Reflecting a current trend in higher education, and the broader computer industry, I recently received an Apple MacBook Pro for work, and I thought I would post a brief review from the perspective of someone who has mostly dealt with Windows for quite some time.

Hardware:

• The 15″ form factor, while quite a step up from the 12″ Inspiron 700m I had been accustomed to, is only just a tiny bit larger than I would like. I was nervous about getting a 15″ laptop at first, but that nervousness has subsided. It only has a slightly larger footprint than my colleagues’ new 13″ Latitudes, and the thinner frame more than makes up for that.
• The multi-touch trackpad is awesome. It makes the lack of a right-click button moot, and two-fingered scrolling is amazing.
• I love the auto-adjusting backlight.
• Battery life has been pretty decent, around 4 hours depending on usage scenarios…in OSX, that is. Vista sucks the life out of the thing.
• It gets a 5.1 Vista base system score when using Bootcamp.
• There is no backspace - just a delete button which does the same thing…holding Fn+Delete approximates the PC-style Del button.
• The lack of Home/End/PgUp/PgDn keys on the keyboard is something I miss.

Software

• I’m still not sure how I feel about the whole dock-versus-start menu thing…I feel that Windows’ Start Menu might be more functional.
• The lack of a true “Maximize” button is annoying- holding shift while hitting the “zoom” (+) button should not be necessary, and it doesn’t work in most cases.
• Other than that, I think I prefer the brushed-metal look to Vista’s Aero “Glass” look.
• I don’t think Finder is any better than Explorer, especially with Vista’s new breadcrumbs nav system.
• Having applications that don’t actually quit when you close the Window takes some getting used to, but hasn’t bothered me that much.
• The way Mac OSX goes about installing applications is certainly different. Generally, apps come as self-contained (if only on the surface) .app files that you drag into your Applications folder (which, incidentally, is not available on the Dock by default, what gives? I like the idea of self-contained apps, but I’m sure these apps are leaving all sorts of garbage (user settings, etc.) all over the place that will not be removed by simply moving the app file to the trash.
• There are, of course, still installer files (.pkg)- I’ve come across two, both for MS Applications.
• And then there are .dmg files, which I guess stands for disk image. I guess the metaphor is that it is supposed to be like downloading a CD of the app.
• I like Spotlight better than Vista’s Start Menu search, I think
• While it certainly performs better in many scenarios, I don’t think OSX is any more stable than Windows. I’ve crashed the whole OS twice since getting the laptop, and a couple apps have misbehaved.
• As for the prompts, I do not get prompted nearly as much as Windows, but there are still a few of them. Like any time I want to run Parallels against my Bootcamp install.
• Speaking of, the Bootcamp setup process was a breeze- much simpler than I thought it was going to be.
• I like iChat- Apple style simplicity lends itself well to an IM client
• I am a big fan of Expose and Spaces.
• Safari is a bit limited for my needs: I’m still firmly in the Firefox camp.
• Same with Apple Mail: I’ve been using Entourage and Thunderbird.
• iPhoto is slick, but not the lifechanger I had heard it described as.
• Mixed feelings on Office 2008 thus far.

I’m sure there will be more, but at this point I think that about sums it up. Overall, I definitely feel I made a good choice, and can see why Macs are becoming a popular alternative. I look forward to exploring further.