Comments on: A Beautiful Machine: Two Months On the Unibody MacBook

By: Mac Laptop News » Blog Archive » News: “A Beautiful Machine: Two Months On the Unibody MacBook”

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 22:08:46 +0000

[...] A Beautiful Machine: Two Months On the Unibody MacBook on TheAppleBlogTopics: MacBook, MacBook Air [...]

By: Stickers Honda

Stickers Honda — Sat, 23 May 2009 10:06:17 +0000

Pretty nice, my friend got one to!

By: MacBook Getting Slashed | Geeks Get More

MacBook Getting Slashed | Geeks Get More — Tue, 05 May 2009 20:33:51 +0000

[...] the cut comes in response to recent Microsoft ads touting the “Mac Tax” effects on Apple’s prices. That would be a new tactic for Mac, often as oblivious to [...]

By: steven

steven — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 00:18:16 +0000

Dan, I think you mean “off gassing”? The machine is made of pretty pure materials, like aluminum, and glass. Very little plastic, except for the keyboard, and internals. I’ve got a pretty sensitive nose and I didn’t get any bad off gassing from the thing. You should be ok.

By: Dan De L'eau

Dan De L'eau — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 23:05:14 +0000

How is this MacBook’s “new computer smell”. I’m sensitive to outgassing from new electronics.

By: Melonie

Melonie — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 01:51:59 +0000

@ Drdul: thanks. Now that is what I call intriguing.

I’m in love with glossy screens, too.

By: Thorin Messer

Thorin Messer — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 01:25:04 +0000

You can turn off the dimming of the display based on ambient light. Perhaps you know this already, but in case: System Preferences > Displays > Automatically adjust brightness as ambient light changes.

By: Top Posts « WordPress.com

Top Posts « WordPress.com — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 01:02:21 +0000

[...] A Beautiful Machine: Two Months On the Unibody MacBook After two months of getting configured and acquainted, I’m pretty much comfortably settled in with my first Intel [...] [...]

By: Charles W. Moore

Charles W. Moore — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 22:39:21 +0000

Hi All;

Addressing some specific comments/question:

I should have mentioned how silent my MacBook is — the quietest MAc I’ve ever owned.

Temperature: Runs in the 50s C most of the time – sometimes in the low 60s and occasionally spiking into the low 70s under heavy load.

USB throughput:

Carbon Copy Cloner drive clone run on 1.33 GHz G4 PowerBook via FireWire to SimpleTech Duo Pro drive – roughly 5-6 hours.

Carbon Copy Cloner drive clone run on 2.0 GHz unibody MacBook via USB 2 to SimpleTech Duo Pro drive – 24 hours.

Essentially the same amount of data transferred

Charles

By: steven

steven — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 15:23:58 +0000

I have the 2.4 ghz unibody Macbook and have been on it for 3 months. My girlfriend has the 2.0 version. It’s my first Mac and I reluctantly went for it after I couldn’t find a PC notebook I liked. I had Mac aversion. After 3 months I’m still buzzed from this machine. It’s incredibly well engineered and absolutely solid. I thought I would install XP on it, but found I can live without it fine enough. I find it weird that I was so against Mac computers when I’d never owned one. I suspect a lot of PC people are like that. Something bad must have happened in the 80′s that left a subconscious aversion to Apple. Maybe we just mistrust something that looks so good. It must have a down side, right?! Looks good, but, say, catches on fire! “I should have gotten something ugly that was less fire prone… damn!!!” I find that the aesthetic of the machine and OS X has been infected the rest of my life too. Clean up your life to look like a new Macbook and you’re on the road to contentment.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 13:08:16 +0000

My CPU temperature according to iStat nano is usually in the low 50s in Celsius. Should i be concerned?

By: Stuart Dootson

Stuart Dootson — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 09:28:34 +0000

@Snoopy – my unibody MBP doesn’t seem to have any real issues with 3D graphics. It gets warm (sorry, no idea about gfx temperature) but not hot.

Also, that is with the 9400M rather than the 9600M, mind – I’ve never found the need to use the 9600M yet, as the 9400 has been fast enough (I’ve done some Blender with it, some older games etc).

By: Stuart Dootson

Stuart Dootson — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 09:24:39 +0000

I got my unibody Macbook Pro around the same time you got your Macbook. Like you, I’m *delighted* with it. Unlike you, I’m quite happy with the keyboard :-)

I find that the bottom of the case can get a bit warm to the touch when doing graphically intensive things (like playing Wacky Mini Golf (http://www.danlabgames.com/index.php?rub=wacky&computer=mac) with my niece and nephew), but even when doing really intensive stuff like building all the variants of the Boost libraries I need under Windows 7 running in Fusion (that’s a good 30 minutes with one of the cores pegged at 100%), the fans never really get obtrusive, the case only gets warm (not hot) and while one core’s available, the machine is completely usable. Lovely.

And then there’s the look of the thing – I love going into meetings and seeing people’s reactions to the MBP compared to their big boxy, square Thinkpads, covered with stickers and strange protrusions :-)

By: Snoopy

Snoopy — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 07:43:52 +0000

I have a 2-year-old MacBook Pro that I have absolutely no temperature problems with at all, _until_ I fire up any 3D-intensive programs. As soon as the gfx card kicks in, the internal temperature skyrockets, and the only way to even come close to keeping it under control is to use a USB base cooler. Of course I found _that_ out after frying its original logic board last year. :(

Dboy, Melanie, Drdul, anyone up to throwing around some 3D-intensive stuff and reporting back on how well the unibody copes?

By: Andy

Andy — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 07:38:37 +0000

I was forced to upgrade to the unibody Macbook Pro after my previous macbook pro was overheating.

Apart from the gloss screen which I have gotten used to, I absolutely hate having the mini display port forced on me.
1. I have to use the mindisplay port to DVI adapter often since neither my monitor nor most of the monitors at the office have display port. This means my laptop is not as self contained as the older one since I have to make sure I have the adapter with me. Even with a display port ready monitor, I must make sure I have a mindisplay port to normal display port cable available.
2. Occasionally, when my macbook pro wakes from sleep, I get a screen full of snow on my external monitor and I have have to unplug the display port adapter and reconnect it to solve the problem.

These would be deal breakers for me if I had a choice.

By: HazardousPaste

HazardousPaste — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 06:10:05 +0000

“The lack of FireWire is frustrating at times, especially when doing large data transfers such as cloning the hard drive to external media. USB 2.0 is much slower than FireWire in real-world terms, and not really an adequate substitute.”

While lack of firewire is an unfortunate shortcoming, the limiting factor for backup software is almost *always* how fast it can index your drives’ files- not the speed of the transfer protocol.