MacBook Pro 17″ Review – Part III

Development Tools, Environment etc.

I was able to find Mac versions of Aptana, VMWare (Fusion), Eclipse and pretty much all other tools needed for web development. I liked Synaptic on Ubuntu and how easy it was to install any development packages, latex libraries, tools etc. I am somehow reluctant to install Fink and so far I was able to install all required tools and packages without any problems. I had to install pyodbc, pyodbc-django from the package. But it was pretty straight forward.

Support

This paragraph doesn’t fit in but I just had my  first experience with Apple support and would like to comment on it. Some of the multi-touch gestures stopped working and after exhausting all my options I decided to exercise 90-day free support and called Apple. Better to say I let them to call me. I signed in, was unable to register laptop because Future Shop purchase date did not match Apple records. I just provided my phone number and they called me right away. I was on hold for 4-5 minutes and then friendly customer representative introduced herself. Which was really nice. It would be even nicer if they called when rep is available and avoid initial 4-5 minute wait time.

However, Rochelle was very friendly and said we will take care of that after we resolve the problem. Asked me to make keyboard gymnastics (pressing four different keys and power button on top of that at the same time) and problem was fixed. It was followed by some not that clear explanation about powering on some devices, but hey … it worked. Then she completed registration for me. Overall, very good experience. One point for Apple.

MacBook Pro 17″ Review – Part II

Sleep Mode

What always bugged me on laptops was sleep mode. Windows, Ubuntu – there were always some issues with laptop going to/from sleep mode. My XPS laptop on several occasions nearly caused fire because I was too lazy to wait until it did go to sleep mode and unfortunately it did not. When I got home laptop was so hot that I had problems to grab it with my hands.

The same happened with other laptops. Not with MacBook. Going to sleep mode takes couple of seconds and the same with waking up. I know this depends on the number and type of applications open. All I can say is that I am extremely happy with sleep mode on MacBook.

Docking Station

I typically use my laptop with external monitor, keyboard and mouse. In the past I used Dell docking stations that worked very well for me. Connecting laptop to all devices was just a matter of plugging it into docking stations. Sure there were some issues like XPS when running Ubuntu was docked in, it just froze. However, this is small inconvenience compared to all benefits that docking station provides.

Apples does not sell any docking station, not that I am aware of . I was some 3rd party docking stations however those looked more like “spanish boots” from medieval ages used to torture people that a device that is supposed to make your life easier. One part that I really miss about MacBook – decent docking stations. Not a big disadvantage in the world of bluetooth, WiFi and wireless devices.  All you really need to plug-in is power and display.

Battery Life, Temperature

Sweet. So far I was able to use laptop running on batteries for anywhere between 5 to 7 hours. I am using WiFi, here and there bluetooth.  No intense crunching etc. I mostly use 9400 graphics. Battery life degrades when using 9600 graphics and also laptop warmed up a little bit. But still remains very impressive compared to other models. Other than that MacBook runs pretty cool, can barely hear any noise. Compared to my previous laptops (those were using 7,200 rpm drives), it is very quiet.

WiFi

WiFi is the only area where I am experiencing problems. I use Linksys WBR-2310. I get disconnected while working and I have to disable AirPort and then enable it back and I am connected again. I don’t want to jump into conclusions here because I am not sure where the problem is. Maybe this would be a good reason to talk to Apple support. I am sure I don’t have this problem with XPS and iPhone. Maybe my wireless router is acting up and it’s time to replace it with newer model.

Update: Finally decided to do something about annoying problem with WiFi. All problems disappeared when the latest version of the firmware was downloaded and installed.

MacBook Pro 17″ Review Part I

It was time to upgrade my laptop. I didn’t have desktop machine in last 9 years and always preferred desktop replacement models. Having some small, underpowered Dell laptops that didn’t meet my needs, my first desktop replacement was Fujitsu N6010. Really nice piece of hardware, a little bit noisy at a times but overall not bad. After that I upgraded to N7010. Again decent laptop, a lot of inputs outputs, performing really well. Both were running Windows XP. When I was  switching the job my new employer was very flexible and gave me a choice to select laptop myself. I got Dell XPS M1710, red edition. Really nice, powerful, nice graphics, sometimes noisy a bit (mostly not). I came with Vista (that out IT guy asked me to unistall, he just refused to support it), later we installed Windows XP on it and finally I ended up running Ubuntu 8.04, 8.10 and 9.04. Excellent development machine.

About Me

I had various roles in the past – developer, business analyst, application architect and most recently system architect. I like hands-on and spend a lot of time programming – J2EE, Django, Python, HTML, CSS, MySQL. I typically use IntelliJ Idea, Eclipse, Aptana.

Times change, I decided to do more and more programming in my free time and maybe even start up some small website. I decided that it’s time to by my own laptop. After some research and tons of reading I decided to give a chance to OS X, OS so highly praised by designers, developers. That limited my choice to MacBook and MacBook Pro.

MacBook, MacBook Pro, 13″, 15″ or 17″?

A like when I have a lot of real estate available and 17″ resolution of 1900×1200 covered that. to be honest I don’t need dual graphics and I would like to have SD card slot but I can live without it. After all I can always buy ExpressCard to get it. I got glossy screen. I had glossy screen before on Dell and Fujitsu machines and didn’t find it that distractive. Saying that, I typically work from office with blinds or at home in the basement. I can understand that glossy screen may not work for some people enjoying Starbucks coffee in the shop. Screen is not shinier that those from other manufacturers. I saved myself $55 upgrade (which would force me to buy laptop from Apple instead from FutureShop, where I could still return it, if I wanted).

Dual Monitors

I typically use external monitors (24″ LG Flatron, which I love) as well. I was pleasantly suprised when I connected external monitor and it just worked! Resolution was detected properly, screens show up nice side by side. It took me some time to figure out how to make Dock show up on eternal monitor. Well, just drag it and drop it on secondary monitor from System Preferences->Displays->Arrangement. Not obvious, well it would be if I paid attention and read instructions in the dialog. Good job, Apple! Not that I had problems with Dual monitors on Ubuntu, but one thing that alway annoyed me was that when I came home I had different arrangement and Ubuntu kept opening windows in my primary external monitor which wasn’t there anymore. I had to move them using Alt->M and then drag it from the invisible left window to my primary screen.