I don't know what Apple is doing these days. They go on and on about how great the new one-piece machined 'unibody' construction is on these new Macbooks, but then they go and mess up on some really important basics.
1) No Firewire- Hey, this is an APPLE technology. They created it, and supported it for years. Lots of people used it, lots of people loved it. Now, all of a sudden, it's GONE from the Macbook line, except for one old plastic model that isn't going to be around much longer. Why? So if you need it, you can go shell out $2000 for a Macbook Pro? Just not a great way to treat your customers, particularly long-time ones.
2) Trackpad issues - Hey, the new trackpad is bigger and all-glass. Cool. There's no button anymore, the trackpad *is* the button now. Cool, I guess. Some of these new trackpads don't always work right... they don't always register clicks, the cursor sometimes moves with a life of its own, making it very hard to select menu items, and other bits o' random weirdness. Not cool.
Apple says they're going to fix it soon with a software or firmware update. I sure hope so. Because if they can't and it's actually a physical/hardware issue to any significant extent, then we're talking either a massive notebook recall (very inconvenient for affected users), or Apple basically nicely telling us "it's not that bad"/suck it.
If the latter, you could be stuck with a way-less-than-optimal trackpad, if Apple were to deem this problem not grounds for a return/replacement. Well, depending on how the inevitable consumer lawsuits would shake out, of course. But that would take awhile.
So again, if you're one of the ones who got a glitchy trackpad, best hope the upcoming update fixes it. I have some faith in Apple that it will, at least mostly.
3) El cheapo screen- The Macbook screen is, to put it nicely, not great. Now, the *backlighting* is good, much brighter than the old Macbooks. But the screen itself? SUPER-glossy. Apple likes this because it makes the colors 'pop' a bit more, but the price for this is that you get TONS of very distracting, annoying reflections (you can use it as a makeup mirror) and oodles of very noticeable smudges, smears, and fingerprints.
Also not a fan of the big, space-gobbling black bezel. It increases the footprint while making the small (aka 'barely adequate') 13.3" screen look even smaller. Check out the previous gen Macbook Pro to see what an appropriately-sized bezel looks like.
More importantly though, the viewing angle on the Macbook screen is TINY. Images can look good if your head is positioned PERFECTLY, but move just a bit right or left, or (especially) up or down, and the image goes to heck. If you think that that's 'just the way LCDs are', compare the Macbook screen to the screen on the MB Pro or even Macbook Air-- neither of those is nearly as 'touchy' in terms of viewing angle as the MB's is, and have much larger 'sweet spots'.
Another bit of Macbook screen wackness is that you have to tilt the screen WAAAY back, almost to horizontal, or blacks will appear washed out. But do that, and you catch ALL the reflections, in glorious super-glossy detail, from any and all overhead lighting. Darned if you do, darned if you don't.
Bottom line, the MacBook uses a cheap screen made to seem higher-quality than it really is by super-glossy glass and a very bright backlight. Clever, but not cool. Apple doesn't seem to have really thought through the drawbacks here. Or perhaps they did but didn't care, since they were saving so much $$$ on the screen.
4) Speakers - If you love music (and who doesn't?) you're gonna be disappointed here. These are some pretty muddy-sounding and quite volume-limited built-in speakers, even by notebook standards. And no, not everyone digs using headphones all the time, or lugging add-on speakers everywhere. The whole idea of a notebook is easy, all-in-one portability.
"Well, whaddya expect for $1300?!", some might say, inadvertently revealing just how out-of-touch some of us Mac fans can be. Alls I can say is, my friend's ancient (and lots cheaper) iBook sounds better. This is the company that gave us the iPod? Is music a priority or not?
5) No card reader, and no internal 3G option - Disappointing, and annoying. Apple's way too in love with minimalism. Enough said.
6) Specs - Not great, particularly for the money... little 'bump' over the previous gen. At least the graphics chip is significantly improved, though that was a low bar to pass (the previous gen's Intel integrated graphics were very weak).
7) Price - $1300 is a lot for a notebook, especially with the economy heading south. Apple won't give you any options at all for a 15" screen or expansion slots even in the high-end part of the Macbook line, which is pretty obnoxious already (again, they want you to cough up the $2000 for the MB Pro). But to ask these prices AND not offer those things AND take away Firewire AND cheap out on the screen (among some other things)??
Wow. Guess all the money went into the unibody construction.
Which makes sense- even Apple has said that the unibody process will be very expensive at first, with its cost dropping over time. If you're acquainted with the previous generation Macbook, you can sort of understand Apple's obsession with the unibody, as the most serious complaints with the previous gen (plastic) MBs were in the areas of poor build-quality and questionable durability. Apple's trying hard to fix that, to their credit. Well that, and I think it strongly appeals to Steve Jobs' well-known aesthetic sensibilities.
Jobs (whose health I hope improves) is fairly obsessed with his products having a Jaguar/Mercedes Benz-like 'high end' look and feel. While that sure *sounds* cool, it isn't, always. Not when it, plus the build-quality mistakes made with the previous gen, cause Apple to focus obsessively-compulsively on a couple of areas while messing up/cheaping out in so many others.
For $1300, the consumer/prosumer rightly expects a great *all-around* notebook. If you look past the surface, this isn't it.
On a more hopeful note, with unibody costs dropping, the NEXT Macbook revision may have the budget for a better screen and other improvements, perhaps even better pricing too (yeah I know, good luck). *That* MB could be the great all-arounder so many are looking/hoping for.
But even if that comes to pass, the Macbook line will still retain at least one serious flaw going forward, as it's highly doubtful that Apple will reverse its very poor decision to dump Firewire. That's a choice which will continue to screw the hobbyist/video-audio enthusiast crowd, a group that was particularly Mac-loyal (though maybe not as much anymore).
Despite the Macbook's drawbacks, don't get me wrong- the new MBs have their strengths: nice looks, should be quite durable, improved graphics card, the included i-Apps are useful and intuitive (as always), OS X is more secure than Windows, et cetera et cetera. But, it's just not a good value for the money, particularly considering the minuses.
Apple really, REALLY needs to listen to its customers more. I'm sure they *think* they're listening, but something's off there, as the result -this product- doesn't really seem to reflect that, at least not in any balanced way. Lately, it's like they've been building things more to please themselves, and not us.
Normally I love Apple, but I'd think long and hard before buying this one. Get more detail about Apple MacBook MB466LL/A 13.3-Inch Laptop.
0 ความคิดเห็น:
แสดงความคิดเห็น