New Mac Day
UPDATE (11/6): Turns out that 50% CPU utilization was actually the result of a wayward process. For normal kinds of task, utilization tops out around 15-20%, at which the temperature is not really an issue. It definitely is cooler than my PowerBook, at any rate.
Plus, the fans in the MacBooks have an undocumented 'go faster' button that you can use to cool it down (substantially) at the cost of a little bit more noise. I've been using a little app called Fan Control to tweak this.
I imagine if I really push it with a 3d game or something, it will still get hot, but for most normal kinds of work, it doesn't really seem to be an issue for me.
New Mac Day only comes once every couple of years. It has come today. I write from my new MacBook 2.33ghz.
This was my first Mac-Mac migration in the modern age, and I'm still amazed by how simple it was. It literally only took about 5 minutes of my time (plus about 90 minutes unattended to copy stuff from my old PowerBook). I guess I'm not surprised really, but when I think back to how the set up of a new Win2k machine was always a multi-day affair to get everything just right...well, it's just neat.
Actually, it's almost disappointing. Here I am. New machine, same setup. Back to work. There really isn't much else to say. I'll play with parallels or BootCamp later - that's the big difference for me.
Initial observations for now:
- I love double taps. I love the little remote.
- It definitely is zippier. The project that I'm working on took around 50 seconds to compile on my PowerBook - now it takes me 9 seconds. I like.
- It definitely is quieter. I like.
- It definitely is *not* cooler (temperature-wise). I'm just sitting here at about 50% CPU and the bottom of the case is fairly warm. And both cores are reading around 160 degrees F. My G4 never read that hot even at peak. Maybe it's a difference in where the sensors are placed or maybe the Meroms are just designed to run hotter, not sure.
- The keyboard is a little quieter and little 'squishier' than my PB. It's subtle but I'm not sure I like it quite as much. Maybe it just needs to be broken in.
Perhaps most importantly, though, iQuip came up perfectly on my very first login:
I'm thinking of buying a laptop for my wife so that she can surf the net from the couch (a useful distraction from watching the baby during the day). But this means actually having the laptop on her, well, lap. As I'm hopelessly in love with both of our macs I assumed I would buy her a mac laptop but you are the second person I know with a mac laptop who said the bloody things get hot (the other, my dev lead at Microsoft, made comments involving cooking eggs). I may have to buy her a windows laptop that runs at a reasonable temperature. (Although I'm having very evil thoughts about buying a high end TV and hooking it up to a Mac mini with a wireless keyboard)
Hey Yaron. I've been using it for a few days now, and all in all, I'd say it's not that bad - see my update above. I dunno, all in all I'm a pretty happy customer so far.