I’m surprised (pleasantly) that the transition has gone as smooth as it did. I started my law firm in March, and since the Intel Macs were so new I did on PowerPC equipment, bought new at very close to full price. For what I do an Intel iMac wouldn’t be any faster than the G5 iMac in my front office, nor would an Intel Mini be much faster than the high-end G4 Mini my associate uses. For me the 12″ PowerBook I already had was fine for travel, while a used 15″ PowerBook made an excellent desktop and long-trip machine.

That said, the black MacBook kept tempting me until I finally bought one, planning on replacing my 12″. Well, after a week of intensive use both at home and in the office, I put both PowerBooks up for sale (the two 2-year-old machines sold for more than I paid for the black MacBook).

As a replacement for the 12″, the MacBook is a bit wide and heavy. As a replacement for the 15″ PowerBook the MacBook screen is a bit small. As a replacement for both, however, the MacBook is signifiantly faster on Universal appls and about the same speed using Rosetta. The fact that I can now play Windows games (something I like to do at home on an old Windows PC I keep just for that purpose) while traveling is a huge improvement for me. Gaming adds a whole new level of entertainment choices to my twice yearly 13-hour flight to Korea, and despite the integrated graphics (2GB RAM helps) the MacBook does a great job on anything less than the latest first person shooters.

I think they (Apple) did a great job with the MacBook, and from what I understand the iMac and Mini are also largely trouble-free. The MacBook Pro had some initial problems, but I’m sure those will be ironed out fairly quickly.

Of course Apple rushed into the market putting head over heels (is that correct?). But i guess investors wanted it to happen as soon as possible. What i think is that guys like me, I bought my PowerBook 1,67Ghz in january ´06, felt a little depriced (lowpriced, off) with the 5X faster MacBook Pro campaign (LOL).

The market needed a rush. Win XP is far away behind OS X. Everybody (dell, sony) focusing on gaming machines, ultra-portable machines. And what about Apple? High end horse-power stations and ultimate design machines. They need to be seen not only as the iPod creator! They need to get into the new kids minds, kids that already have an iPod and love it. They´ll love a Mac, and will have no problems with it (i speack for myself, being raised and self learning in a windows pc since i was 6).

For the Dad´s; – Mac is, overall, an educational machine!!

I think in deciding whether or not to buy a new MacIntel one should look at the benefits and weight them against the teething problems.

My new MacBook gets rather warm on the bottom, hot actually, much hotter than either my 12″ or 15″ PowerBook did. CPU Temperature monitor often reports temperatures in the mid 80s, and thats Celsius (very hot). A quick look at Intel’s specs however shows that the CoreDuo is rated up to 100 Celsius, so at least the chip is fine.I’ve done some fairly high-load testing on it (applying filters in Photoshop under Rosetta) to get those high temperatures, and not once did the MacBook behave strangely or otherwise become unstable. It just got warm on top and hot on the bottom.

Balancing that out with what it can do, well, I can play Windows games now at full speed. Even the integrated graphics aren’t that bad for all except the latest first person shooters. Finally I get to play all of the sequels to my my favorite Mac games that were released as Windows only. Remember the massive advertising blitz for Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne? Well I loved the first one on my PowerBook, and finally I get to play the sequel under Windows and Boot Camp. Same goes for Knights of the Old Republic, I finally can play Kotor2: Sith Lords in WIndows instead of holding my breath for Aspyr to consider porting the game to Mac.

Speaking of Windows, temperature control on the Intel Mac (at least the MacBook) isn’t as good as in OS X (no surprise), and despite more eratic fan control, I’ve still not had any trouble with instability.

In short, while the heat is an annoyance and might even affect the long-term durability of the computer (I don’t keep them that long anyway), the benefits outweigh the concerns.