2017.01.15 RooKbook update

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File:Mbp15ex-gallery1-201610.jpeg File:Mbp15ex-gallery2-201610.jpeg

My beloved but battered early 2011 Macbook Pro 17" croaked last week. Due to scheduling issues, I wasn't able to take it into experts until just yesterday to confirm that it was dead. That rig worked pretty hard during those six years - pretty much daily, and vigorously. Worse, it suffered at least one major drop at my hands, and an unknown number of child-induced traumas. It's irreplaceable.

Literally. They don't make 17" display Macbooks any more. Nor anything with an optical drive. So my habit of retiring in the evenings to watch Netflix DVD's with headphones is going to be impaired.

I did get a replacement, though. It's not like I can be without a personal computer. Sure - I get a laptop from work, but who wants to lug that POS around every day. And, frankly, it's not good enough for me to use recreationally. I deserve a tool worthy of my free time.

Another Macbook Pro is what I picked up. The biggest chassis they offer now is 15". While the display is technically significantly higher resolution (2660x1800 vs 1920x1200), the simple fact of less physical display area means that it's a little trickier to work on multiple windows side-by-side than on the old beast.

Also - I got the previous-generation model instead of the latest-and-greatest. Reasons:

  1. MAGSAFE - I can't even begin to enumerate the occasions where an errant child has crashed past and yanked out the power cord. Thank fuck for the magnetic doohickey allowing it to pop out harmlessly.
  2. Screw that OLED function bar idiocy. If you're not going to offer a proper touchscreen functionality, don't toy with me including a mini-touchscreen of dubious value.
  3. The specs are only different if you squint really hard.
  4. PORTS. Sure, having everything be a single unified super-port is probably the future. But today, I have a lot of USB shit. Not to mention that having a native HDMI port is really handy for me.

After a day of use and configuring for my personal preferences, the new machine does impress. While it still rocks i7 processors, it's got double the RAM (up from 8Gb to 16Gb). The SSD is pleasantly effective, both in terms of speed and lack of fuss. The chassis is also a lot more svelte - thinner and lighter. And that display sure is pretty.

So, the RooKbook is dead. Long live the RooKbook2.