There is a long time I don`t publish any review in this site. Reviews can only be done when you have the product. Because of the 2008 financial crisis, I had to delay the purchase of new gadgets and tools. In the last months I was back to the stores hunting for a notebook, a new Display and a new GPS system for my travels. Everything is cheaper and better and I spent a little more than expected but with better products. My options were Macbook Pro 13” the Dell U2410 Display and the Mio C320 GPS.

This brief review is not a comparison neither a benchmark of the Macbook Pro. Instead I will focus on the usability as a general notebook, or better a Windows Notebook.

Notebooks are traveling with me since the very early models from IBM Thinkpads. In fact, I was a proud user of the very first color TFT notebook from IBM. The US$ 10K Thinpad 700C, if I remember well. What a nice looking machine with its rubber like finishing and the wonderful screen. Anyway, it didn't last much, Soon after I got it, it start to brake the screen from the notebook body. Being one of the first notebooks, it's easy to understand that the project was in need of some changes. That happened with the 720C and mostly every new model tried to correct previous flaws and so on.

The latest technologies greatly reduced the gap between powerful desktops and notebooks. The expansibility is still an issue, but not that big when you get mobility in exchange.

After this brief history you can probably figure out my age. If not, I can say I've beta tested Windows 3 and installed it in a 8088 based PC and my CGA screen couldn't show more than three icons at the same time. Mouse, even having one it took me some years to use it. That's pretty old I know, but I'm happy to be part of this "scene" that the PC became.

My last notebooks at work were from HP. One was a Centrino or Pentium Mobile running at 1.7 GHz with 1 GB RAM. Although it is a bit slow today it was a top of the line on 2004. It still can be used with today’s office applications. It has a 12 inch 1024x768 screen and can be a very nice Office and Internet machine. The other notebook, a newer dual-core Centrino with 3GB of RAM and the beefy 15 inch screen. That thing was heavy, large and felt like  a burden. The equipment was average. Nice CPU and RAM performance but the hard disk is always the weak link as in most notebooks. The 5400 rpm drives are not so responsive as 7200 rpm but in general they consume less battery.

My experience has lead me to choose a real notebook instead of Netbooks just because I really use a computer to do computer stuff, not messaging or browsing only. But  I want it small, not in the 7 to 10 inch screens, but the 12 or 13 inch ones. Those ultra-portable notebooks are the most expensive ones, and for the last three years the prices were damn high. Since I couldn't afford one at that time, I patiently waited using my available notebooks. Since I work on the IT industry, I can see many notebooks around and the ones that had catch my attention were the HP Tablets and the Sony Vaios from the Z and SR series. What do they have in common. The size. That’s the most important thing in a notebook, if you don’t get it right you will hate it every moment. My notebook size is the smallest possible while still usable as a real computer, and that means capable memory processor and storage. I would say other than the netbooks, all of today’s notebooks are capable enough for most tasks.

When I first heard about the unibody design of the Macobooks I was just amazed. The big mid to long term problem with notebooks is the way it is build. It is fragile and mounted from many small fragile parts. With the time, they get loose and start interfering in the notebook stability. My little HP 12 inches was so weak that in less than two years it started to bent itself. The four rubber feet were not in touch with the table anymore. It was visible from the front and sides of the notebook. This later would cause bad contacts in the RAM slot as well as in the hard drive one. After that, BSODs were part of my daily routine. Sometimes I was afraid to move it a little and end without my work done.

The first aluminum  body Macbooks were expensive and run only Apple OS. As soon as Apple decided to go to Intel processors, Windows as an OS option became a reality. In the beginning it was harder to install it, but with the time even Apple decided to cooperate and offered Bootcamp, a tool that helps to install Windows and provide specific drivers for Windows to understand its hardware. That was a nice movement from Apple.

Everything I have in terms of software and peripherals are for Windows PCs so moving to OSx was not an option. I’ve used many flavors of Linux and Unix before, and I really don’t care if it is good, stable or free anymore. I really don’t have patience to keep trying to avoid the compatibility issues I always had with these OS.

Thats it for now.

Marcelo