Brand new MBP (with pic)

[dogtanian]

Hey everyone, just thought I'd post with my new Macbook Pro received today direct from Apple. Its the stock model 2.4GHZ.

Bought with AEBS, iWork '08, Aperture, iPod 8GB, Applecare and Tucano second skin. Plus on its way is a Scorpio 250GB hard drive to replace the internal drive (Yeah I know the risks!) and an external case for the 160GB drive.



The laptop came with Tiger and a Leopard drop in disc (Which is exactly what I was hoping for!). I've installed Leopard temporarily as my new drive arrives tomorrow to install. Had all the usual problems, completely my fault as I neglected to check the forums for potential issues, usual attitude of "Mine'll be fine!" Had the blue screen problem and the beachball problem just to irritate me. Just connected via firewire and target disk mode if anyones wondering. Deleted the APE files and changed the DivX folder name. Installation took about an hour maximum (I was working from home so wasn't paying 100% attention so not sure if it had finished in half an hour really).

SO Leopard then! It looks good so far, its fast on both my Powerbook G4 and my MBP. Nothing revolutionary for me apart from Time Machine which has been crippled till they sort out Airdisk but Quick look is fantastic. Really productive. New folders look silly but I replace them anyway with new icons so I don't really mind. Calculator in spotlight is surprisingly useful. Hate the fact you can't access sub folders through the dock like I used to though! It'll be fixed soon I'm sure.
There are plenty of really small updates that work well that I hardly notice. One of the worst noticable GUI issues I have is when Safari is no longer the active window, the change in colour is quite jarring!

Other than the initial installation issues, the update was fantastic, everything was as it was on Tiger so with that I was impressed.

Regarding the Macbook....it's BIG! I've been using a 12 incher for the last 4 years so for the first few moments I thought they'd sent me the 17" (Stupid I know). Its sleek and I love the new magsafe. Keyboard lighting up is always a show-stopper. The most noticeable change for me is the trackpad button doesn't actually click. Something I'd realised from using MBP's in the past but thought it was just a fluke. Not really bothered though. Shame the speakers aren't more powerful than the 12" Powerbook, they're about more-or-less on par.

I'll definitely comment more when I get used to it and have Windows on (exclusively for gaming I assure you) with Bootcamp and get some real-world usage.

One last note is that the iPod Nano boxes are tiny. And I mean tiny. The iPod its self is small but the box amazed me equally.

 

[dogtanian]

Oh, and if anyone knows how to partition this drive non destructively and at the same time make the volume on this image a little smaller, I'd love to know! I'm out of ideas.

 

[Steve Jobs=God]

wow that lot must've but you back a fair bit!

Congrats ont he purchases though, and don't worry, wen i upgraded to a 15' MBP from a 12' iBook, i thought the exact same thing about picking up a 17' by mistake

 

[TheStu]

Hey everyone, just thought I'd post with my new Macbook Pro received today direct from Apple. Its the stock model 2.4GHZ.

Bought with AEBS, iWork '08, Aperture, iPod 8GB, Applecare and Tucano second skin. Plus on its way is a Scorpio 250GB hard drive to replace the internal drive (Yeah I know the risks!) and an external case for the 160GB drive.

The laptop came with Tiger and a Leopard drop in disc (Which is exactly what I was hoping for!). I've installed Leopard temporarily as my new drive arrives tomorrow to install. Had all the usual problems, completely my fault as I neglected to check the forums for potential issues, usual attitude of "Mine'll be fine!" Had the blue screen problem and the beachball problem just to irritate me. Just connected via firewire and target disk mode if anyones wondering. Deleted the APE files and changed the DivX folder name. Installation took about an hour maximum (I was working from home so wasn't paying 100% attention so not sure if it had finished in half an hour really).

SO Leopard then! It looks good so far, its fast on both my Powerbook G4 and my MBP. Nothing revolutionary for me apart from Time Machine which has been crippled till they sort out Airdisk but Quick look is fantastic. Really productive. New folders look silly but I replace them anyway with new icons so I don't really mind. Calculator in spotlight is surprisingly useful. Hate the fact you can't access sub folders through the dock like I used to though! It'll be fixed soon I'm sure.
There are plenty of really small updates that work well that I hardly notice. One of the worst noticable GUI issues I have is when Safari is no longer the active window, the change in colour is quite jarring!

Other than the initial installation issues, the update was fantastic, everything was as it was on Tiger so with that I was impressed.

Regarding the Macbook....it's BIG! I've been using a 12 incher for the last 4 years so for the first few moments I thought they'd sent me the 17" (Stupid I know). Its sleek and I love the new magsafe. Keyboard lighting up is always a show-stopper. The most noticeable change for me is the trackpad button doesn't actually click. Something I'd realised from using MBP's in the past but thought it was just a fluke. Not really bothered though. Shame the speakers aren't more powerful than the 12" Powerbook, they're about more-or-less on par.

I'll definitely comment more when I get used to it and have Windows on (exclusively for gaming I assure you) with Bootcamp and get some real-world usage.

One last note is that the iPod Nano boxes are tiny. And I mean tiny. The iPod its self is small but the box amazed me equally.

What do you mean the trackpad button doesn't click? Do you mean audibly, or doesn't move?

 

[dogtanian]

What do you mean the trackpad button doesn't click? Do you mean audibly, or doesn't move?

Umm a bit of both, there isn't a reassuring 'click' with a meaningful but slight downward motion....OK now I'm beginning to sound sad.

And to Steve Jobs =God it wasn't too much as I have been wanting an upgrade for at least two years now so its been carefully planned. I was one of the annoyed ones when the OS was delayed!

 

[Mindflux]

Very nice! I am jealous beyond belief. I hope your drive upgrade goes fine for you!

 

[TheStu]

Oh, and if anyone knows how to partition this drive non destructively and at the same time make the volume on this image a little smaller, I'd love to know! I'm out of ideas.

If you are in Leopard, and it is partitioned HFS+ (I haven't tried this on any other File System) you can simply press the plus sign to add a new partition there in Disk Utility, and drag the divider around to dictate how big to make the partitions.

In fact, with Leopard, you can do that to the System Drive as well.

 

[xpovos]

Bought with AEBS, iWork '08, Aperture, iPod 8GB, Applecare and Tucano second skin. Plus on its way is a Scorpio 250GB hard drive to replace the internal drive (Yeah I know the risks!) and an external case for the 160GB drive.

Wow. When you do it, you really do it right, don't you?

 

[taylorwilsdon]

Why waste $$ on Applecare if you're swapping harddrives? If you do it yourself, then the warranty is not valid.

 

[samuraikiss]

SO Leopard then! It looks good so far, its fast on both my Powerbook G4 and my MBP.

Congratulations! I just had a silly question about the Leopard drop in disk. How did you install it on two computers? It came with my Mac Mini, and I assumed it could only be installed on one. Thanks.

 

[TheStu]

Why waste $$ on Applecare if you're swapping harddrives? If you do it yourself, then the warranty is not valid.

I think the jury is still out on that one actually. From something I have read, anything not soldered down in the system is technically user replaceable, regardless of how hard it is to get to it.

However, the company is under no obligation to service the replaced parts, the warranty is only valid for the parts that the machine was originally sold with. So if the machine has to be taken in for service, the OP should drop the original drive back into it.

 

[nikhsub1]

Why waste $$ on Applecare if you're swapping harddrives? If you do it yourself, then the warranty is not valid.

Oh yeah of course Apple are the ONLY ones who know how to swap a hard drive Please show me where changing the HD yourself voids the warranty.

 

[taylorwilsdon]

Oh yeah of course Apple are the ONLY ones who know how to swap a hard drive Please show me where changing the HD yourself voids the warranty.

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=5640881

In theory, if you do a perfect job it doesn't invalidate the warranty. However, I wouldn't bother with the extended warranty if I was doing it. Apple's official policy is that the hard drive is NOT user replaceable in the Macbook Pro and by doing it yourself you technically void your warranty. Can they prove you did it? Perhaps not. If its not an apple brand harddrive, they reserve the right to deny warranty coverage. Will they? Who knows.

 

[nikhsub1]

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=5640881

In theory, if you do a perfect job it doesn't invalidate the warranty. However, I wouldn't bother with the extended warranty if I was doing it. Apple's official policy is that the hard drive is NOT user replaceable in the Macbook Pro and by doing it yourself you technically void your warranty. Can they prove you did it? Perhaps not. If its not an apple brand harddrive, they reserve the right to deny warranty coverage. Will they? Who knows.

Of course the drive that you are installing would not be warranted by Apple but the original mfgr of the HD has a warranty too. My point is, if you change the HD then some time later (weeks, months, years) your graphics chip fries Apple can't say 'Well you changed the HD this caused your graphic chip to fail, sorry no warranty for you'. Oh and FYI, Apple doesn't make one part in the MBP besides the case.

 

[squeeks]

yup, mine had a fuji drive not apple

 

[Brianstorm91]

Dogtanian I hope you're not planning on using Time Machine with that Airport, you know wireless backup got pulled, right?

 

[polycat33]

Umm a bit of both, there isn't a reassuring 'click' with a meaningful but slight downward motion....OK now I'm beginning to sound sad.

And to Steve Jobs =God it wasn't too much as I have been wanting an upgrade for at least two years now so its been carefully planned. I was one of the annoyed ones when the OS was delayed!

Mine definitely makes a click noise. I don't know how loud of a click it needs to be to be "reassuring" but when mine clicks I can hear it and am confident that it's been pressed.

 

[dogtanian]

Dogtanian I hope you're not planning on using Time Machine with that Airport, you know wireless backup got pulled, right?

Yeah I made a sly remark in my post but it may have been to slight to notice! I was right royally peeved by said feature pulling. I'm just putting my faith in Apple to get a fix out for .1 or .2 update.

I started a proper discussion on the user replacement front didn't I! I intend to swap the old drive back in should there be a problem, unless its software related then I won't mention it.

Thankyou mindflux for your comments

And samariikiss, I used the drop in disk to put on both machines (Despite the rights and wrongs of doing so, if anyone has an issue with that then assume I didn't do it, assume i bought a legit second copy...). It was fine to do.