Opinions on Macbook

[chaosgeisterchen]

Hi folks,

searching for a new notebook for using Ubuntu on it I searched through the offers of various brands, well, most of them. At last I found out that none of them provided the same performance at the same price as the MacBook from Apple concerning subnotebooks - it really impresses me. Even in Austria it's cheap and THIS is very rare ;)

So, what are your opinions on the Apple MacBook if you know someone using one or are yourself the more or less happy obtainer of a Apple MacBook. Would be great to read through some echo how good it's working with ubuntu as I would definitely buy one if Ubuntu runds fine on it - and the overall impresson is good.

I heard about guarantee weaknesses concerning display, overheating (especially under linux use). I would have to use it triple booting OS X, Ubuntu and Windows as I would use it for school.

So a general impression of what users say about the MacBook (from a more or less neutral point of view) would be very helpful.

thanks,

cg

[idn]

If its some help I am using a macbook pro and its the best notebook i have ever used - previously an ibm thinkpad, sony vaio.

Its really well built and is lighter than anything else out there - my main reason for getting it. Its also pretty quiet. The install was more comlicated than usual but most of the features work out the box, if you want my opinion i would say so for a macbook or a pro. The only reason I got a pro was because of the bigger screen.

[Super King]

I can't give an opinion on how the Macbook works with Linux, but I will say I've played with one and it's a nice machine. They keyboard looks different but it doesn't feel any different than a standard one. The machine looks slick and is pretty small/light considering its size. The screen is one of those "UltraBrite" or whatever displays that are hard to deal with when using it in a lot of light, some people like those kind of screens though. Overall the hardware is pretty nice.

[ArizonaKid]

I would not get a MacBook. I just had my friend’s MacBook for 3 days. I am the guy who usually hooks up friend’s computers with all the needed applications, removing junk, etc… I loaded my friend’s MacBook with the much needed apps.

The one thing that really bothered me was the heat. I heard so much about heat problems with the MacBook, and I really made an effort to be as objective as possible and give Apple the benefit of any doubt. However, the heat is just too noticeable an issue. I don’t believe Apple had a grasp on the heat that would be generated in transitioning to a new platform. In my view, the MacBook simply has very poor circulation.

Another bother was the keyboard. I know people say it takes a while to get used to, but I don’t think it is something that should take any adjustment. I am a ThinkPad keyboard fan, and recently the HP Compaq Business notebook fan as well. Kudos to HP for making such a good keyboard on their business notebooks. Anyway, the keyboard is just too strange. The keyboard also has a strange “fake clicky” feedback feel. That of course makes no sense unless you type on it for a while.

Finally, the Merom chip is too close to full scale production release. I typically hate to hold off on a purchase, but Apple is either going to go to the Merom very shortly for the MacBook, or I would hope have a significant price reduction.

To sum it up I am glad there are platform choices, but my final opinion is that Apple needs a little more time on the Intel platform before it gets it right. And when they do, I’ll finally go back to considering Apple hardware for computer purchasing.

[Donnut]

I thought that since they had the new dual core prosessors they were designed to run cool... My HP has a heat tansfer pad under it 'cause if I'm doing to much cpu intensive stuff it will heat up, and in windows it just heats up like crazy...

[DoctorMO]

Makes you wonder about the PowerPC chip, I love that chip it doesn't produce as much heat and the fan is hardly ever on. my powerbook still rocks 4 years after buying it.

I'd stick to notebooks built by makers that are used to dealing with x86 (intel) inherent heat problems.

[chaosgeisterchen]

Thanks, guys.. had a talk yesterday to some friend of mine (kinda apple fanboi) and even he did _not_ recommend the macbook to me. For him it was the perfect choice concerning all the things he likes to do, but only concerning Mac OS X. Windows will encounter several problems and so will Linux in the first time. As I do not want to bother with a system not designed neither for Windows nor Linux I decided not to buy myself one and sticked to the decision to buy myself an LG T1 - I'll see how it works, I hope like a charm.

But I do believe that MacBook will work well under Linux in some time.. heard of some firmware upgrades for Macbook to deal with heat issues and so on.. I also rejected 'whining' notebooks.

Apple encounters problems with x86. Quite expectable, they were not into this ever before. So other manufacturers have obviously advantages in advance.

So.. another time thanks for your answers *smile*

regards, Simon