I Switched!

Well, I finally took the plunge and it feels damn good so far. Thoughts of switching completely to Mac have been dogging me since April and yesterday I handed over my credit cards (not enought limit on just one ) and bought a MacBook Pro 15" 2.4GHz with a glossy screen and (as of Monday) 4GB of RAM. By then this little baby should be flying through processor-intensive apps and be pretty well customized to meet my stringent demands of a computer. On Monday I am also picking up the 30" Apple Cinema Display which should make for a rather enjoyable desktop experience with its 2560x1600 pixels.

Customizing my MacBook Pro (MBP) this weekend has been fun. I have dowloaded many trial applications, some of them very small but very handy and in the coming weeks I'll put updates on this blog of particularly useful ones. But for this entry, I'll stick to the hardware.

I was dreaming of getting a black MacBook because I liked the keyboard so much (have you ever heard of a sillier reason for switching to Mac?) but now Apple has introduced new external keyboards which have the same layout. So I have ordered one of those to use with the MBP.

The choice for the Pro is basically... well, because I am a Pro No, seriously, I consider myself a power-user. I'm not a gamer (except on consoles) but I do a lot of video-editing, heavy graphics and audio stuff and I want to use an external screen for the laptop too. The MacBook has a shared graphics card that can't output to a 30" screen and would, I imagine, suffer from my heavy use. Or rather, I would end up suffering (and swearing). I need a power-horse and the MBP is just that.

It is already fast with 2GB RAM and on Monday they'll have the 2GB modules in stock again at the shop, so I can upgrade to 4GB and put the two 1GB modules that are now in the MBP in my Mac Mini Media Centre which is slow as syrup (as the Dutch say) with its 512MB RAM.

The keyboard on the actual MBP is not my favourite, especially as it has a small RETURN key. So I am making quite a lot of typing mistakes and adding \\'s to the end of my paragraphs. I'll have to get used to it though, as I have a long wait for the external keyboard (there's a stock problem, as is usual with new Apple products, alas).

The screen is great, bright and clear and the backlit keys are very cool once dusk sets in and they automatically light up.

All in all, I am very excited and enjoying myself immensely and don't miss my SONY VAIO at all. Fortunately I have already sold it, so that makes me feel better about replacing it with a Mac even though it was still functioning perfectly.

Specs:
MacBook Pro, 2,4GHz Intel Core Duo
15" Glossy screen: 1440x900 pixels
4GB RAM
NVidia GeForce 8600M GT 256MB

30" Apple Cinema Display : 2560x1600 pixels