Y5 D15

Some thoughts and observations on the Mac today. It's been over 24 hours since I have had it and I spent a good deal of time with it yesterday. (Side note, turns out I got my old in August of 2007. Almost six years that machine lasted me without any problems. And it looks like it's just a HDD failure. I dropped the old one off to be repaired yesterday with a guy who does IT work for our company.) Here's my initial thoughts:

Positives:
Performance - man this thing is fast. I had gotten so used to my old one that I didn't realize how slow it had become. This thing is lickety split on everything. I played Sims 3 and Diablo 3 on it and was like whoa. I managed to crank up all the video options with no problem.

Size - it's big. 27" inch screen. My first TV wasn't this big. Sharp too. The resolution (2560x1440) is incredible. Apple is also good at running in high resolutions without making it feel like you're in a high resolution.

Overall aesthetic - I thought the old one was thin, but damn. This thing is skinnier than my laptop. It's so thin I can't put anything on top of it. I had some little statue things on top of the old one but forget it. This thing is too thin for anything on top.

Apps - Whenever you add a new apple product onto your network, it attempts to migrate over software from other machines. I did that with the laptop when I bought it and it saved me major time. This time however I chose not to because I wanted to see exactly what I needed. I am glad I didn't. I realized just how much junk I have accumulated over the years on my machines. So much that I plan to spend today house cleaning the laptop. Instead I just installed the things I needed - Diablo, a new copy of the Sims, VLC, Office, etc. Took me a couple hours, but I know that there is NO bloatware or unused apps on here. Bloatware especially - no PC can compete on that front. They all shove their useless shit on machines. Apple's machines are clean and ready to roll.

Support - While I don't need it (yet), I did get the 3 year warranty on this. That is one of the nice things about Apple making both the OS and the hardware. If something happens I don't have to worry about calling one and them telling me it's the fault of the other. I knew that if I had any issues yesterday I could have called one number and been taken care of without hassles.

Airplay - Dumb but cool. Because I have an Apple TV this thing will talk directly to it. I can broadcast whatever is on the desktop screen straight over to the TV screen. I was playing Sims on a 51" TV last night. With the wireless kb and mouse, this is kind of nice when I feel lazy.

Negatives:
Peripherals - Speaking of the kb and mouse, I don't like them. While I do like they are both wireless, I don't like their size or feel. The kb is one of the smaller ones. Essentially it's the same kb that is on the laptop. Literally. I placed it on top of the laptop and it is the same size, shape, key layout, etc. I like a fullsize keyboard. I will probably switch back to the old one when it comes back. I will keep this one for couch surfing, but not for day to day. I like having a number pad. The mouse is that typical sleek no button mouse apple is famous for. Hate it. I want separate buttons. I want a scroll wheel. I dislike 'gestures'. Took me a good half hour of tweaking the settings to get it where I wanted.

Misc - I don't know how else to describe this. But there are little quirks that are annoying. Like whenever I run an app, it 'scales' the resolution automatically. So far that hasn't been an issue because it scales to 2560x1440 but when I started up Diablo for example, it dropped down to 1800x something. Um no. Max please.

Gee, that's it. I think the positives win. That was the big portion of my day. I did run some errands while I dropped off the old computer. Hit the japanese grocery store, hit Target. I had BBQ for lunch which ended up being way too much food and became dinner as well. B had a birthday party after work which means we didn't get to talk much. She worked from 3 until 10 and then went straight to the party. It's all good. This is the last time she will see some of these people for a while. I hope she had a good time.

I went to bed around 11. Also finished watching the last episode of Sherlock. Damn that show. The episode bugged me though. I don't like seeing the bad guy win. Yeah, I know dumb, but when the good guy is a good guy it bugs me. I felt so bad for Sherlock through most of the episode. Now make me new ones dammit. Go, hurry up.

All in all? A good day.