1. It is utterly silent. No fan, no sound of the hard drive.
That's all.
Quiet computers are, however, no longer a big deal. My desktop computer is an HP Slimline; its hard drive is silent, and its fan is quieter than the many ticking clocks I have in my office. My Linux netbook is also nearly silent, having an SSD drive and a tiny fan that I normally only notice when a rush of warm air brushes against my hand.
Oh, one other thing: the MacBook is as powerful as my desktop computer with its dual-core 2.5GHz CPU. It keeps up with me as I run InDesign, one or two CAD packages, FireFox, illustration software, and some utilities -- all at the same time -- in 2GB RAM.
Now it can keep up with your desktop but in the future when it can't you have to replace the whole thing. Not only the motherboard and processor. The whole macbook becomes useless.
Posted by: Cadkid | Aug 09, 2010 at 02:00 AM
Aw! Come on Ralph. My list is way longer than yours. And you know how much I like Apple stuff, right? ;-)
Posted by: Deelip Menezes | Aug 09, 2010 at 03:44 AM
"One other thing..." ...was that a riff on the Stevenote, Ralph? I laughed regardless
Posted by: Wes M. | Aug 09, 2010 at 08:36 AM
@CADKID - that affliction would affect all laptops, not just Macbooks, no?
Posted by: Wes M. | Aug 09, 2010 at 09:35 AM
I like my MacBook Pro (but I admit to not having any other laptops) after having many PCs over the years. It just works, doesn't crash and can run Windows if I need it to via Parallels or other virtualization software.
About the only thing I boot into Windows for these days is FastStone for easy batch image manipulation (resizing, titling, fancy effects, renaming, etc.).
Posted by: Paul | Aug 09, 2010 at 08:26 PM
I am way more happier with my MacBook (not a Pro) since I doubled the RAM to 4GB. Grab is not good enough for most of your screen capture work? It came with your Mac.
Posted by: Randall Newton | Aug 24, 2010 at 08:53 AM