Lars Pind

internet software, coaching, and entrepreneurship

Lars Pind - internet software, coaching, and entrepreneurship
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The MacBook Pro

April 20, 2006 · 11 comments

I finally got my MacBook Pro yesterday—oh, the pain of seeing it sitting in a hub in Amsterdam for almost a week. But it’s here now. And it’s everything I was hoping for. I just love how fast the Quicksilver search is, and how fast the Cmd-T and Cmd-Shift-T menus in TextMate are. Not to speak of serving development web pages and running test suites. And the brightness of the screen, the built-in camera, and all the rest of it.

The only glitch I’ve experienced is that it will lock up for a second or two every once in a while, which is really annoying. I searched a little, and it seems I’m not alone—that’s an immense relief to know that it wasn’t something I broke while installing the RAM or what have you.

Now if only one could count on Apple to acknowledge and fix problems, but that’s probably asking too much.

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11 responses so far ↓

  • 1 Hartvig // Apr 20, 2006 at 09:55 AM

    What about the heat problems? Rumours keep saying that it gets way too hot?

  • 2 Lars Pind // Apr 20, 2006 at 12:04 PM

    Haven't bothered me yet. It does get hot, but not as hot as I thought it would be. Also no hissing noise. Apparently this is a second rev, and they fixed some of the problems.

  • 3 Peter Marklund // Apr 22, 2006 at 02:51 PM

    Hey Lars! Congratulations on the new machine! Where do you best order the MacBook Pro from and what was the total delivery time for you? I've finally decided to buy a Mac laptop now but I'm a bit short on money so I'm thinking of getting a 12 inch G4 instead. Maybe the price difference is really worth it though, I need to investiage this further. Several good programmers that I know have been getting the MacBook Pro recently but I don't know if this is driven by professional needs or by the desire to have the latest and greatest machine out there :-) I guess both.

  • 4 Jarkko Laine // Apr 23, 2006 at 09:21 PM

    Lars, Do you hear a clicking sound when the laptop locks for a few secs? I'm hearing that and sometimes it halts for good and I need to reboot. I have a really early revision and hear they're replacing/fixing some problems so I hope it's just a phone call away.

  • 5 Lars Pind // Apr 24, 2006 at 12:38 PM

    Peter, I think both. The MBP is so much faster than the PBs, at what I believe is the same price point as the 15" used to be. And when you sell it again, the MBP is going to be worth more, as the old PBs will decidedly be the "old", and may have problems getting new apps. Speculation here. Jarkko, I haven't noticed a clicking sound, though I have suspected that it had something to do with the hard drive. No data on that, though, just a hunch.

  • 6 Lars Pind // Apr 25, 2006 at 02:12 AM

    Damn, Jarkko, you're right, there it was, there was a clicking sound, then it hung for a few seconds. Makes me think it's got to do with the hard drive.

  • 7 Lars Pind // Apr 25, 2006 at 02:21 AM

    Peter- Sorry, I missed the question on ordering. I ordered from the Apple store at apple.dk (.se for you). I think that's the best option for a customized machine (I got mine with US keyboard and OS, the 7200 rpm hard drive, and the 2.16 GHz processor, and bought another 1GB of RAM separately). Total delivery time ended up being April 7 to April 18, so 11 days, but I would've had it on the 13th if it hadn't been for the holiday. One thing to keep in mind is that you want to make sure you don't combine your laptop with some other item that delays the order. In my case, I'd ordered an Apple Care Protection Plan, which delayed the order by 4-5 days. I ended up canceling the original order and putting in another one without the insurance. That cost me a day, as it took me that long to realize, a day that ended up costing 5 calendar days because of the holiday. So if you do want anything besides the laptop, put in two orders, one with the other stuff, and one without, then look at the estimated ship dates once they're shown (takes a few hours at most), and cancel as appropriate. That should be fail-safe.

  • 8 Mark Aufflick // May 02, 2006 at 06:30 AM

    Here is an interesting thread about some macbook pro heat problems being caused by poor quality control in the application of heatsink compound. Apple Support Discussion Makes sense to me - heatsink compound application is not as simple as just slapping it on, there are all sorts of thermodynamic laws that make your life hard ;) Apparently carefully replacing the wads of poorly applied compound with appropriate amounts of a quality alternative some users have dramatically reduced their running temperature. If I had an MBP I'd be doing it for sure, but then I've always loved pulling things apart ;)

  • 9 Lars Pind // May 02, 2006 at 09:15 PM

    Interesting. I love taking hardware apart, but only when it's old and outdated and I don't really need it for anything. I'm going to sit this one out for a bit.

  • 10 Hamilton // May 17, 2006 at 05:19 AM

    Macbook just came out today. I wonder how it stacks up to your new Macbook Pro

  • 11 Caroline // May 17, 2006 at 05:20 AM

    Do you have a picture of it?