Notebook Event
Jason Snell has a great writeup about the new MacBook and MacBook Pro that includes some details that I haven’t seen mentioned elsewhere. In brief, I like:
- Easy access to the hard drive.
- Larger and faster hard drive options (though no 7,200 RPM drives in the MacBook).
- The new enclosure and display—having used various glossy Mac displays, I don’t miss matte.
- The compact DisplayPort that supports up to 30″ displays even on the low-end MacBook.
- Much-improved graphics performance.
- The multi-touch trackpad.
- Support for the iPhone headphones’ button and microphone.
I don’t like:
- Loss of the FireWire port (and, thus, speed and target disk mode) on the MacBook. The MacBook Pro has also lost a FireWire port, complicating and slowing down multi-device configurations.
- Lack of support for eSATA and Blu-ray.
- $99 adapter needed to attach a 30″ display.
- The small increase in CPU speed.
- The Trackpad pane in System Preferences, which uses the button/pop-up style that Apple recommends for use in scope bars.
- Uncertainty about whether the 17″ MacBook Pro is being phased out.
