This post brought to you by my new 15″ MacBook Pro.

This. Is nice. The screen is INCREDIBLY bright, almost too bright if I have it turned up all the way. No (noticeable) dead pixels either. *whew* And it’s FAST. I mean, really, really fast. It feels huge too, but that may be more perceptual due to the smaller size of the old PowerBook. I was a little concerned when I started reading about noises, but they aren’t as bad as their made out to be. There’s a very slight hissing noise that I can’t discern the origin of, and there’s a very slight buzz of the frequency modulator when the screen isn’t turned up all the way. I had to put the computer up to my ears to hear either of them.

Time to start installing things. First order of business: Warcraft. *evil grin*

//edit: More observations. The Superdrive sounds like a dying cow when inserting a disc. The Airport reception is an order of magnitude better than the old PowerBook, I’m picking up networks from my apartment I didn’t even know existed.

//edit2: Yet more observations. As a basis of comparison, if I have the brightness on the MacBook Pro set to 8 bars (1/2), it is still brighter than the screen of the 12″ PowerBook at the highest setting. The computer runs warm, no bones about it (I’ve been running at full performance settings while it’s plugged into the wall). I wouldn’t use it on my bare legs, but it’s actually warmer on the little strip between the keyboard and display hinge than it is on the bottom. It’s not uncomfortable at all on my lap while wearing khakis, and would probably be better on “Normal” settings, like it will be when I’m running on battery power. Oh, and Warcraft? Yeah, it’s fast. Full settings, 1440×900 resolution, 2x multisampling, runs as smooth as on the PowerMac.