The New Apple Macbooks Are Great But…

Even as a long-term PC user who contemplates buying a Mac every time I choose a new laptop - and still chooses something familiar (yet another PC, I mean), I was more than impressed by what I saw during Apple’s notebook presentation event yesterday. But as it usually is with any big announcement, there are people who are excited and those who are very disappointed about what they get. Yesterday I published a post describing 7 reasons that may push people to upgrade their existing laptops to new Macbook Pros (those very reasons why I myself will probably finally buy a Macbook next time) but after reading tons of negative comments today everywhere, I have decided to collect the most common complains about the newly-introduced laptops and publish them here as well to try and be objective.

The glossy screens as the only option with no matte screens available is probably the hugest disappointment as many users have complained screens of Macbooks to be too glossy to use outdoors (which is often a necessity for some people and with a nice claimed battery life of 4 to 5 hours I can certainly see why many owners will be very much willing to spend some of their working time outdoors now and then).

One of the most fascinating changes about the new Apple notebooks is availability of new graphics cards in Macbook Pros - one of them more powerful and more energy-hungry while the other one enables you to save some power when working on the battery. While this sounds very cool, there is a serious disadvantage to this innovative arrangement as well - every time you want to switch between the two graphics cards, you will need to log out. Of course Apple users accustomed to usability of everything produced by Apple are perplexed by this approach and question its reasons.

Another big issue is that we have been waiting for a rumored $800 laptop to be launched so some people were more than disappointed that Apple has not offered any significant price reductions for their up-market machines. As a result we now hear questions about Macbooks’ affordability during a recession everywhere.

There was another rumor that left some people disappointed: the one about Apple introducing the Blu-ray drive to play high-definition DVDs. This rumor has proven to be not true and Steve Jobs even called Blu-ray “a bag of hurt” because of the hardware licensing issues and explained that his company would wait for the market to adopt the technology first before supporting it.

Some users also grudge about absence of FireWire capabilities in the 13 inches models. And while these users often mention that having an excellent new graphics card is much more important than having that one port, there are still those unhappy users as well. It looks like some Macbooks owners really liked the direct connection between their laptops and digital camcorders - but chances are Apple’s surveys showed there were not many such fans of the functionality.

Some reviewers were unhappy even with the color scheme for the new laptops as the two-tone aptop manufactured by Apple must be something that should never even exist in their opinions. There are also voices unhappy about arrangement of all the power ports on the left side of the notebooks. But of course here happiness or unhappiness depends on personal home or office arrangement and where you have power and other devices to connect located.

I am sure that since the new laptops are already selling today and some consumers will be sure to start upgrading as soon as today, we will hear some further negative feedback from them - but that will probably take time. Unfortunately for any company you just can not launch a new product or change an existing one and leave everyone happy.

Photo courtesy of Engadget