid to have it on the side IMO.

NEXT EDIT: After porting over my music library (~40 gigs) and letting itunes copy the files to the storage location, the temperature of the laptop went up......... 1 degree. the fans havent even budged. on my old blackbook, it would spin up after 2-3 minutes or so of continued hard drive activity. shweeeeet.

 

photos photos photos

 

Crysis benchmarks!!11!

 

Interesting.

When you say it's better than the MB keyboard... how is it better?

 

you said it is thin and bright. does that mean current mbp is brighter and thinner than older mbp?

 

more tactile feedback on this keyboard than on the macbook. could also just be that the macbook keyboard i was used to was "broken in" over time. at any rate, its certainly not worse. i only used a last-gen mbp keyboard once and i can't say with any certainty that this one is better.

pics: when i get back to my apt. parents house has slowwwwwwww internet

as for benchmarks, im not too much of a gamer, sorry

 

update your siggy, silly. You NEED to show this off, you're one of the first on this forum to get one (me thinks)

 

Could you comment on the feel of the new touchpad besides clicking. Like it's glass so does it feel like glass? Slippery, sticky, about the same as the old one?

Also I'd be interested to know how the switch between integrated and discrete graphics works. If it requires a restart, then it's value is limited.

And comments on heat would also be appreciated. Especially under heavy load on the CPU and discrete graphics. The old MBP design always had heat concerns and the new one is even thinner which isn't reassuring.

 

how exactly did you get it for the old discount of 200$?

 

to switch between the graphics processors you need to log out, but not restart. this is pretty handy and takes about 3-5 seconds.

the trackpad feels like the old one. might be a little more difficult to use with moist fingers, but overall i think it has an excellent feel. the four-finger multi touch is incredibly useful.

ive been using it for the past hour or so and i can't discern any heat sources. ive only been surfing the net/using ichat.

lastly, i don't know how i managed the $200 discount, but im not going to complain i called the store in downtown chicago and they quoted me a price with the $200 discount, and when i went to a store in the suburbs they gave me the same price.

 

I don't mind the colour scheme, now that the screen bezel is also black. If it was silver, I would be annoyed at the black keys (as I am with the MBA ). Glad to hear everything is great, fastrandstrongr! Photos!

 

I've been wondering what version of osx are they running?

Is it 10.5.5? I'd assume since theres new features, its either a customized version of 10.5.5, or 10.5.6. I havn't seen anyone mention it before, so yea, All you gotta do it click on the Apple icon in the top left corner, and then go to About this Mac, and it should say.

Thanks!

 

its running 10.5.5

the long-awaited pics attached in this post and the next

 

more pics. if you want to see anything in particular, just let me know

 

couple more

 

Great shots, fastrandstrongr! I'm liking the new look!

 

great pics!!
could you please run a battery test whenever you can?

if this thing gets + 4 hours im getting it..

 

yep. im draining the battery now, letting it sit overnight, then charging. after that, i'll run a battery test.

 

thanx!!!
is it possible to get a student discount in-stores?

 

definitely. thats what i did, and wound up getting the old discount of $200

just be sure to bring your school ID

 

I don't have any questions, just wanted to say congrats

 

awesome pics. You said there was no glare right? That screen looks fantastic.

 

there's definitely glare if there are bright light sources in the room. its controllable because the LED gets ridiculously bright itself. in my opinion... i think they could have done without the glossy, but i do like the "infinity" look that HP initially popularized.

 

Wait! What's the new discount? Probably only $100 which sucks.

 

its 100 for the lower end version
and 200 for the top version

 

Man that thing is beautiful. Looks similar, but way sexier compared to Alienware's M15X.

Congrats on your purchase.

 

I probably wouldn't any of the new MBs because it's a 1st year new gen models. Just like iPods and 1st Intel Macbooks, there will be issues to address. Hopefully just driver issues.

This is the 1st time Apple going non-Intel on the chipset so there will be lots of system bugs to patch.

 

Or maybe there is none at all.

 

em, and why?

 

Maybe there's a team of aliens coming to conquer us right now!!!