Apple Macbook Pro 13″ Review - Mid 2009 Unibody

Recently I’ve been wanting to get a new notebook so I decided to get a 13″ Macbook Pro. I was pretty excited to get it, but after using it for a week have decided it’s not for me.

First let me say what I do like. Overall the notebook is beautiful, it’s definitely an eye catcher and looks great. I am also amazed with the screen, it is probably the best screen I’ve ever seen on a notebook. The panel type on my system is a LTN133AT09.

I also like the chiclet keyboard. I found that it has good feedback and I like that the keys at the top use the volume, brightness, etc as the primary option as opposed to the F keys. The only part of the keyboard I wish was different was the placement of the fn and control key.

I also like the trackpad, it is very big and I like how the entire pad depresses for clicking. I also like using gestures. I was using two fingers to scroll through webpages very nicely. Looking forward to gestures becoming mainstream on all notebooks.

Now, for the features that are making me return it.

The biggest disappointment for me are the extremely sharp edges. They really dig into my arms and it is very uncomfortable. I really think this was a design flaw and that Apple should have rolled these edges instead of making them come to a sharp point. If you google “macbook pro sharp edges”, you’ll see a lot of discussion. This is the primary reason for my return, otherwise I would have kept it.

Sharp Edge of Macbook Pro

The second thing is how OS X renders fonts on their OS. There is also a lot of discussion about this on the web. Some people say they prefer how it looks on OS X, but I prefer the sharpness and crispness of how it looks on the PC. It just appears blurry to me. Here is a good post showing some comparison screenshots between OS X and a PC of exactly what I’m referring to.

Lastly, OS X has pretty poor mouse support. If you come from a PC, you’ll notice that the mouse is slow and jerky. Some people have resorted to using a program called USB Overdrive, but that still doesn’t completely solve the issue. I found the best solution was to install Microsoft’s Intellipoint for mac. You can also do a cool hack to make your Logitech mouse work with it. Good post on how to do it here.

If the next design of the mbp fixes the sharp edges, I might pickup another one. Apple was nice enough to waive the restocking fee and pay for the return shipping for me which I was very happy to hear.

Here was my unboxing of the Macbook Pro