My friend's got a last gen 12" Powerbook and I've been telling him how great the MacBooks are on paper and how one of those would be way faster for his needs, not to mention that his silver baby will lose its value at a rather rapid rate now. He was quite happy with his PowerBook but we thought we'd go have a look at the new laptops in the flesh.
I have to say I am very very disappointed. I know the tech specs are great, even the GMA950 is ok, especially in a consumer model. However, I was very disappointed with the look and feel of it in the real world. The black felt horribly tacky and cheap and the white one wasn't much better. I was quite surprised about the glossy screens, they were actually quite good, much better than I'd thought and I want one on my next 'book, I hated the idea at first!
The biggest thing that bugged me was the huge amount of wasted plastic space around the borders on the screen. One of my friends has a low end 15" Dell laptop. Its the same physical size as my old high end dell but the actual lcd screen is smaller with big spaces of plastic around the side. That's how these macbooks felt. They keys felt cheap and plasticky too. I know they're very powerful and high specced machines inside but I really was shocked at how cheap they looked and felt in real life.
My friend decided that there was no way he'd replace his powerbook with one of these and he'll keep it going for as long as he can before replacing it. Personally I've been thinking about getting a macbook for a while to replace my dell. I wanted something portable and powerful. I was dead set on a macbook but now I think I'd rather stick with the Dell I have and pray to Steve Jobs that Apple decide to release a true replacement for the 12" powerbook.
I was so excited about the MacBooks when they first came out but now I'm just disappointed and its got nothing to do with what's inside, I never thought I'd think an Apple product was cheap (as in cheaply made and designed, not priced).
I have to say I am very very disappointed. I know the tech specs are great, even the GMA950 is ok, especially in a consumer model. However, I was very disappointed with the look and feel of it in the real world. The black felt horribly tacky and cheap and the white one wasn't much better. I was quite surprised about the glossy screens, they were actually quite good, much better than I'd thought and I want one on my next 'book, I hated the idea at first!
The biggest thing that bugged me was the huge amount of wasted plastic space around the borders on the screen. One of my friends has a low end 15" Dell laptop. Its the same physical size as my old high end dell but the actual lcd screen is smaller with big spaces of plastic around the side. That's how these macbooks felt. They keys felt cheap and plasticky too. I know they're very powerful and high specced machines inside but I really was shocked at how cheap they looked and felt in real life.
My friend decided that there was no way he'd replace his powerbook with one of these and he'll keep it going for as long as he can before replacing it. Personally I've been thinking about getting a macbook for a while to replace my dell. I wanted something portable and powerful. I was dead set on a macbook but now I think I'd rather stick with the Dell I have and pray to Steve Jobs that Apple decide to release a true replacement for the 12" powerbook.
I was so excited about the MacBooks when they first came out but now I'm just disappointed and its got nothing to do with what's inside, I never thought I'd think an Apple product was cheap (as in cheaply made and designed, not priced).
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