WANT.

No mouse button? Weird.

The solid case is very cool, though.

No mouse button, but you can push the trackpad itself for a left click. I don't know exactly how the right/middle click will work (presumably gestures or corner taps) but I've gotten along just fine with those on other touchpads.

The one fly in the ointment for me is there's no longer an option for a matte finish screen. This may not be a large enough concern to outweigh the positives, though.

Is there a way to emulate a right-click (other than two-finger tap) on the older MBPs? I don't know what generation mine is, but it has a 2.2GHz Core 2 Duo and 15.4" screen.

Sometimes I want/need to do a dragging right-click in Windows (VMWare).

One way to get what you want would be to use the hard button as a right click instead of a left click. Sidetrack lets you do this, but you lose the two-finger taps. (Corner taps instead.)

I'm not sure how the new MBP trackpad will handle the multiple buttons. I've never used any of the multitouch pads, but I did use the Fingerworks Touchstream keyboard, on which the multitouch tech is based. On that keyboard, you could easily do drags with any of the button gestures. I think the default was index and middle finger was left-click, index, middle, and ring was right-click, and index, middle, and thumb was middle-click, any of which could be dragged.

The implementation on the trackpad is probably more limited, but I haven't found any details to confirm that.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

I wonder what the chances are of work buying me one to replace my ageing Inspiron. Probably zilch.

The lack of matte screen option is down to the design of the case itself. There's now a sheet of glass in front of the LCD. It looks good in controlled photographs, but it's also my biggest concern at this point.

The other concern is the track pad. From reading various bits it's starting to sound like it will be usable though. I still wonder about leaving a thumb resting at the bottom of the pad while being able to scroll around normally with your index finger. The clicking is supposed to be very similar to the separate button. The pref pane shows that you can set an option for the Right_Click to trigger on a particular region of the pad. It'll be interesting to find out how fine grained the region detection for clicking is - might offer an opportunity for someone to release an enhanced pref pane for the positioning and assigning of functions for more than 2 "buttons".

No Firewire 400 port. That means getting adapters or new cables to use with the FW400 drive enclosures I have now.

I'd have preferred a silver keyboard.

My biggest gripe is that there's no 17" model using the new design yet. It's not the first time Apple has left the introduction of one model to a later date, so I have hopes it will be announced toward the end of the year or early next (Macworld).

I don't really care about BluRay, but I didn't like the answer Steve gave. The "we're waiting for the industry" is a bit of a cop-out when they're introducing a product that's supposed to be leading the industry. Let's hope they don't take a sit-back approach to new battery tech when it starts hitting hard over the next couple of years.

The Cinema display looks nice too, but would have been a lot more appetizing at $599.

Looks like with the triple-connector on the new monitor that they thought about laptop docking. Too little, though.

I for one am quite disappointed by the price point of the new Macbook. It seems to loose Firewire and Gigabit Ethernet and costs more if I can remember the old pricing. £950 for the entry model seems very steep. (Ok they are still selling the old macbook for £720).

I hope this doesn't continue with the rest of the range, I am looking at a new iMac whenever they next update them.

Cheers

Cris.

It only loses Firewire - it has gigabit ethernet. The price stays the same in US dollars as the old one. You do get a number of features that are brought from the Pro line of machines, two of them being backlit keyboard and support for Dual-Link displays.

More negatives about the new Pro models:

Doesn't come with any DisplayPort adapters. With the old machines featuring a Dual-Link DVI port and coming with a VGA adapter you were pretty much set. Now you'd have to buy at least two of the adapters below for a total of anywhere from $60 to $130 extra.

Normal DVI adapter costs $29.
Dual-Link DVI costs $99.
VGA costs $29.

I'd also like to see the standard warranty increased to 2 or 3 years, but that's not a concern specific to this latest revision. I do feel like the value proposition of the Pro models has diminished with the latest revisions. They're just not offering the same bang for the buck that previous PowerBooks and MacBook Pros have offered. Apple has been notorious for scaling back on little items like adapters and remotes as well as keeping new revision standard prices centered around similar-speed processors while offering the faster ones at an additional premium. They've done it again now by tossing in updates to the stuff that's come through the floor in pricing lately, like hard drives and memory. I suppose the have to maintain and even increase their margins somehow.

Yeah, It's nice, and I'll be buying one in the near future, but Apple isn't doing a whole lot to endear themselves to their own fanbase.

A $2500 laptop doesn't come with the necessary adapters to plug it into any external display besides the one that they haven't even released yet? And they want $100 for the DualLink adapter?

The MBP takes new expensive DDR3, but only supports 4GB? 4GB sodimms aren't available on newegg, but I'm sure Micro could have sent them a few preproduction modules.

There's still no option for a high res 15" screen.

Last but not least, AppleCare can't hold a candle to Dell's CompleteCare. I don't care if your geniuses were freshly pressed black tshirts, I want to say "it's broken" and have someone show up in a day or two with the parts and fix it.

But damn, it's pretty and it runs OSX.

Matthew

Wow, a day or two. I'd rather just head on down to the local apple store and have them work on it there and then.

My wife is about to get a new laptop for work, and it's going to be a decision between the 13" and 15" MacBook. As far as I can tell, the 13" MacBook is a full pound lighter than the 15" MBP, a big deal if you're hauling it around. At that point, everything else is pretty much irrelevant, particularly if you pony up for the 24" Cinema Display.

No Firewire? The only reason you want it is for fast external hard drives. She'll have a drive for TimeMachine backups, but performance isn't as critical.

Slower hard drive (5400 vs. 7200rpm)? She mostly does PowerPoint and web surfing. HD performance probabably isn't relevant, particularly if you max out the RAM.

No ExpressCard/34 slot? A minor issue, because moving pictures from SD cards would require an external USB adapter rather than an internal ExpressCard adapter.

Am I missing something? Looks like the regular MacBook is a good deal.

Not so easy if your nearest Apple Store is a 45 mile drive away as it is for me. When my Toshiba laptop broke the service was amazing. Apple have a lot to learn in this area, I don't have much interest in standing next to someone being explained how to use their Nano while waiting for some "Genius" to tell me my battery is dead, I am perfectly able to figure that out myself, just send me the part already!

I think as we see Apple go more main stream and the volumes increase, that the Apple Store experience will be more and more difficult to maintain.

I will however, be very interested in checking out the new cases

Cheers

Cris.

Random thought: will the new MacBook Air 120GB SSD drive be plug compatible with the existing 60GB SSD drive? Assuming it's technically possible to do the swap, what's the resale value of the old 60GB drive?

(Or, I suppose I could stuff it into an empeg...)

The 13" Macbook is certainly the better bang for the buck, but the smaller and lower resolution screen is an absolute deal breaker for some, including me. I'd imagine that the better screen on the MBP 15" is the #2 reason folks would choose the MBP, right behind "work is paying for it."

Then again, there are probably many folks who will choose the 13" even if they're not footing the bill because it's more portable. It's all about how you setup the utility function, I guess.

According to the Engadget hands-on, they felt that the right-click region was too small and hoped/assumed that eventually someone would create a hack to adjust the size of it.

Personally, I just can't see spending $2500 on that laptop. Then again, I want to spend at least the starting $2500 on the Mac Pro, so it's really just me. Philosophically, I can't bring myself to spend more money on less hardware, especially in a device that's intended to be portable and therefore vulnerable. If I spill on/drop my $350 netbook, I wouldn't care nearly as much.

I really dislike those super shiny screens.

I know Apple's cinema displays are supposed to be great and all, but is the new display they announced really $600 better than Dell's $299 24" model? Not to me.

Yes to a lot of professionals though, and even non pro users. The Dell E248WFP 24 inch screen uses a TN panel, meaning it cannot reproduce full 24bit true color images properly. They also tend to have strange issues with viewing angles where the colors become very distorted. The nearest comparable Dell would be the 2408WFP at $619. The new Apple display still has one feature about either, and thats the LED lighting.

Cinema displays have tended to be aimed specifically to Pro users, and as such carry both pro needed features and pricetags.

The glossy screen was one of the major hangups for me about getting the MBA. Turns out, it's one of the things that I rarely ever notice. I'm not sure what they've done to ameliorate the glare problem, but it's been far better than any other glossy screen I've ever used.

What I do notice all the time is the brilliant rich colors, the great brightness, and the incredible viewing angles.

Then again, I don't know if they've used similar screens on the new MBs and MBPs, but I would assume so.

My advice would be to wait til you can get your hands one one and decide for yourself. It may not be as big a deal-breaker as you think.

To chip in on the glossy vs mat issue. I've been been using a glossy display since they appeared. (Sony VGN-S150)

Glossy yields sharp reflections, but it's only a problem when there is a direct bounce from from a bright light source to the eye.

The same bounce with a mat finished display yields a glare that's just as bad. And it radiates a low level glare from the ambient lighting no matter how it's adjusted.

You make the same adjustments no matter which.

At this time, I'd most likely check the glossy option on any build to order.

I agree with some of that, but I definitely disagree about the aim. Even in this latest announcement, the focus on the Cinema Display was that it could so easily attach to your MacBook or MacBook Pro, the emphasis being [IMO] on the MacBook due to its small screen. I don't consider that a pro-type usage.

So I can concede that the Cinema Displays are good for pro use, but for anyone else I just don't think the cost is worth it at all. I've seen plenty of Dell monitors, at least 10 sizes and models over the last few years, and they all look perfectly fine to me. Right now I'm working on a 30" model, and I've looked at the 30" Cinema Display every time I'm in the Apple store, and never found it to be significantly better, at least not in that limited time.

And I simply can't accept any explanation for that glossy screen. There are Windows merely at a 45 degree angle behind me, and I still frequently get annoyed by the diffused glare off my matte screen. If it were glossy I wouldn't be able to see a single thing during the day.

My Samsung Q45 laptop has a glossy screen. I didn't really think about it when I bought it, but it's given me no real problems, except when (as you say), a matte screen would have had (admittedly, different) problems.

On matte vs. glossy: I was hesitant, but my MBA works well for me, and the reason why is that the screen is so amazingly bright that it blows right through any reflections. If I'm on an airplane and keeping the brightness down to save battery, then I tend to see reflections more. I'd still prefer matte over glossy, because the matte "reflections" are less distracting. Still annoying, but not attention-drawing.

On the Apple-branded display: It's definitely a steep price bump. Ultimately, it's your call. LED backlights are sweet. Built-in web cam is a nice bonus. The Apple solution is clearly the "premium" solution, but there's no reason why you might not prefer a cheaper solution.

Intriguing: Apple is moving away from DVI to DisplayPort. Presumably, all future Apple monitors will also be DisplayPort, as will subsequent Mac minis, MacPro towers, etc. That would say that, if you had a craving for an Apple 30" crazy big monitor, you might prefer to wait a while.

My concern with this move is that they aren't moving to DisplayPort, but their own proprietary Mini DisplayPort. All this is going to do is further complicate the video connector landscape, rather then moving to simplify it.

I'm curious what Apple is doing to allow VGA out of that port as well. From what I can tell, normal DisplayPort doesn't carry any analog information like DVI could. I'm also puzzled over the $100 adaptor for dual link DVI, vs the $29 for normal DVI or VGA.

I'm wondering whether it's actually a DisplayPort at all. It could be some sort of intelligent multi standard connector whose configuration is determined by the cable you plug in. If you plug a VGA dongle in, it tells the port to output VGA signals. If it's the DVI dongle then the port outputs DVI signals and so on.

I'd have thought the dual link one probably has more brains in it to work at higher speeds or something?

I think the most curious thing of all is when will Apple offer a full-sized DisplayPort adapter? You know, for connecting the machines to a 3rd Party DisplayPort equipped display that isn't using the mini connector.

If the port on the MacBooks outputs only according to DisplayPort specs, then all the adapters have to have somewhat complicated guts, since DP is packet-based.

Yeah, but Apple has a long history of repurposing connectors in that way, though. The first thing that comes to mind is the combination headphone/AV output on the clamshell iBooks, but there's been a lot of that sort of thing from them over the years.

Good, technical article about DisplayPort vs. HDMI:
http://www.edn.com/index.asp?layout=article&articleid=CA6594089

Most interesting factoid: DisplayPort is certainly the "right" way to go and, if not for HDMI's widespread adoption, would have otherwise completely displaced it. Despite this, DisplayPort is also aimed at supplanting LVDS, the way that digital signals get from your laptop to its screen. That, alone, could drive all of the necessary chipset volume to make DisplayPort a success, even if it fails to get traction in the consumer space.

It appears you can get several Dell monitors with DisplayPort (and VGA and DVI and lots of other crud). It's not at all clear that you can get a cable to go from the MacBook's Mini DisplayPort to the "full" DisplayPort connector. Unless Apple offers one at some point, you're out of luck.

For backward compatibility, if you believe Wikipedia: "The video signal is not compatible with DVI or HDMI, but a DisplayPort connector can pass these signals through."

Very solid build feel to the new systems. I'm amazed that they managed to do such a good job on the new systems, that the old ones just really feel old now. I played around with both the Pro and normal model while waiting for a coworker to buy their first Mac.

The new trackpad seems fine, though it would take a little to get used to. Context clicking (right click) is still easy, and is simply two fingers vs one. The one quirk I did notice is that you can't click unless your on the bottom 80% or so of the pad.

I'll probably hold off though. My system (original MacBook Pro) still does what I need it to, and with the desktop, it no longer does my heavy lifting. If something on it breaks once it is out of warranty, then maybe. Otherwise I'll probably wait for the next bump to the Macbook Air and go that way.

I had a quick go this evening. It feels really slick (although I still prefer the keyboard on my current MBP) and the fact the whole trackpad clicks is kind of cool, although I hope you can still do a tap of the pad (like the current one) to do a click but I didn't get round to fiddling in the control panel.