This is my first mac, but probably my fourth or fifth laptop. The build quality of these aluminum macbooks is fantastic. Very little flex/bend to the body and no creaks or moans after about a month of use. The small details of the laptop, such as the ambient light sensor, which auto adjusts display brightness and keyboard backlight, are what make it a joy to use. After becoming accustomed to the trackpad on this computer, I find it bothersome to use any other. Besides being oversized (a plus in my book), the variety of multi-touch inputs used to navigate are comfortable and intuitive. Battery life exceeded my expectations. The computer truly can last an entire day on one charge. The screen is fantastic as well. Blacks are black and whites are white. It’s a TN panel, from what I’ve read, but it’s one of the best TN panels I’ve had the pleasure of using.
As for hardware performance, it’s nearly on par with my on-the-job Mac Pro workstation (2×2.8GHz Xeons, 2GB RAM) in the majority of things I do (web design/development). I’ll chalk that up to the fact that most programs I require aren’t CPU intensive or multi-threaded. Also, an extra 2GB of RAM over the Mac Pro probably helps. The graphics chipset performs better than I expected as well. Running Windows XP via bootcamp, I was able to play COD4, L4D, and CS:S all using medium to high settings at native resolution, all the while getting 40+ FPS in each game.
In the interest of full disclosure, I’ll share the few minor issues I’ve had. The first is that the enclosure does tend to get HOT when gaming under Windows XP. When I say hot, I mean “why-do-my-fingers-feel-like-they’re-burning?” hot. In some respect, this is probably a good thing. The aluminum body acts like a big heatsink — a great way to dissipate heat from the internal components to reduce the risk of heat damage. Just keep in mind that if you plan on using this as a gaming laptop, you might become uncomfortable rather quickly.
The other problem surfaced while using the laptop with an external display. Using a minidisplay port to DVI adapter, I was getting snow or noise or ‘dancing’ pixels on my 24in external monitor. The funny thing is, this was only the case under OS X. In Windows XP, the monitor worked fine. Supposedly, Apple knows of the issue and is preparing a driver update to fix the problem. I was able to fix this myself using SwitchResX to create a custom resolution and refresh rate. In my case, lowering the refresh rate to 53Hz did the trick. I know it may sound strange, especially since I thought LCDs were only meant to operate at 60Hz, but seeing is believing. If you wind up having similar problems, I suggest trying SwitchResX or DisplayConfigX to remedy the issue.
All around a fantastic computer — a solid purchase.