Leopard / Macbook 2.16 GHz Review

This review is a little tricky. I was originally going to write strictly on hardware, but it wouldn’t have allowed me to bring up a lot of major issues, most of which are software related. So to make things clear, this article will cover the black Macbook 2.16GHz with Leopard 10.5.1 installed.

First and foremost, I’m going to dispel one rumor. Yes, Macs do crash. With Leopard installed, they crash a lot. Their reboot screen, may look neat, and the warning message may be polite, but it’s the same result. With all the compatibility issues and bugs, the first generation of Leopard owners are basically fodder to the testing cannon. I can say one thing; when my Mac does crash, it happens in a consistent fashion. Coincidence or not, my Macbook would crash when I had a separate window running in Spaces, but only with memory-intensive programs like Final Cut Pro running in the background. Crashing could have been my Macbook’s way of clearing the buffer.

Back when I operated within Tiger, my operating system never crashed. Applications, however did. Which brings me to my next concern: the amount of incompatible applications with Leopard are staggering. I’ve gotten used to using workarounds to get past bugs, but that doesn’t make it any less annoying. Take this excerpt from chris.pirillo.com:

• . . .both Apple and Microsoft have a track record of breaking app functionality between OS revisions. Apple generally sacrifices backwards compatibility for overall improvements - whereas Microsoft places shims and hacks throughout Windows to ensure backwards compatibiity at countless costs. . . . link

Another weird issue is when I have Windows XP running with Bootcamp, blue pixels will inhabit my screen around the bottom left corner at certain times, and remain there until I refresh the screen somehow. Apple’s Help page doesn’t provide any solutions and actually shifts blame to Microsoft. Here is a full thread of people’s complaints regarding the issue.

Still, with all these drawbacks, Leopard natively offers 64-bit support, as opposed to 32-bit Tiger, and offers Apple’s next level of Core Technology. Core Animation integrates low-level animation into applications, allowing for a more sophisticated level of interactivity. Spaces and Time Machine both take advantage of Core Animation, seamlessly, due to the fact that the technology takes advantage of Intel’s multi core processors. This allows Core Animation processors to run on their own dedicated core. However, until more developers take advantage of Core Animation, what we have is the potential for more applications to look flashier and run more efficiently in the future. Until then, Microsoft will be in the very same race with their own Seadragon, and Blaise Aguera y Arcas’ Photosynth.

Issues aside, The Macbook is a really strong piece of hardware. 2.16GHz is plenty of processing power for the average notebook user. Take note that Apple likes to upgrade their notebook processors almost every few months. Back in June, their processors were at 1.8GHz, and today you’ll find Macbooks with up to 2.2GHz. To be perfectly honest, the difference is marginal. You’re still not going have enough power to play most 3d games or create a Motion 3 clip longer than 10 seconds, and you won’t be able to use some of Final Cut Pro 6’s higher end features. Don’t even think about Multi-cam editing with real-time playback. You will, however, be able to run Flash, Dreamweaver, Photoshop, and most 2d games without a hiccup. The limitations have less to do with processing power of the Intel Core 2 Duo, and more to do with the fact that video graphics are integrated (Intel GMA X3100 graphics processor). If you want to do high-end media editing or play newer games, a computer with a graphics card is essential. I hope you like spreadsheets. 3 out of 5 stars.

I recommend the Macbook for Graphic and Web Designers. For 3d rendering and gaming, grab yourself a Macbook Pro. People with a greater degree of portability in mind should opt for the less capable, half-as-heavy Macbook Air.

Source (Images): Downloaded from 1 2 3
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