Apple MacBook Pro 17" Review

The Apple MacBook Pro 17" is not a "laptop." Apple qualifies it as a notebook computer.  It actually gets far too hot sometimes to be held on a lap.  In any case, it is tempting to hold it on one's lap, as it is light and the same form factor as any laptop.  One will notice that the battery can become extremely hot while it is charging, and hot enough to become uncomfortable, and possibly cause burns.  At one time, the battery in my PC got so hot that it warped and deformed the case around it, making it difficult to click the mouse button until I was able to flex and bend the case back into reasonable shape.  I then replaced the battery.

Otherwise, I'm quite fond of this computer.  It is a fairly fast machine, cosidering that it was purchased new in 2006.  It was an expensive purchase at the time, but the computer has stood the test of time extremely well, I think.

One of the best features of this computer is the sleep mode.  This computer will go into sleep mode by simply shutting the lid.  It wakes up quickly when the lid is reopened.  For this reason, I rarely shut the computer off, unless I am taking it on a trip.  It very rarely requires rebooting.  When the computer wakes up, there is a brief time for it to restart, as it has to reestablish a wireless connection to the internet.  

The display on this computer is one of the best.  I frequently watch HDTV on this machine, and I can also connect it to my television set using a DVI to HDMI adaptor cable.  Sometimes, while viewing particularly difficult to decode video, the computer can't keep up while driving two displays.  This is easily remedied by shutting off one of the displays (the computer) while watching the other (HDTV television).

The keyboard on this computer is just fine.  The keyboard backlighting was a feature unique to Apple when this first came out, but now others are doing it as well.  

Some of the software problems with this computer are that the Airport WiFi doesn't always recognize my home access point as the preferred connection point and tries to connect with some of the other access points in the area.  This is easily corrected, but still a minor annoyance, as it does happen often.

There are several applications for which this computer excells.  I use it for all of the standard email (Thunderbird), web (Firefox) and word processing, spreadsheet, etc. (NeoOffice).  It is easy to install your own apps on a MacOS machine.  You simply download, click on the downloaded file to open a folder, then copy the app to the location of your choice (usually the Applications folder) to run it.  I have preferred Thunderbird / Firefox over the Apple Mail and Safari applications, but most people can make do with the Apple apps and not have to install new applications.  NeoOffice is the MacOS specific version of OpenOffice.org.  It includes Microsoft Office file compatibility for word processing (Word), spreadsheets (Excel), presentations (PowerPoint) files as well as supporting the new Open Document Formats.  NeoOffice can also be used for typesetting mathematical formulas and doing simple drawings.  Updates are available frequently, and the price is right, as in "free."

Some of the other applications I use frequently on this computer are Audacity, the free audio editing application, Max, an audio file conversion and CD ripping app, Handbrake for transcoding video files, GIMP for photo editing and graphics, and VLC for playing and recording video and audio.  All of these are superb applications and all are available as free open source software.  Simply Google these to find versions of these apps for MacOS.