Impressions of the new MacBooks

I've had a chance to spend a little bit of quality time with Kevin's new MacBook, and I blew out of work early on Monday to head over to the Apple Store, to manhandle the new MacBook Pro and 24" LED Cinema Display, so I thought I'd write up some impressions.

First off - both the new MacBooks and MacBook Pros are really fast. The new Nvidia 9400M chipset, in particular, is pretty awesome. I can't wait to see what Snow Leopard is going to do on these machines - but I bet it's going to allow developers to do some amazing things.

And the new Aluminum unibody enclosure is pretty amazing. I can't think of an other company that would invest so much time, effort, an resources into a notebook enclosure. The enclosure is much stiffer than on any previous MacBook - you can hold the machine from one corner, and it barely flexes at all. And the thin-ness that they have achieved for a fully-featured notebook is amazing:

The display is quite thin

But I'm still not a fan of the glossy displays. Putting the glossy display under glass is even worse - you can easily see glare off of the overhead lights, the sun, etc. I have found that using Kevin's MacBook at maximum brightness, in a not-too-brightly-lit-area (i.e. anywhere where Kevin has control over the lighting) makes a pleasing result. That isn't really a great solution, however, for when you are computing on battery. Typically, I like to set the brightness as low as possible, in order to maximize battery life. I have also read that it's usually possible to adjust the angle of the display, to get rid of most of the ambient glare. However, in playing around with a MacBook Pro at the Apple store, I found it impossible to eliminate all extraneous reflection from the screen, no matter what brightness setting or at what angle I placed the display:

Check the reflection from the overhead lights in the Apple store on the upper-right of the display. Yuck.

I found the new 24" LED Cinema Display to be even worse - even at maximum brightness, it was throwing all sorts of reflections back at me. It would drive me nuts if I had to stare at this thing all day:

The new Cinema Display probably works best under controlled conditions

Other than its issues with glare, the new Cinema Display certainly seems nice. I wasn't able to test out the speakers in the crowded and noisy Apple store, but the action on the display pivot is pretty nice, and the LED lighting certainly makes things really bright. One additional disappointment is that it appears as if the video cable is not detachable from the case - so any thoughts of Apple releasing different cable without the MagSafe connector for their desktop computers is moot. This display really is optimized for Apple's notebooks, yet another indicator that the Macintosh desktop business is a secondary citizen over in Cupertino.

All in all, all three products represent significant updates for Apple. And my advice, if you're considering buying, is to go and inspect these products in person before you put any money down. With the displays in particular, it might be best to see them in an area that more closely resembles where they will be used - I found the lights in the Apple store to show these displays at their worst. Then again, if you're fine with the displays looking their worst, then you should be fine with them anywhere.

I have posted a gallery of photos that I took at the Apple Store over on Flickr.

-Andy.