Because I want to do iPhone programming, I decided to bought a Mac. I couldn’t decide which one, I had considered getting a Mini Mac, or even a net-book. Yes, a net-book because Mac OS can be installed on some net-books, such as what is said here in Gizmodo’s article on how to turn a net-book into Mac. Here’s another site article that shows a compatibility (hackability?) chart of several net-books on the market. I didn’t go this route because I did not want to spend the effort and time to deal with hardware issues and having to go through hoops just to install the OS.
I also considered the 13 inch MacBook Pro, but the newer model cost about the same as the 15 inch older (non-unibody) MacBook Pro. So then I decided on that old early 2008 model, the one with the aluminium keyboard (as opposed to black), and the one which still has touch-pad button (the new ones has glass monitor-edges and black keyboard).
What did it cost? $1600 total, including free-shipping. This was back in January.
That’s not all. I also got $30 cash-back offer (but I had to apply for Amazon Credit Card, which with their special promotion gives me double points, resulting in about 900 Credit Card reward point = about $90 gift card). So the total cost is less than $1500.
A couple of months later (March), I checked the price on the same item, and this is what I got. It looks like the price went up! Yay.
In fairness, I believe that this is due to Amazon no longer having it in stock and the ones is from one of their third party seller. But I think I got an excellent deal, don’t you? You can still find the item on other stores for about $1600.
The first thing I did was to install a Windows mouse, which so happens is from (um), Microsoft!
This is a Bluettoth mouse which I though was perfect because the Mac Book has a built-in Bluetooth adapter. After a while though, I feel that I didn’t like a Bluetooth mouse that much.
After booting, there is a lag before a mouse movement is detected. Seems like it takes a while for both ends of the Bluetooth connection to connect. This isn’t just on the Mac, the same thing happens on my laptop. Worse, on Windows 7, the same mouse stopped working after a while. At another time, the mouse loses connections for no apparent reason and I had to use the Bluetooth software rediscover it.
All in all, the Bluetooth mouse is a bit of a hassle, and I might switch back to USB mouse.
I love the machine, even the 5200RPM hard-drive seems as fast as my 7200 on a PC (but maybe it’s because it’s fragmented). I love the machine.
I still have not bought an iPhone yet, find it. Stay tuned for more about my iPhone programming efforts on these pages.