Thoughts On My First MacBook

I am writing this on a Macbook I bought off of eBay. Getting used to the new operating system has a challenge. They keyboard isn’t in the exact same position as other keyboards I’ve used so I make a lot of mistakes typing. Also getting used to all the new keyboard shortcuts that I use is another challenge, but it actually didn’t take very long to get my muscle memory accustomed to the new environment. The Apple Command key is right where the alt key usually is so that makes things very simple. The tricky thing is converting what used to be ctrl + command into command + commands.

The first thing I noticed is there is no numeric keypad, which is pretty disappointing, I use that all the time normally. Also the track pad threw me off at first, you have a physically click down to click, but I found a setting that makes it so you can tap to click which I find much more pleasant. I also bought a mouse, because I don’t like using trackpads in general. It’s hard getting used to that because I can’t set the mouse sensitivity as high as I can in Windows.

So far the things I really like are the size of the laptop, the feel, weight. It’s nice being so compact. Also the fact that it runs on BSD and I can drop into a linux prompt is very nice. The battery life is another great advantage, makes it easy to just pull out anywhere and work for a while without having to worry about there being an outlet near by. I also really like that when you open the laptop the OS is instantly online, there’s no delay while it loads.

Having ChatGPT to ask how to do things on this is a huge benefit. This has made the transition process significantly easier than if I had to look up every command manually.

After about two and a half days of solid use (8 hour using it straight is a normal day). the differences in the OS become less important, and it’s really just another way of running programs. Eventually the OS should become pretty inconsequential.

I would say overall my opinion is that the hardware is better than any laptop I’ve used in the past. Feels solid, dense, good size, better battery cooling, pretty much every category it excels at. I still think Window 10 is a better operating system, it’s easier to navigate, but with the caveat that I’ve been using Windows all my life and know every short cut key and optimal way of navigating through it. In a few months it’s possible I may change my mind on this.