Powerbook vs MacBook Pro
So when I joined joost last year I got a new machine for work. A 17″ MacBook Pro (Core Duo) that replaced my private two year old 17″ Powerbook (G4). And frankly speaking I am not really thrilled.
- Display: Compared to my old Powerbook the MacBook Pro screen basically sucks. It is bright – that’s true! But the variance in brightness is just terrible. Now mine even turned out to get some white spots. Since we wanted to get that fixed under warranty I now got a new machine a few weeks ago. (So my second MacBook Pro!) The homogeneity of the brightness is better – but still not up to the level of the old Powerbook.
- Harddisk: The second MacBook Pro I got came with a 7200 rpm drive. Oh my god! In my Powerbook I also had a 7200 rpm drive – which actually was more quiet than the 5400 rpm of the previous MacBook Pro. Now this one is humming and vibrating so much that I went to an Apple store to get their opinion. At least they agreed that this is not OK like that. Seem like I need to get that fixed, too.
- Light sensor: With the MacBook Pro the light sensor sometimes seem to get into a feedback loop – the screen light influences the sensor. If you have your screen on auto dimming that can lead to an interesting dimming game. On, off, on, off…
- The case: This machine is only 2 months old now but the case already starts to make noises when you just lay your hand onto it.
- Wireless:In certain situations I had major problems with wireless where the Powerbook just worked flawlessly.
After I switched to Mac I used to smile at people having these cheap looking windows laptops. I used to tell people “just get a Mac” when they were frustrated with their machines. Now I refrain from doing that. In the end Apple just does not live up their previous quality standards anymore. A sad story! Does this necessarily have to come with growth and success they are seeing?
All this plus the lock-in they are trying to pull (in all sorts of areas) becomes more and more annoying. Mac OSX is still the platform I prefer to work on ….but – things have been better. I hope Apple does not ignore voices like mine.