MacBook: some first thoughts

I could make some mea culpa for the delay in posting here, but you see, I've been busy. I finally replaced my stolen 12" Powerbook with a lily-white MacBook, and, well...I've been playing.

1. 1" makes all the difference: I was sceptical at the "wide screen" touted by Apple on the site. I used to have a 15" Powerbook, and have played around on 17"ers, and so the idea that one more inch on my too-small Powerbook (I loved her, but she was just too tiny!) would make a difference seemed silly. But it does. I have room for HTML editors AND chat windows, I can play in Dreamweaver and Flash without feeling crowded, and even better, when I get the adapter, I can have a dual-screen computer again (this is new on the iBook level of products--most only came with screen mirroring).
2. Ooooh, Glossy! The glossy screen is suprising as well--rather than make the screen harder to see, it makes it much, much easier when working outside at my favorite coffee shop
3. Keynote & Pages I think, when the trial runs out, I'm actually going to invest in these, rather than shell out more for Office. It's only $50 after my educational discount, and I found Keynote worked rather well even without a projector, my laptop showing slides with large text with all the aplomb of a vaudeville easel announcing the next act
4. The Camera I've been playing with Macs and video for as long as Macs have had video. It has been a love-hate relationship--with far too little love. So having a camera installed, in the screen, that doesn't take cables, lose connection, run out of battery, or take up more footprint on my desk...quelle joie!
5. The Stains Hoist by my own petard, here. I'd read about the stain problem, and so cleverly cut up an old Dell mousepad to create rests for my palms, to avoid the yellow stains I'd read about. So what happens? The base of the mousepad puts a little blue stain on the left palmrest! Now the mousepad is replaced with a couple of old Palm screen protectors--much more hygeinic

There we have it, the good, bad, and ugly--not too much of the latter two. Speedwise I've only noticed a bump in iPhoto importing, but that's mainly because I don't have the RAM yet to use Final Cut or any of the other native apps where it might be noticeable.

But on the whole? Happiest purchase I've made all year. Not the least because I made my daughter giggle with the PhotoBooth application. It's the little things that really make life better...