Heh… I’m pleased with myself that I didn’t call this series “MacBook Musings,” but I still couldn’t pass up the alliteration. What I have in mind here with Mountain MacBook is however many MyMac blog posts I feel like publishing in preparation for a formal review. Call it the first “protoreview” installment, if you will.
You already have the the story of how I happen to be blessed with a new MacBook, and it’s been about a week now. So far nothing has melted or blown up, and my only complaint is how slow Dreamweaver runs (in emulation mode).
As most of you know, any code not compiled for the new Intel processors leaps (?) into action via an unseen emulator called Rosetta that Apple doesn’t talk about much. At least I can’t find it on the MacBook. The two apps I use most are probably Dreamweaver 8 and Photoshop CS2. Both of these predate the introduction of the Intel-based Macs and have been reported to perform underwhelmingly on same. This is true. Whether that’s a dealbreaker is up to you. Photoshop CS2 isn’t quite as snappy on this 1.83 GHz MacBook as it is on my 400 MHz B&W G3, believe it or not, though this is just my first untested impression. Dreamweaver 8, on the other hand, is an absolute dog: try clicking on a file to highlight it in the site files window, then go take a nap. Yes, it’s that slow, at least based on 30 minutes use. But what about the memory issue?
The B&W G3 is rolling along with 768 MB of memory — can we still call it RAM? — while the MacBook is making do with the as-supplied 512 MB. A brief perusal of Web articles on the subject leaves me with the impression that the Rosetta emulator would work a helluva lot better with the maximum two gigabytes the MacBook can handle. There’s only one way to know for sure, and as soon as I can decide where to order it from, this baby will have the full complement of DDR2s.
Already my memory search is turning up some interesting details. In general, two gig kits for the MacBook currently run from about $195 – $245, which incidentally takes in the two MyMac sponsors I’m aware of who offer such things. [Note: both TransIntl and Small Dog offer kits at the low end of that spectrum.] A Ramseeker search shows an even wider range of prices, all the way from a total of $157.90 to $267.99. What is one to make of this?
For that you’ll need more experience than I have. I do know that some RAM is manufactured by “stacking” the modules, and that this is supposed to be more prone to overheating and subsequent failure. Some vendors emphasize that their RAM is “non-stacked,” and that’s what I’m after. Other factors affecting price are the type of guarantee, I suppose, and how successful the marketing is at convincing customers that a particular product is more “pure” and reliable. Beyond that, I’m stumped.
But I did run across a forum somewhere (sorry, no link) where purchasers of a certain bargain-priced two gig kit discussed their experiences. As you might expect, about half of the commenters loved the pants off their cheap RAM and had no problems. The other half reported all kinds of trouble, ranging from intermittent strangeness to outright failure. This boy don’t need no weirdness in his shiny new MacBook, thank you very much, so I think I’ll pay the extra 40 bucks and get something with a good guarantee and the likelihood I’ll never have to send the memory back.
So that’s it for the first installment. I’m really curious now about the emulation, so I plan to do some cold application launch tests to see just how much the non-universal programs are crippled. (They do work, though.) And everything else on the new MacBook is light-years beyond what I’ve been working with, especially Tiger. In fact, I like it so much, I’m not even using my other computers for email or Web surfing. That’s how much of an improvement this is, though you have to keep in mind that the rest of the stable includes a 400 MHz B&W G3, a 500 MHz TiBook G4, and an original 300 MHz tangerine iBook.
Geez, I don’t even mind the tiny screen fonts at 1280 x 800 resolution. Interesting, no?
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